Making Stick Packs

[cml001]

Sup guys, I had an after thought about sharing this.. Wish I had took pics when I began... Anyhow. I made my first stick pack! My E7SE is set up for 12S.. I bought 3 5000mah 12S stick packs for her... Not enough! I like to fly! But, pretty expensive so I figured I'd make due for a while with just the 3 and spend a good bit of time waiting on charging (another issue to be resolved soon!). Couple weeks ago I saw 2 Pulse (my preferred brand) 4500mah 45C up for sale.. $120 for both.. IR averaging 3-4 per cell.. Owner is into speed machines & went 14S.. Claims minimal usage on these packs.. Now I'm funny about used electronics... ESPECIALLY batteries! But I thought, "hey, can't even buy one pack for that much".. So I bought them.. They came as posted.. Good deal.. They had Castle connectors on them ( I wanna try these, but not redo'n my entire rig.. EC5s have had no issues) so I cut them off. Soldered a EC5 on the front pack. The rear pack I added an extension lead to the balance cables. Took the bullets of an EC5 I would normally use and soldered them on, but did not use the plastic housing & put heat shrink on them. Then I used some 10awg (same as is on the battery) and soldered the matching devise end bullets.. Connected them to the battery leads and used heat shrink again, then more shrink to cover both sides of the connection so as not to allow them to separate. FBLRotors has battery shrink.. I had some of that so I butted them up, stole the wife's hairdryer... Tadaaa!!! A buddy gave me his tray, same as I had purchased for the other 3 stick packs.. So I mounted it.. Easy does it! Happy it turned out so well.

[murankar]

That's a lot of battery to have in the air. What are your flight times with that setup? IF i had that I would be trying to push the 5-7 minute range. I cant see having those charge times with out some flight time in the end.

[cml001]

On my E7SE.. With the 505kv motor I have 3 speeds set up at 1400, 1900, & 2150... Been experimenting a bit... I keep my timer at 5min... On the 1400 I usually pass the timer about 2 minutes & still have 30-40% on the pack left. The 1900 & 2150 I always land at the 5min mark and have 20-30% left. Now I haven't been bang' her as hard as the other birds yet cause I'm still tuning & haven't had much time to fly her yet.. So I'll likely have to reduce my flight time by 30sec to a minute when it's all said & done.. I make that assessment from experience with the 550. I used to get more than 5min of bang'n with that one.. Now only about 3:45-415 depending. I now see how aggressiveness translates to flight time. I used to not understand how fellas here were only getting 3-3:30 a flight(they r bangers no doubt).. But I get it now. My current charging station I parallel 3 6S packs at 30 amps... That's a 2C rate.. Which I won't charge any more than that. But with a stick pack.. 12S, I can charge 2 at a time, but would have to reduce the amps.. My charger won't do a full 2C on essentially 4 packs.. 30amps is all I can get.. So that's why I'm in the works on a new rig.

[murankar]

Should I end up with stick packs I think I would Max my charger also. I can do a full 40 amps at 1000w but I do not like to Max my charger. I don't have a need to rush my charges at this point. Even with the new pl6 I have yet to go over 3s rates on my 4 2250 3s packs. Still get 20 minute charge times.

[cml001]

Yeah.. I'll max out my charger.. Need more! But I don't go passed a 2C charge on my packs in hopes of prolonged life. But to parallel 2 stick packs @ 2C.. I'd need the capability of 40amps.. At my max of 30 I can't do the full 2C rate I want.. So I'm stepping up the power supply for the next box as well as add a second charger.. I want to put my current 306B & the 308 Duo.. That way I can have 3 outputs to charge from.. At the same time. That way I can parallel each of them & cook! Lol

[Graham Lawrie]

Awesome:) that looks like a home made light sabre power pack:)

[cml001]

Lol