Spektrum DX6 battery and settings

[Derek]

Hi all! A buddy of mine has a Spektrum DX6. During a visit with him today, he mentioned to me that his DX6 would go dead after a short period of time. If I remember right, the tx came with a NmHd battery pack. He bought the 2000mah Spektrum LiIon replacement battery. He told me that he changed the battery setting, in the DX6, to Lipo and he doesn't understand what's going on. I asked if I could borrow it and I'd take a look at it to see if I could find something amiss. Shortly after getting home, I checked the battery....it is indeed a LiIon pack. I checked the battery settings, in the tx, it was set to LiPo...just as he said it was. However, there is a setting for LiIon. I imagine this is the culprit that is causing him grief. Now that the battery setting, in the DX6, match the battery, I imagine that the issue is resolved.

My question is this...he's been running the DX6, with the LiIon pack on LiPo setting for many months (6+ months). Do you imagine that there has been any damage done to the LiIon battery that will cause future grief? Should we replace it, just in case? Or, do you think everything will be fine and the world will continue to spin?

[Stambo]

Depends a lot on what the pack voltages for the battery were supposed to be.
If it was undercharging, there should be no issue as I believe LiIon packs don't really have a memory.
If it was over charging, there could be a problem.
Has the issue just started or is it since he put the new battery in it and changed the settings?

[Derek]

He has had this issue with the tx for quite a while but didn't understand what was going on. He actually hasn't flown anything at all this year because the tx would turn off, at random. It turned off while he was flying his Blade 450x.....needless to say, the 450 met terra firma.

[Stambo]

I would suggest charging it on a good charger to see how many mah it takes.
Then put it back in the Tx, get the battery settings right and see how long it lasts.

[cml001]

Yeah.. I'd balance charge it.. Assuming that goes well & within normal charging parameters.. I'd roll with it. A TX isn't hard on them & doesn't "zap" packs.. Should be ok.

[Derek]

How can I balance charge it? It doesn't have a balance plug.

[cml001]

? I don't kno... Lol I don't recall if the on in my DX9 had one come to think of it.. I pulled it out and put a Lipo in it.

[Derek]

I have the turnigy 4000mah TX lip in my dx8 and it has no balance plug either.

[cml001]

That's crazy!.. Just looked at my sale post of the DX9.. I pictured the Lith Ion pack.. No balance leads.. But the Li-Po pulse 4000 had them.

[cml001]

Using a Li-Fe pack in the 18SZ.. It has balance leads as well... Crazy not to have them.

[Derek]

I wish my TX pack had a balance lead.

Ill just charge my buddy's TX pack, via the TX charge port and see what happens.

[murankar]

Lith Ion does not need balanced. if your 4000 mAh pack is single cell then it will not have balance leads. My VControl has a single cell LiPo in it so no balancing needed. I also have room for a second one in parallel. Again no balancing needed.

[cml001]

Well yeah.. If it's a single cell.

[pvolcko]

If you charge slowly (1/4C or less) it should balance out by itself while charging. The high cell will discharge a bit into the low cell and automatically balance itself. To protect further, set the charger to only charge up to 90-95% of full voltage. We have balance leads on batteries mostly because we charge them so fast that this natural balancing doesn't have time to occur.

Is he getting low voltage warnings? The Tx should talk or indicate low voltage warning, particularly when turning it off, if the pack is critically low. Also check the lox voltage warning level set in the same menu location as the battery type. Make sure it makes sense. Keep in mind due to the low discharge rate in the Tx, you do not need to have a 20 or 30% cut off. You can let it get down to 10% or so without issue. Also, LiIon/LiFe reacts far better to deep discharge than LiPo.

[Derek]

Actually, Paul, I don't fully understand what my friends trouble was with the DX6. He was saying that it would just power off. I've had the DX6 with me for the past few days and I've messed with it quite a bit and it's never done anything it's not suppose to. I have built a simple plane for him and I've bound the plane to the DX6. I'm gonna take the plane out for it's maiden flight next week.

[murankar]

Is there an auto time off feature? I dont remember I have not had mine turned on for some time now. If so maybe it was timing out and turning off.

[pvolcko]

There's a timer that will buzz and beep at you for inactivity, but I don't believe the Spektrum radios turn themselves off for inactivity like the v-controls will.