need help

[Daunt6]

I am new at electric park flyers. I have a Guillows Dauntless SBD-3. It is equipped with a speed 300 motor, a Jeti 180 ESC, two hitech micro servos and a hitec feather receiver. My problem is. My battery packs one is a 7 cell 350mah and the other is a 7 cell 600mah. The latter being brand new. I put them on my new charger which connects to any 12volt batteryand I believe the 350mah battery pack should take about 20 minutes to fully charge. I do not know how long the 600mah pack should take. The first time I charged it, it took over 1 and one half hour. Also the 350mah takes over an hour before the light on my charger starts to blink meaning a full charge. OK i think the battery pack is fully charged for the both of them. When i first try the 600mah pack i start the electric motor and after 10 seconds the motor stops and the ESC beeps meaning low batteries. With the 350mah pack it does the same. I them put the packs on the charger one at a time and they still take a very long time to fully recharge. Has anyone ever had this problem and what do i need to do to correct it any troubleshooting help would be great. Thanks

[Blackhawk]

What kind of charger are you using? I like the Astro 110 and 112--you can dial in the rate of charging. They sell for about $100 but are much better for fast and slow charging off a 12 volt battery. If you are using a fixed rate charger, then you can only wait until finished. But it sounds to me like there is something screwy with your charger. Are you charging off a 12 volt cell? Or a wall socket? I use a gel cell (for motorcycles and about $20 and then of course you need a gel cell charger for another $20)--I don't like to fool around with the battery in the newer cars.

Pat Daily

[Daunt6]

Blackhawk, thanks for the info. I have a Jeti mini charger 4-7 cells. It has positions to charge 50-110, 150-300, and 350-800mah battery packs. I have a brand new 7 ceii 1.2V and 600Mah per cell. I have my charger in the 350-800 position and I am using the 12 volt battery on my John Deere tractor to hook up to. Today I hooked everything up and got a steady red light on my charger meaning it is charging. About 2 and 1/2 hours later the red light was blinking indicating the pack was charged and the charger was now in the trickle charge mode. I disconnected and hooked the battery pack to my airplane. The motor ran for 3 seconds and stopped with the ESC beeping meaning low voltage!!!!! I am fully disgusted. Can my brand new charger be bad or the battery pack or maybe the ESC. Well thats what I basicaly have and will keep trying. Thanks.

[Blackhawk]

It sounds like your charger is right, but just to be sure see if you can get the ESC to work with a simple 9 Volt cell. Sometimes the ESCs go on the fritz or get shorted. Are you sure you have everything hooked up right--positive to positive, etc. I fried an esc that way once. If you can can get the esc to work with a dry cell (9 volt) then you know it is probably the charger. Also check all of your connections for shorts. Good Luck.

[Blackhawk]

That is "your charger is NOT right". Also check to make sure the wires coming from the battery pack are ok. Do you have a volt/ammeter to test with?

Pat

[AV8R]

Hi,

I have one of the JETI mini-chargers too....
I noticed that they specified a maximum
length requirement on the leads,something like 20 inches. You might check it out, just an idea.... We are also using an Astro-flight
110 and like it very much.

[Daunt6]

Hi, I checked all my connections and hook ups. Everything looks fine. I can't believe my ESC could be bad, it is brand new but you never. How would i hook a 9 volt battery up to check it out? Thanks again, as last resort I might bring all the components by the hobby store I bought them from. I'll keep trying thanks again.

[Daunt6]

Thanks for all the help. Turns out my charger was bad. Brought it back to the hobby store and they tried another of the same charger, the Jeti mini charger and it charged my 600Mah battery pack in about 40 minutes. They also noticed a burn smell to the bad charger. It is new and was used only a couple of times. I always observed proper polarity when hooking it up. The hobby store told me that Jeti told them that about one out of 100 products of theirs is a defect. I was one of the lucky ones. Thanks again for the input. As soon as the weather gets better up here in Buf N.Y. I can test fly my Guillows Dauntless dive bomber.