25% but not less than 20% capacity. Store at 50% not 100%.

Just wondering what a good percentage figure you should stopat per flight to not be damaging to your battery? 20%? I flew my ring rat today and the battery read 1% just wondering if this is bad for the battery? I have only done this once.

My experience is that if you don't let the cell voltage drop below about 3.5 (some say 3.7 others in the RC forums have gone as low as 3.0).  I check *after* every flight and I have yet to figure out just what causes what once you have the prop and rpm's right.  I have a set of rather cheap 4s 2800's that routinely go to 15% with no loss of power (5:25 Flight time with RPM's around 9800)  all 4 have 50 cycles on them.  Some days they go to 20% others they go to 10%.  When the motor is cold (1st flight) it seems to use less.
What I like though is that I get the same flight just a different amount of "fuel" in the tank at the end.  If you get the wrong nitro or needle setting with IC you get a crappy run.

 I have gone to 3000 with the predictable increase in head room and predictable weight increase but I don't see any change in power or battery life.  I put them all back to 50% storage as soon as I get home and never leave them fully charged more that 2 days. 

I am still relatively new at electric so I may not see the big picture clearly yet but I see others getting roughly the same number of cycles out of their Thunderpower batteries as I am getting from the Turnigy and I buy three of them on sale for what 1 Thunderpower costs on sale.

Ken

I'm with Ken. I've run mine down to 15% or so pretty regularly and have as many as a 100 cycles on some. No issue so far. Store at 50%.

If I charge to 50% I would think I would only get about 1 or 2 minutea flight time even if I flew at low throttle. I only get about 3:30 with a 98% charge and flying with way less than full power most of the time.

Charge it to 50%, and only run it down to 50%.  It should last for years.  Oh, and store it at 50%.

Tim will have to clarify, but it seems that he is saying if you don't use it, and leave it at 50% it will last a long time.  Only way you can charge it to 50% and run it down to 50%..... 


Are we really discussing how far you should run it down, or how far you can get away with? 

Tim will have to clarify,

Oh god...  I was being a smartass!  It's like the neighbor of mine when I was 14, who told me to tighten the head bolts on my Stovebolt 6 until they snapped, and then back off half a turn.

Because, yes, if you charge to 50%, and then never drain below 50%, your batteries will last a good long time.  But your flights will be very short.

Did he tell you to do it with a metric crescent wrench?

ken

On a 1948 Chevy engine?  Of course not!  Maybe my '69 Toyota, though...

I think it also depends a lot on the battery. I often run down to 12 - 14% on a calm day in my Max Bee running 5s Zippy 2700. In wind I’ll finish about 20%. Often these cheap batteries are useless after 60 cycles.

I also have a set of Gens Ace 4s 3300 that are now in their second model and still going strong after 60+ cycles and 4 years since new. You pay more for a battery like Gens but they seem to last much longer.

Soon to be upgrading the system in the Max and looking forward to using Gens 6s batteries.