OK probably not a topic burning a lot of brain cells - but here goes.

Am charging using a Triton-1 (max charge rate 2.5A) and Equinox then charging my 4S x 3000's through the balance plug.  Takes around an hour to reach 16.8V peak.  Meanwhile the balance lights on the Equinox indicate that balancer is popping around doing its job, but it seems to take another 1/2 hr or more at 0.1A until it reaches end of charge.

Does that sound normal?  Is there any real loss for settling for the 16.8V "peak" and stopping the charge before it shows "END"?

Hi Dennis,
   I do the same thing at times with no problems (I use a Astro Flight 109 and Thunder Power balancer combination). Just be sure you don't pull the plug to early because you won't really know what you are taking out and putting back in. What I mean is you can use up to 2400mah from a 3000mah pack. If you don't fully charge you may be taking 2500mah and charging back to only 2900mah. You will know this is the case if your packs start to run hotter than normal.

   You can also potentially hurt the packs if you are using their max capacity and the cells are not totally balanced do to pulling the plug early. Even an individual cell that is not totally charged can be drawn below the danger point and slowly weaken the cell until it fails. Of course this is all worst case scenario, but you asked.

   More than likely you will be fine.

Mike
     

It is probable that the cells are still balancing, but down in the 3rd &/or 4th digit, and the FMA (and others with limited screen space) have to round to two digits in order to display all the cells.  What it is doing is continuing to charge the cells until the lowest voltage one is up to the cutoff voltage.  In the meantime, if any of the other cells start to go OVER the cutoff voltage, it discharges them slightly. The FMA and Imax's are charging the cells in series.  I imagine most others do, also.

As to whether it is OK to disconnect before the balancing act is done, the answer is yes.  You are only losing a very small current - mine gets down to less than .1 amp during this phase - times a relatively short time - even if it lasts for 30 minutes, you only lose 50 mah by unplugging when the current gets down to .1 amp.  This is the basis of Sid Kaufman's LiPo-dapter for field charging -  that by cutting off when the total voltage is a certain value, you may not be "peaking" each cell individually,  but you get to fly 95% charged cells 15 to 20 minutes sooner.  Just be sure to do a complete balance charge when you get home and things will be sitting for a week or so anyway.

This thought just came to mind, I ought to try charging through the main harness, with the balancer attached (of course!), and see if there is any significant difference in times or behaviors...

There shouldn't be any difference, since the Red Lead of the main harness is soldered to the red (or most positive) lead of the balancing plug, and the Black is soldered to the black (or most negative) lead of the balancing plug - in other words, electrically they provide the same route for the electrons to flow.   One of our club members has a clone of the I-max B5 that charges through the main plug but only needs the balance tap connected if you elect "balance" charge mode (It also offers "Fast" and some other modes). When you charge in "Fast" mode it just charges up to the 4.20 v. per cell cutoff voltage and ignores the individual cell voltages, which mimics what we were talking about above - probably something like 98 percent charged, although some cells may be a few millivolts too low and others a few too high.  So if I were field-charging, I might use that mode and save a few minutes.  I guess that is the same theory as the Lipo-dapter that I mentioned above.

Mike @

Just another comment, normally when I begin to charge I note the pack voltage and what my charger claims is the remaining charge left in the pack. The last couple of times I also looked at the individual cell voltages. I was somewhat happy to see that all my packs are keeping their balance (within 0.01 volt anyway) through a flight. Hopefully it indicates a long life expectancy.

Or it might only indicate that all cells will fail at the same time