Putting this in the Pub rather than a hardware thread for one simple reason… I don’t want this to be seen as any statement that the following is either safe or advised. I’m only sharing my experience. Please never play games with batteries of any sort. The stories of injury and loss of property from mishandling of batteries too often involves a lack of proper precautions. That said…
I’m not sure who else is using mods with removable lipo packs. I know @therabidweasel is, maybe @TheTinMan1 or others. I’m sure you all are aware that a Lipo pack can be over discharged to the point where a balance charger won’t “see” the battery - meaning, it’s not being recognized by the charger as a chargeable pack. What to do?
Well the safest, most practical thing to do is to discard the pack and get a new one. There are YouTube videos showing how to “force” a charge by cheating the charger to recognize a different type of battery. I didn’t want to do either of these things for obvious reasons.
Then it occurred to me - what would the power of the sun do? Now don’t make any speculations here. I know full well my charger was not seeing the lipo pack. My mod wouldn’t fire it either and in fact, it had an unusually dim display. But I wondered if it had been discharged just below the voltage needed to be ‘seen’ by the charger. And if that is the case, what would the sun’s radiation do? So I simply set the pack outside on the patio table in direct sunlight. I left it there a mere 10 minutes. When I brought it back in it was warm from the dark blue outer cover having absorbed the sun’s heat. I wonder if anything else went on internally?
Bottom line, I hooked it back up to the charger and bingo, it’s charging again.
I’ve ran this through 3-4 charge cycles since. Working good although I do feel the need to replace the battery now.
All info is purely academic. I’m not suggesting this or any other method for recovering a lipo or other battery, just sharing what happened with me.
I can tell you the reason it charged after it was in the sun is because it got a slight voltage bump. It’s like the battery in your car, they are rated in c.c.a. Cold cranking amps, this is the amperage the battery can deliver at a certain temperature I.E. in the winter in Alaska. Basically the colder a battery is the less power it has, and the warmer it is the more it has up to a point. We all know what happens when a battery gets to hot. Honestly there is nothing wrong with the battery it will work fine, you probably had it at a low level charge and set it off to the side for a few months and it discharged to a point below what the charger would see. If it’s holding a charge and charging it’s fine.
The NLPWM board (my only experience) will slowly drain a battery. If it drains it below the 9.45? cutoff and you fire it, the logic in the board does not appear to catch it. I don’t know if that’s actual hardware, but more likely it’s just the firmware. Anyhoo, it will then let you fire below cutoff and discharge to below “recovery” levels. I noticed this as an anemic vape. This is why you need to periodically double click even your less used LiPo mods and read the klingon battery guage, charge when low.
What cutlass said was imo spot on on the heating causing a slight voltage bump. This could easily be measured, but that’s also just my educated guess right now. I replaced my pack when I did that, but still use it as a spare. It seems to have gained back a good deal of strength and charge duration after 5ish cycles. As always YMMV, all above disclaimers apply here too. LiPo is no joke.
I have one Lipo Charger that has a way to recover if the Lipo is not too low and it is the more expensive one I have. However, I have really cheap one that doesn’t seem to give a flip how low the battery is when I’ve had the same problem.I’ve had that happen about 2 or 3 times only put them on the charger that has recovery then it fails and finally put it on the cheap one and it takes off. I’m like WTF?? I’ve been using lipos for a long while now and have not lost but one but it had a short. That sun exposure was good thinking @SthrnMixer and I’m glad it worked for you, Lipo’s aren’t cheap, well a decent one anyway. But I sure do love them, it’s hard to go back to 18650’s once Lipo’s have spoiled me.
Thanks. I didn’t expect it to work but was hoping it would - for the same reason others have said.
Yeah I know full well what you mean about lipo spoiling you. When I want a vape that punches like Mike Tyson I always grab my “girl” and let er rip. That NLPWM / Lipo I got from @Whiterose0818 is just off the charts great. So not having to go without for the few days it would take to replace the pack sure was a good feeling!
i was wanting to charge my lipos today after they sat in the mods overnight sitting on the counter on a cool surface. i plugged them in the charger and they just wouldn’t accept a charge. the charger acted like it was charging but it stayed on 50% forever. i remembered the sun trick but there was no sun here today plus its very cold. i turned on the oven for 2 min at 350 then shut it off. i then placed my batteries in the oven and closed the door then waited 1 minute. plugged the battery in the charger and off it went. it finished charging in 5 min. so if the outside temps are very cold, try this.
Oh i didnt know this over trick - interesting! I had to ‘jump start’ 2 of my batteries yesterday as well. I just use, 2 pieces of wire going from the one thats reading bad, to a known good one. Count to 3 and when done pop back in the charger and it works every time
cold temps kill the lipo. sometimes i just let a fully charged one sit in my shirt pocket while using the other but in this case, i decided to try something else. oven wasnt HOT. it was warm
