Battery charger fault

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Jan 26, 2014
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Hertfordshire, U.K.
Had my first failure with FC 40 last week, The battery charger has stopped working, Charged the batteries fine for first few charges but then just went into some weird mode of flashing the main led red and green and the cell balance led's in a random way and did not put any charge back in batteries, Charged batteries on a different charger and they where fine. Have sent the charger back to the dealer under warranty. Seen all the videos on youtube of a solder repair to circuit board after I sent it back so did not open it up to check if that was the fault. That fault seemed to be caused by people plugging charge lead in wrong way round but that was not my problem as lead's where never removed from charger after first charge.
Any one else had problems with charger ?
 
Had the same problem on one of my batteries, but not the other (only have 2 to try it on)

But, to be fair and honest, the battery that is acting funky on charge was heavily discharged due to me not having the balance cable plugged in on initial charge. (LiPo battery charging has changed a lot since I last used them around 9 years ago).

After 3 days of intermittent charging until the green light would start to stay on or a few seconds, I made a 10 minute flight.

The process of charging was similar after that cycle, but not as long to reach the green light starting to persist.

I have cycled it again since, and it is charging closer to normal.

I believe the charger is just trying to do what it is designed for; charge and discharge each cell untill they all are similar in their characteristics. The charger's lack of complexity leaves it with a primitive manner of handling a deep discharge, which could be a safety factor if it has no way of rejecting a battery containing unrecoverable over-discharged cells.

I made sure to periodically check for heat from the battery, but that is a poor solution. In the early days of this battery terminology, we used to charge them under a 2 pound coffee can with a brick on top of it.

I have ordered a more advanced charger that lets me see the individual voltages, and I am learning to watch for the blinking red light a little more often when in flight.

OSD would be a nice option for the FC40; but obviously not at this price point.
 

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