Phantom 2 Vision charger not sufficient for charging

[jonwil]

Hi,

Has anyone taken a look at the charger that comes with the phantom 2. My batteries have been indicating full charge but when I look at battery condition via the wifi app it says 98%. I've been told the charger wont fully charge the batteries because the charger is only 4amps while the battery is 5.2 amps.
Anyone know about this and can explain?

jonwil

 

[Ozzyguy]

A 4 amp charger will do the job but a 5.2 amp would be ideal. What you are seeing is a line voltage drop because everything is powering on when you plug your battery into your phantom.

 

[jonwil]

A 4 amp charger will do the job but a 5.2 amp would be ideal. What you are seeing is a line voltage drop because everything is powering on when you plug your battery into your phantom.

Thanks for that. So just to get me head clear on this, the 4 amp charger can charge the battery fully but slower? The guy I spoke with was of the opinion that the 4 amp charger wouldnt charge the battery to full.

 

[Ozzyguy]

That's right. The kinder you are to Lipo batteries the better. My B6A charger will limit the charge towards the end to between .5 and .2 of an amp and it still fully charges the battery.

 

[OI Photography]

jonwil, what you plug in to the wall and then into the battery isn't truly the charger, it's just the power regulator that feeds it to the charging circuit built in to each P2/P2V battery. That charging circuit then handles distribution of that power evenly among the multiple cells in the battery. The amount of Amps the regulator feeds to the battery/circuit (4 in this case) can limit the total speed with which the battery charges, but not the total amount of charge the battery will take (that's just limited by time and the battery's total capacity). You could even charge a 20,000mAh battery with a 4A charger if you wanted to...it would just take a very very long time.

It sounds like the guy you were talking to was confusing the amperage of the charge current (4Amps in this case) with the mAh capacity of the batt (5.4Amp-hours...a completely different metric)

In short...the power supply that comes with the P2V for charging its batteries is more than adequate for the job

 

[AnselA]

while the battery is 5.2 amps.
Anyone know about this and can explain?

jonwil

The battery is 5200 mAh = 5.2 Ah (electric charge) which is not the same as 5.2 A (electric current).

 

[jonwil]

Thanks everyone for clearing my mind on this. I have no electrical knowledge at all and I'm grateful you all took the time to offer explanations. Great help!!!