Joshua Bardwell started reciting equations so I came here and got an explanation I could understand. Thanks Steele.

The most overlooked aspect of any powered hobby is battery management.

This is great, Steele. I think that the one thing that people often forget is that parallel charging can also damage your batteries if you parallel charge packs with very different internal resistance, or you parallel charge a pack with an iffy cell - it can damage your other packs. If you have a pack where one cell is consistently lower than the others, never put it on a parallel board with other packs. If you have a pack with high internal resistance, don't put it on a parallel board with other packs.

I think you’re doing it right, Steele. You’ve been working hard and making a lot of content in order to grow your brand... and I respect that! Keep it up, man. I think it’s gonna pay off for you in big ways. I’ve also noticed work you’ve done in other areas that I won’t mention, but let’s say these aspects are not going unnoticed by those who have an eye for such things. Props, man! Keep it up and go strong!!

Your videos couldn't be more descriptive and clear. Covering topics such as batteries will help me and everyone stay safe and keepin healthy batteries. Keep these vids comin!!

Im learning alot but mostly i need a second job to really get into this

I have a EE degree and work for USRobotics. We eat lipo for breakfast. Fact#1 everything i heard you say is correct. Fact#2 charging in Parallel is best for your batteries, Especially if you religiously balance. Fact#3 charging is parallel balances your batteries better and faster. Unverified #1, lol I charge in parallel regardless of total battery voltage, I only check that each cell is close to its own battery. your extra careful method is fine. Great straight forward to the point video.

Very insightful, I actually get it now! So, no parallel charging is the cell voltages that are more than 0.3V apart. You can only charge the same cell count in a single channel parallel charger. Don’t poke your battery with a nail. You can charge different cell count batteries on different channels. Batteries use DC, as do most electronics. ALWAYS CHECK YOUR BATTERIES BEFORE CHARGING OR YOU DIE As long as you follow the 0.3V rule, you can plug in the balance lead first with no problems Charging 3 batteries at (1c?) is taking the operating current and multiplying by 3. eg. 1100mA x 3 =3300mA Mr Steele is not responsible for human error. Get a great power setup. Reduce the risk of your house dying. Mr Steele, please reassure me that I’m correct. I want to make sure that I don’t have any problems with batteries.

I really hope I get a certificate of completion after watching this whole series... 📜🖋🐥 . I always learn something

I'm so glad you're talking the time to explain every little detail. This really helps people get into the hobby. Thank you keep up the good work.

Love the expertise and experience you bring to the hobby Steele. Instead of looking at a bunch of forums or whatever, I can watch a 15min video and not only learn how to do things safely, but understand the basic concepts which is great for promoting active thinking and regard for safety. Keep it up mate!

Love the series. Never flown FPV. Never really flown RC either. I had an rc glider as a kid and recently found a dji tello for $5. This series makes me want to fly FPV, I dreamed of it growing up but the technology wasn’t around for consumers. Probably the best advice from the series is battery management. I have a boat that runs 4S and I never bothered to use the charger that came with it. I bought a Tenergy TB6B at the same time as the boat, batteries and one of those voltage checkers. The charger is supposed to be balanced but I can’t seem to get the cells to the same voltage. Maybe crappy batteries or a bad charger. Everyone safe flying, or piloting whatever RC you operate!

I think safest thing to do is charge your packs to storage individually, then when you are ready to fly parallel charging is key to getting them all charged up quickly and safely since all cells are at same voltage.

I bought an ISDT charger and when it arrived it didn't have an plug adapter to power it. Took me a bit to figure out why they sell it like that but all of the reviewers and commentators talk like its common knowledge. What I ended up doing it re-purposing an HP charge brick and putting an XT60 on it. I'm sure that server power supply is better at producing juice and I'll probably rig something like that. This hobby is not really easy to get into and I think If I didn't work in IT and just have general problem solving skills all of this would be impossible. Thank you for the explanations and advice as I am still a noob and this is very helpful to me.

I damaged the same cell on 6 batterys one time due to 1 bad cell on one batt, now i always check every cell before parallel charging

Unsolder the right hand beeper which disables both on those checkers. Your batteries will even out if left for about 5 mins but as you say, watch them and don't plug batteries of great voltage difference as the rush current will create heat or pop a fuse on your balance plate. I regularly bulk charge batteries with a .5 V difference with zero issues and regular lifespan.

I'm glad to see someone that's not ultra-paranoid about lipos. They don't "just blow up," it's always a case of violating rules. :)

Good video ! I have parallel charged for several years . I only had one charging fire and it was because I got lazy that day and didn’t check all the packs prior to charging . Also might be good to mention that fireproofing your charging area is pretty easy to do . I charge on some old ceramic tiles and have a smoke detector and fire extinguisher in my charging area and it came in very handy !

i really appreciate that your videos arent chopped up in editing. thanks for growing the hobby!

I parallel charge in my fireplace for safety.

Where is the video of you showing us what batteries/chargers/balance board/ power supply we need to buy?

This is what i have been looking for. thanks for the series.

Realy simple explanation about charging 🙂 Great tutorial series. Tnx 👍

Very cool Steele. I use two WP power supplies in series for the 24v output mainly because that's how I started as I was flying planes before I flew quads. That said, starting with a higher voltage than that of the batteries, such as 24v to feed a charger that will charge 6s, 5s, 4s, 3s, etc is more efficient that upping the voltage from 12v to feed higher voltage batteries. That's why I've kept the setup. It is now about 6 years old and still ticking nicely.

This is one of the scariest thing about FPV, Catching fire... bcos am very paranoid i always charge my battery one by one,,, i always spend 1/4 day just to looking into my charger and making sure it wont acting up Thank u for all this knowledge *that duck tho

I would love to see the next parts of this series man, can’t wait. Cheers!

Actually, the "keep under 0.3 V difference" advice is good if you are in a hurry, but it's not more dangerous to do packs with large differences if you are not to much in a rush. What happens when you have differing pack charges is that as soon as you plug them in the charge will rush from the pack with more charge to the one with less, equalizing them. What people worry about is that there is a massive inrush of current from the pack with more charge to the one with less and this would be dangerous. In reality, it's not that big of an issue: if we take a full and a flat 6s pack, the full being at 25.2V and the flat at 22.2V and the packs have an internal resistance of 0.018 Ohm (assuming a pretty average cell resistance of 3 mOhm) this would give in theory give a current flow of 3/0.018 = 83.3 Amps which sounds pretty bad. However, this math fails to take into account that a pack under load drops in voltage as we all know from flying them. At the same time, the discharged pack's voltage will increase when you give it a charging load. This means the actual current flow will be considerably less. It's difficult to come up with a calculation since it will vary depending on pack specifics, I have however tested this quite a lot, and even when hooking up a fully charged pack (4.2V per cell) to one really flat (3.3V per cell) I never got more than 31 Amps current and that lasted for 0.35 seconds before dropping and after 15 seconds no combination of charges yielded more than 5 Amps. So, in reality, the worst effect of hooking up a full pack with a discharged one is that you waste the cycle of the full pack. It should be noted though that this goes for connecting the main leads first and then waiting before connecting the balance leads since 30 Amps through the balance leads will most definitely damage them and potentially set something on fire, which is never good around lipos. Yes, people argue that doing the balance leads first uses them as a faux fuse, protecting the low charge pack if you hooks up one with to much charge, but as far as I can tell this is a non issue according to above and thus I would always connect the main leads first, and even with packs of similar charge I wait at least 5 seconds before connecting the balance wires. Now in reality, there's rarely a good reason to charge packs with widely differing voltages and avoiding doing so does eliminate some considerations, but there are the occasions where you have 4 packs, 3 are close to each other, but the last one is 0.4 higher because you broke the quad/it started to rain/some angry security guard ran you off etc. In this case you can still charge them all, and in that case you can be extra safe by first connecting the 3 similar packs and then the one with more charge, at which point the current surge will be split between the 3 already connected. This said, after the packs are equalized, the difference in charge has no further impact on charging, which means that as long as you wait long enough after plugging in the main connectors to the board before doing the balance leads and beginning to charge there is no further danger due to the charge difference.

Hy Steele, i just watched all of your How to FPV Videos and i learned a lot! Thanks for that. I really hope you'll continue this series, because i'll need help putting together a quad in the future ;D

Another awesome information video, thanks Steele 👍🏼

Great video! Thank you!! How long would be considered "safe" to wait before charging a batterie when discharged after flying? Let them cool down etc.. Can't wait for part 8! :)

Teach you all about batteries, Master Steele will

been paralell charging for years, only issue i had was when i accidentally hooked up an empty battery with 1 almost fully chargeed, it blue out the balance traces o the balance board. always double check each cell are same voltage. i do them at 2c, got several groups of battereis, 3s 2200, 3s , 1000, 4s 1300, 2s 450. 4s 1400. would take all day charging individually even with my duo charger. paralell charging can do it in a couple hours.

I’m loving this series. Thanks for sharing. Btw what’s the end song?

Do you plan to continue this series? I find them very useful and to the point. Thanks!

Just get a SkyRC Q200 for under 200$ and charge up to four batteries individually. This is saver and you don't need to check voltage beforehand. A much better solution than parallel charging. In fact better as each pack gets balanced individually.

You've said 0.3V difference per cell (4:50)? I've always thought that this "rule" applies to the entire pack. I might have been doing this wrong but I'm always ensuring that the entire pack is within ~0.2-.3V plus checking each individual cell.

Thank you so much for this follow up video. I am currently charging my first Lipo.

Always use a battery checker like Steele says. Parallel charging can easily mask a bad cell in one battery. I learned that the hard way with an expensive camera rig.

DEAR STEELE, Good & Simple explanation. Thanks. I also want to share my ideas to support you. (A). Always parallel only same voltage packs. If you accidently parallel wrong packs... MIND !... it is a serious fire + all Batteries will get damage. (B) For the extra safety I always plug only ONE main leads to board. You don't need to connect all main leads into board. Because this will safe if any short happen. Because balance leads are thin wire, while short it burns and protect the battery. But main leads are thick it can't protect. So plugging Only one main battery lead is enough. Through the balance leads all batteries will get the shared current. (C) If you want to charge 2s/3s/4s/5s no matter. there is a idea. Need to program the higher voltage pack in your charger. Then you can connect all other balance leads parallel. (Never connect different MAIN leads parallel). (Always consider the C rating of the battery. it is not advisable to charge both very low C rating & very high C rating) . (D) Check all battery's cell voltage before putting to parallel. Never parallel different charged packs. Example. (3.0v-3.6V are ok), (Don't mix 3.5v - 3.8/3.9). (E) When you plug balance leads, be careful, accidently it may plug wrong side, it cause all battery damage. Always plug balance leads first and finally main lead. (F) When plug balance leads pls make sure all socket plugged well. Because if one battery's one lead miss, it has chance to get damage while connect with other full charged cell. Also note some time one cell may miss with the balance socket. (G) Never try to parallel old battery or damaged battery. If one battery get short then all battery get short. Try to avoid paralleling more batteries. try to charge 2-3 packs. So it safe always. (H). When you go flying field always have a charger. Because some time some a cell will go down unexpectedly. So you can charge that cell for a 2-3 min time to reach 3.5v. Otherwise cell get serious damage. (I) Stay close when parallel charging. Don't leave un attendant. Always charge parallel batteries in safe place, if any fire happen that will not spread. While parallel charging Better to keep batteries... inside a metal protected box. Thanks... Thiva, Sri lanka

All right Mr. steele Thanks for being one of the major influences that got me into the sick sport of FPV. Great vid on parallel charging.👍🏼

FYI: I just learning FPV (I'm no expert) but something I noticed in watching a few recent videos. At 6:52 in your video you mention charging all 3 of those batteries at 1C (1.1amp x 3 = 3.3amp). However, in a video Joshua Barwell did a while back he showed if you parallel charge and you don't want to go over a 1C rating than you can't take the 1C rate and multiple it by the number of batteries, because he showed on his testing meter some batteries are actually getting 2C while others in parallel may be getting 0.5C. Can see Joshua's video from *Feb 26, 2016* . You've been doing it for 4 yrs so appears to work...just making notes for myself and letting others know your not actually getting a 1C rating as one may think. Feel free to correct if I've misunderstood.......great video though! I'm trying not to make any mistakes which is why I'm watching these videos so intensely. Have seen the damage these LIPOs can do when mishandled......

I think you charge multiple batteryes in series (for example 3x 2s battery =6s battrey) This you can do ONLY if you have a charger that support BALANCE CHARGE. I am not shore if batteries have very different capacity.

Thanks man, been to scared to plug in the parralel board I got day dot after some of the stories... Clarified! Much appreciated now where the f did i put it

Wow your videos are awesome. Thanks for taking the time to show us all these how to videos

I would connect the xt60s first, because the balancing current between differently charged batteries can be high and fry the small jst connector.

i guess i can combine some questions from the comments together: 1.) what's the difference between balance charging and charging? doesn't it balance the packs as soon as it recognizes the balance lead? 2.) does EVERY single cell from like 3x 6s pack get balanced out while parallel charging? or just every pack as a whole at the same voltage than the other 2? 3.) if you plug one pack just into the balance lead will it balance the cells without charging it 🤔 the last one was my personal i'm still new..... and waiting for my ICharger 4010 duo 😅

Speaking of batteries ... What would cause a quad to flip right under punchout power on a 5s, but be okay if giving smooth slower power to full throttle? Does fine on 4s, but 5s and 6s causes it to flip to the right on a punchout. Any ideas? 45A X-Rotor Stack ... XNova 2204-2900KV motors ... 35V-1000uf Cap

Really looking forward to part 8. I'm hoping you can stay in the beginner vein. Talk about some of the etiquette that's in the fpv bible. Discuss where to fly (and not). How to interact with others when you arrive at an active site, maybe talk about vTx channels and avoiding overlap. Things to watch out for as you start flying outside? I'm hoping you'll get to the next step up from the Whoop soon, too.

awesome video! thanks for all the info

I don't see how parallel charging is feasible anymore. Reliable chargers have gotten so cheap, you can get a toolkitrc m6 for less than $30 now. Get 6 of them and hook them all up to a power supply so you can charger batteries individually. If one cell is dead midway through charging, at least it'll be detected.

What about parallel charging multiple batteries with different mah rating?

So Ive seen conflicting info on what to plug in first. The balance lead or the discharge lead? Can you please go into more detail about plugging the balance lead in 1st rather than the discharge lead. Thank you for the great videos!

Thanks so much for this info, priceless. Now I need me a parallel board. Thumbs in the air ! 👍👍👍

I want to start getting into FPV I all ready have a fpv tiny whoop and it is very fun I have it on my channel

Aww, balls! I was hoping I could binge watch the entire series, but you're still making 'em. ;)

I got an Turnigy 4x6 (4 Port Charger) for around 45€. You can buy a car adapter or do it with a server PSU. That thing is pretty good for that Price.

Thank you for the series, it is very useful for a novice quad owner. Can you please elaborate more on the use of server power supply, how is it connected to the charger or does it involve any tinkering inside the power supply inself? I might be able to get one from the outdated servers at work :)

Just getting started . Amazing videos and instruction!!! FPV Bible is crucial!! Thanks for the hard work.

Get the lipo checkers without the beepers- Cheaper AND load readout faster!

Thanks for the videos .. charging and battery care for fpv is by far some of the most confusing shit im trying to comprehend for this hobby . I dont have all my equipment yet so havent flown in real life yet but i ordered a hobbymate duo 6 pro today and im slowly getting to understand how I have to charge my batteries. Some things are still confusing me a little but im hoping once I have all the gear I need in hand a lot of whats confusing me will be clearer .

Field charging: Can you confirm...: A fresh flown pack, still warm, has less internal resistance and therefor is good to be charged at 3-5c? Tried it, worked, but... just doesn't feel good! Like forcing "Julie" right after the first exhausting "round" xD

You’re videos are amazingly helpful broo 👌🏽💯

I also have a bad story too lol i accidentally charged a lipo on the nihm setting and it puffed and exploded so always make sure your on lipo woth lipos lol

Ok Steele you had me hooked til this video. I can respect a commitment to maintaining batteries and power, but this is all too much for a newb. I was with you through the quad the receiver and the goggles but seeing these charging briefcases has me discouraged. Piece after piece of pricey gear... I can see this is not a hobby for someone with tight finances. It looks like it might be fun enough even to justify the costs, but why would I when my money could be invested on something with slighhhtly greater utility..? I’ll just stick to watching your videos. Your flights are mad entertaining, and I’ll never fly as well as you anyway. Or I’ll revisit this in like 10 years when it’s less of a financial commitment. But boy does it look fun

Are you ever coming to P.A? I just started drone flying, you are the best freestyle pilot I've seen should do a Meetup out this way.

Thanks I have been charging one by one for years lmao

One reason parallel charging might be dangerous is if a battery happens to disconnect, the current going to that battery will be dispersed amongst the others, thus causing a charging current above 1C

12:46 -- your charger is limited by your power supply. You need a higher voltage output from the power supply because @ 12V, you can only get 1200W power if you're pushing 100A from power supply to the charger. While the power supply will happily attempt to output just that, the iCharger 406 Duo will only accept 60A so you're only able to get about 720W. From the size of your batteries even in parallel this doesn't seem like a limiting factor if you're only going at 1C, or even 2C, but you could have saved money with a less powerful charger or get a better power supply that can push 24v power. You can drop down to a 800W~1000W power supply but if it outputs 24v you'll be better off with most any charger because they all accept up 24V~30V DC and their charge power ratings is at those voltage levels and not 12V typically.

9:43 C is internal resistance right? Charging or discharging past 1 C alters chemistry. Batteries don't like discharging over 1 C but because their short pulse discharges, the chemistry is less altered than charging it at the same rate because the consistency of the RMS charging is too much compared to the show pulse discharging right? It's not that the battery likes discharging higher current any moreso than charging, yeah?

Thanks for Good video- I made a Lifepo4 battery for my van house power 3 yrs ago - Tons of Bad info out there about Li ion batteries - took a long time to sift threw the bogus noise - think it was lead acid battery companies putting out bad info to scare people into using lead batteries

I had a parellel checking board go up in flames once...had 1 battery into it already...when I went to plug in the second I plugged the balance lead in backwards.... started smoking on the board , then sparking .. then flames...grabbed it in time and brought outside , separated the batteries .... Parellel board melted...both batteries had the shrink wrapping on them melted, but they still worked..(....the one that started fire, not so long though...one of the cells degraded quickly).. After that my fire resistant metal charging cabinet still smells like burning plastic and I always recite when plugging into balance board " Red Wire Toward The Right". Which always ensures the balance lead goes in the right way..

More good stuff! Soaking it up. Thank you Sir!

U should ride a tiny whoop in Walmart

This guy is iconic

How do you keep a 0.3 volt difference between cells on different packs from smoking your tiny balance wires? If you had really low internal resistance cells you could put 50 Amps through those wires with two batteries of 0.003 ohms.

Some people say that you should not charge 2 different brands of batteries on a parallel charger even though they are for example 4s

Very Well Explained! You The Man & Thanks

What charger setup/build do you have in the case on the left (your right) in this video? Awesome info.

Ive been parallel charging since i stsrted 8 months ago my charger is the d2 isdt i use 2 paralle boards with it one charges my 1500mah 4s n the other i charge my infinity 1300 4s takes about 50 mins to charge 8 batts at 1c

I'll be honest.. I got really excited when I spotted the paramotor in the background.

Thank you Mr Steele for the info. had a few mishaps with charging in earlier days. Lipo bags saved my garage. cant say it enough :) but can how did you connect the server psu? i got a few in my workshop. 1200w EU 230v from the wall socket. did you solder or used a circuit board adapter? ty and a new subber from Mountains of Norway

Oh, are you flying PPG? Regards from Poland - Dudek Paragliders company ;)

The example said 0.3V difference per cell so for a 6s wouldnt that be 1.8V difference allowed battery to battery, but then an example is given of battereries with a 22.5V to 23.5V range which shouldn't be charged together because of voltage difference? Was the rule really 0.3V difference battery to battery. I have also heard a rule of 0.1V per cell difference is ok so 0.6V difference across the range of batteries for 6s. I'm learning so what any thoughts welcome.

Sigh, anecdotal I've not had anything bad when plugging a balance lead in first isn't a good recommendation. It relies on perfect circumstances and never having a Murphy problem crop up. It literally costs nothing to plug the mains in first and then balance lead a couple moments later for the extra level of safety.

I enjoy your videos, thank you

Your my hero ! LOL, thanks for the lesson, very helpful.

Great video! I haven't driven a drone yet but I am wondering how we can put a battery that seem so fragile on a expensive drone that flies around in fast speeds? Isn't it very unsafe and high chance for the battery to start a fire and break the drone? Glad for answers!

C rating is not arbitrary. It is the unit Coulombs, a measure of charge. It is equivalent to 1 farad*volt or 1 amp*second

I have noticed with all batteries if you find the proper voltage to stop flying at all of your cells will come up to the same recovery voltage about 2 to 3 hours after flying. Example: I have 6 5’S Lipos all Ovonic 1550 bought at the same time. If I fly them down to a steady 3.54 to 3.57 ..... In about three to 5 hours all 6 lipos will come up to the exact same voltage. Almost exactly cell for cell voltage for voltage. Usually if I do it right they come out like this 3.78 3.78 3.80 3.80 3.80. All six of the cells will all come back to this voltage exactly per cell as in cell one 3.78 cell2 3.78 cell3 3.80 cell4 3.80 cell5 3.80. I think I’m onto something ??????? What do y’all think ??????

I recon you could connect two 3S packs in parallel and mix them with a 6s with parallel charging. Obviously have to respect the balance this way too

.3V difference per cell? so a 3.9V just above storage and a 4.2V fully charged that's a massive difference . None of mine are ever more than .03V out per cell all at 3.7 something after recovery. I also display the IR on the charger not voltage when charging if the IRs are close I know all is well.

Parallel mean all the positive pole of the batteries are connect to common + same with the - so the voltage is the same but you divide the current so if 1 battery absorb 1A at 17v is 17Vx3A=51watt instead of having 3 different charger:17Vx1A=17w+ 17Vx1A=17w+17Vx1A=17w=51w

I have a 50$ battery charger and it too came with a voltage checker........ The confusing thing to me is that the charger itself literalyl tells me what the voltage is.....

Super-duper. Thanks. If you storage (dis)charge a bunch of 4.2V batteries, do you still use 1C?

appreciate the explanations, helped a lot

Good video. Question using parallel charger can or work with balance charging?

PART 8 PLEASE

Hi Mr Steele. Thanks for sharing =) Just a small question: do you use some lifehack to keep all batteries at about the same voltage? When I'm flying and watching at my OSD and see some battery voltage left, but after the flight this voltage slightly differs from what I've seen on the screen. Or maybe you know some method to quickly make batteries the same voltage, to then parallel-charge them? Hope haven't confused you. Thanks in advance

So how much would a controller, 5 inch quad, goggles, charger, batteries, antennas cost? Edit(3 years later): I don't even remember asking the question above but what a silly question it was. I have just got into fpv and am now struggling with terminology of everything lol

Thank you