How To: Charging and Maintaining LiPo Batteries - Featuring the Gens Ace IMARS III 

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We're glad it was helpful! Technical/educational content isn't always the most exciting, but is definitely still important. It's nice to hear that this sort of thing is appreciated!

Yes! In the storage setting it will charge or discharge as necessary until the pack is at storage voltage!

The capacity limit is in the overall settings for the charger, rather than the individual battery profiles, so it should apply across the board. I'd set this to just a hair higher than the largest battery you're charging - and if you're charging two packs with wildly different capacities, you might want to adjust this between charges.

Are all of the cells 4.09V, or is there maybe one cell significantly higher or lower than the rest? If one cell is somehow over 4.2, or under 3, the charger likely won't attempt to do anything. If a cell isn't THAT far off, but still considerably higher/lower, the charger may be spending a bunch of time balancing the cells and you're hitting a time-based cutoff before the battery is finished charging. Or if the capacity cutoff were set too low, it could also cut off before it hits voltage. Both the timer and the capacity cutoff should be exceptionally high by default, so those likely aren't the issue unless they were adjusted, but still maybe worth a check. Feel free to give us a call at (248) 919-0040 and we can try to figure out other possibilities as well.

Yeah same here

@@omarmalpica5021 I don't have any other good thoughts as to why that might be the case, but if you give us a call at (248) 919-0040, we can maybe discuss it a little more in-depth and get to the bottom of it!

Maker of this video didn't read the manual I guess and the information in the video isn't correct. To balance charge on imars chargers you use lipo charge mode. Cell balance program is used just to fix the battery, if there is big disbalance (or at least its like that on pro version - page 15 in manual).

One of the settings on the charger will balance in addition to charging, so there’s no need to run two separate functions. If you were using a charger that had two separate functions to accomplish charging and balancing, as long as you’re balancing regularly, I would think that after charging would be ideal. Most chargers won’t require you to do these things separately, though. And we agree, there’s little reason to get the regular IMARS III anymore, as the price difference to go for the pro is minimal. In fact, I believe we’ve stopped carrying the regular version and just carry the pro and the dual now. It’s worth noting that the menus and settings on the IMARS III Dual are totally different, while it’s pretty much identical between the IMARS III and the IMARS III Pro. Maybe we’ll put together a video on the Dual version as well, but if you grab one of those and have any questions in the meantime, just reach out, we’re happy to help! You can grab the IMARS III Pro from us here: shop.nankinhobby.com/products/gensace-imars-iii-pro-10a-smart-balance-rc-battery-charger-468884.html Or, the dual version in white here: shop.nankinhobby.com/products/gens-ace-imars-dual-port-ac-dc-charger--6s-15a-100w-x-2---white--492195.html Or in black: shop.nankinhobby.com/products/gensace-imars-dual-channel-ac200w-dc300w-balance-charger-black-492194.html

@@NankinHobby Wow! I really appreciate the reply being that I'm a newbie! I just received my typhon tlr rtr this week, so it means a lot and i greatly appreciate it! Definitely will order one from you guys if I don't receive it for Christmas!

@@Scootbreezy23 That's a great vehicle! We think you'll definitely have a ton of fun with it!

Good question! This is normal. The storage function will either charge or discharge as necessary to get the battery to the proper level. The discharge circuit in the charger isn't as capable as the charge, so while you may set it for 1.3A (the charger is definitely capable of charging at this rate, or higher) it will discharge at a much lower rate. This is pretty typical of the vast majority of chargers. Fortunately you're not typically in a rush to store batteries, so it's not usually a big issue.

@@NankinHobby Thank you. I will keep it.

It depends on the charger, but there will usually be some sort of notification - it may say on the screen that it's done, or there may be a light code, and usually there will be some sort of audible beep or something. If your charger doesn't have any of these things, that would be strange and I would consider a different charger - knowing when your battery is done charging is pretty important. Hopefully the charger would still stop even if it doesn't notify you, but there's also a bit of a drain on the battery if it's left plugged in beyond its charge-time. 8.4V would be the end-voltage for a 2S LiPo, so if you're seeing that voltage it likely is done or close to done, but there can still be balancing that's done after the overall pack voltage hits 8.4V, so that isn't enough of an indicator on its own.

@@NankinHobby Thank you for the help

The "cell bal" function is actually a balance, not just a balancing function. It will balance the cells as well as charging them fully, so no, you won't have to charge them any further than what that function does on its own.

Ok thanx 👍😄

Typically you wouldn't charge a 5000mAh pack any faster than 5A. Unless the pack says that it can be charged at something greater than a 1C rate, I wouldn't charge this pack at 10A. With that said, though, while the IMARS III Pro is capable of charging at 10A, it's also limited by its wattage. It's a 100W charger, so depending on the voltage of the pack, it may be limited to less than 10A because it doesn't have enough wattage to push out 10A at higher voltages. To figure out this limitation, take 100 (the wattage on the charger), and divide that by your pack voltage. This will give you maximum amperage that the charger can put out at a particular voltage. On a 2S pack (7.4V), the IMARS III Pro will be able to charge at its maximum rate (10A), but on a 3S pack (11.1V), it doesn't have enough wattage to put out 10A, and will be limited to 9A. If you're charging a much larger pack, say a 6S pack (22.2V), the charger will only be able to charge at 4.5A. These figures might vary slightly, because I'm calculating the nominal voltages (3.7V per cell), though in reality they might be a bit higher or lower. If the 5000mAh pack you're charging is a 6S pack (22.2V), the charger is probably working properly if it's only charging at 4.2A. If it's not a 6S pack, there may be something else wrong.

There’s very rarely ever a reason to use the “discharge” function for a LiPo battery. The only times you’ll ever really be discharging it are for storage, in which case you’ll want to instead use the storage function, or for disposal, in which case no charger will discharge it completely anyway. With that said, though, if you do have som other reason to discharge, or you’re discharging a different type of battery, yes, the same specs you enter for charging will be used for the discharge function.

The charger should make a noise to let you know it's done, as well as display a message on the screen. It does stop charging when charging is complete, but whenever the battery is plugged into anything, whether it be a vehicle or the charger, there's a little bit of drain on the pack, so we don't recommend leaving it plugged in for any extended periods of time even if it isn't charging.

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It does, but I wouldn't rely on the sound output to charge while in another room. You should still be nearby while the battery is charging so if you do see anything going wrong you can stop it. LiPo fires are rare, but can be catastrophic, so catching an issue before it becomes a fire is huge.

There definitely is an extra wire. A 4 cell should only have 5, and that's almost certainly why the charger is giving you that error. I don't think there's going to be a safe workaround. I'm not sure what that extra wire is doing, other than maybe just forcing you to use a proprietary charger.

@@NankinHobby Thanks for the reply. Yes, it seems like a proprietary bs thing since it came from a charging board that can't charge the battery. The instructions say that the unit needs to be charged for storage and I didn't that so it seems the battery charge was way too low to work with hence this other method I'm trying using this Gens Ace. Gonna experiment with a homemade adapter and get ready for anything.

I'll have to do a test to confirm this, but that doesn't sound normal. It should, at least in theory, still charge to 4.2v per cell in balance mode. My suspicion would be that it's maybe timing out or something because it's taking too long to balance the cells. Are they both reaching the same voltage at the end?

@@NankinHobby Thanks for your answer! I don’t really remember .I let you know tomorrow after I check it again. Greetings from Greece !!!

That will depend on your battery. For LiPo batteries, voltage will go up on increments of 3.7V for each cell the battery has. The charger is adjustable in these increments. For other batteries, this may differ.