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Hi Keith,<BR>
I bought one of the WalMart VPX packs to experiment with.<BR>
I followed the instructions on Bob Pastorello's website for it's disassembly and adaptation.<BR>
It handled the high, 4C, charge and discharge rates as advertised but there were two things that made me hesitate to <BR>
use the pack in a plane...might have been just my pack or how I originally handled it.<BR>
1- When discharging the pack in cycle mode on my BC-6 the two cells would go way out of balance. The BC-6 and my CellPro 4s would <BR>
always bring them back in to balance when balance charging, I had wired a balance plug in to it, but this concerned me. Like I said it could have been my particular pack.<BR>
2- When they say the capacity is 1,000 or 1,100 mah, whatever, they aren't kidding. As the BC-6 would near this value when cycling the<BR>
pack voltage would drop so fast you could hardly read the numbers. It was like it hit the wall and fell off a cliff. This also concerned me.<BR>
<BR>
I would be interested if other folks have had similar experience with the VPX packs. Like I said it could have been something I did or the <BR>
individual pack I got. I know the A123's offer great potential. In fact there was a Sportsman pilot here in D5 at the St Louis contest that<BR>
flew an A123 powered Fliton plane. I plane to write it up in my next column but you can see and read about him now on Chris Moon's new<BR>
electric webpage.<BR>
JLK<BR><BR><BR>
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<BR>
Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2008 21:22:15 -0500<BR>From: khoard@gmail.com<BR>To: nsrca-discussion@lists.nsrca.org<BR>Subject: Re: [NSRCA-discussion] A123 Batteries?<BR><BR><BR>
<DIV dir=ltr>I love 'em. I buy the 2-cell 1100 Mah VPX packs from Wal-Mart and strip out the cells. <BR><BR>Then I wire them up with 20-gauge Futaba connector, using the white wire for the Node-1 tap. I charge them after every flight with the FMA CellPro charger.<BR><BR>On my 50cc airplane, I'm using two packs unregulated in parallel plugged directly into the 6014 receiver, and another pack unregulated on the igntion. <BR><BR>On my pattern plane, I'm using one pack unregulated - no problems whatsoever.<BR><BR>
<DIV class=EC_gmail_quote>On Fri, Sep 5, 2008 at 8:13 PM, Joe Dunnaway <SPAN dir=ltr><<A href="mailto:dunnaway@hbcomm.net">dunnaway@hbcomm.net</A>></SPAN> wrote:<BR>
<BLOCKQUOTE class=EC_gmail_quote style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex"> Anyone using A123 cells for your receiver batteries? Any problems, advice or hints? What chargers? <BR><BR>Thanks<BR><FONT color=#888888>Joe Dunnaway<BR>_______________________________________________<BR>NSRCA-discussion mailing list<BR><A href="mailto:NSRCA-discussion@lists.nsrca.org">NSRCA-discussion@lists.nsrca.org</A><BR><A href="http://lists.nsrca.org/mailman/listinfo/nsrca-discussion" target=_blank>http://lists.nsrca.org/mailman/listinfo/nsrca-discussion</A><BR></FONT></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><BR><BR clear=all><BR>-- <BR><BR>Keith Hoard<BR>Collierville, TN<BR><A href="mailto:khoard@gmail.com">khoard@gmail.com</A><BR><BR><BR></DIV></body>
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