LiPo Charging Rates, is 2c generally safe

[JHudson]

Ready to buy a new charger and just wanted to know if it is safe to regularly charge at 2c if you have good quality batteries that are in good shape. Thinking about the Hota d6 pro but it is just 200w AC and I am planning on just using it with AC. So if charging a 3s 5000 mah it would be about 126 watts for 1 battery, a second battery on that charger at the same time could only charge at about 1c… which also gets to the point of this, is it even safe to regularly charge at 2c… is 1.5c safe or just stick to 1c. The idea of cutting charging time in half is very appealing if 2c is safe. If it is safe but a little harder on the battery packs and instead of getting 300 cycles out of it you only get 200… not so bad, just wondering what you guys think of the safety factor?

 

[WickedFog]

Some battery manufacturers will state the max recommended charge rate, but yeah, on any decent battery with normal internal resistances, 2C should be perfectly fine. Racers seem to charge their batteries much higher than that, so 2C should be nothing to your average LiPo. It shortens the lifespan of the battery the higher you go, but I bet the difference is negligible at just 2c.

 

[JHudson]

Some battery manufacturers will state the max recommended charge rate, but yeah, on any decent battery with normal internal resistances, 2C should be perfectly fine. Racers seem to charge their batteries much higher than that, so 2C should be nothing to your average LiPo. It shortens the lifespan of the battery the higher you go, but I bet the difference is negligible at just 2c.

So if that’s true which I believe is the case and I do want to charge 2, 3s LiPo’s at 2c like I described above, something like the Hota s6 would be a better choice because it provides 400w from AC, of course it is about $40.00-$60.00 more but would save a lot of charging time… decisions, decisions.

 

[WickedFog]

So if that’s true which I believe is the case and I do want to charge 2, 3s LiPo’s at 2c like I described above, something like the Hota s6 would be a better choice because it provides 400w from AC, of course it is about $40.00-$60.00 more but would save a lot of charging time… decisions, decisions.

Yes, or you could go DC with a proper DC power supply.

 

[Greywolf74]

So if that’s true which I believe is the case and I do want to charge 2, 3s LiPo’s at 2c like I described above, something like the Hota s6 would be a better choice because it provides 400w from AC, of course it is about $40.00-$60.00 more but would save a lot of charging time… decisions, decisions.

On the HOTA d6 Pro on AC, charging two 3S LiPos at the same time you're going to be limited to about 7.5-8A per channel. On the HOTA S6, youd be limited to about 15-16A per channel while chanrging two 3S LiPos. If that helps you decide.

As for 2C charge rate, Thats what I do standard these days on all of my LiPos unless theres some reason for me to charge slower. Its a little harder on your LiPos but not much.

 

[JHudson]

The 2c charge rate was the main question I had and just wanted to see what some of the people on here thought and were doing with their own batteries. So I will consider 2c safe and I know with any of these LiPo’s they need to be monitored while charging. It would be nice though to cut that time down a lot by going to 2c. I have seen a lot of great info on here, just not much about just how high an amperage you can push these to and still remain relatively safe. Thanks for your input.

 

[Greywolf74]

The 2c charge rate was the main question I had and just wanted to see what some of the people on here thought and were doing with their own batteries. So I will consider 2c safe and I know with any of these LiPo’s they need to be monitored while charging. It would be nice though to cut that time down a lot by going to 2c. I have seen a lot of great info on here, just not much about just how high an amperage you can push these to and still remain relatively safe. Thanks for your input.

Most LiPos (that I'm aware of anyway) are rated for up to 5C charges. It will usually say somewhere on the pack but sometimes you have to refer to the manufacturers website or the battery documentation. I've done as much as 8C (40A) on LiPos without issue but I wouldnt recommend going over 2-3C without good reason.

 

[RustyUs]

2C charge rates is all I do. For me, it's all about time. 20 to 30 minutes... I'm at the track in my happy place kicking up dirt. I used to do 1C charge rates for years, then 1.5C. I have not noticed cells aging faster. It's the heavyweight RCs pushing LiPo batteries to their limits that I get concerned about.