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Asked — Edited

Lipo Battery Issue

So last night I left my LiPo battery connectd to my bot with the lights on! Beign the first time ive used LiPo batteries I didnt realize that you cannot drain them past a minimum voltage or they wont recharge anymore.

I recovered the battery by using the Nimh setting on my charger to bring the voltage back up to 12v then I was able to balance charge again.


Is there some kind of voltage detection relay switch I can get to automatically cut power if the voltage drops below a certain amount so this doesnt happen again?

Thanks!


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#2  
Thanks that helps! Im going to try to find a supplier in Canada. Amazon says not allowed because they hate canada. and the other link is florida which I might try anyway if I can't find a canadian supplier.
#3  
For anyone else who looks for this item I found a candian supplier and have ordered one. will report back how it works.


GreatHobbies
#4  
depending on your application you might want to use a LiPo alarm instead of a cutoff circuit.
#5  
Im hoping I can get a signal back from the cutoff alarm that will let me alert the user via software or speech synth. Even nicer would be to also have a way to read the battery level from the balance charging plug.
#6  
u might be able to hack a LiPo alarm and remove the alarm buzzer and have the terminals go to the ADC of the EZ-B and have a script that alerts the user in ARC that the voltage is above so much, when the buzzer would be set off.
#7  
Thats a good plan but Im hoping I can probably do that with the cut off as well, but I am thinking its alot safer to use a cut off since a buzzer wont do any good if I dont hear it. like if I leave my robot on and go to work, I would still come home to a dead lipo battery.
#8  
this is true but like I said it depends on the application I made a QUAD that flies so a shutoff could crash the craft.
#9  
Ah yes that makes sense! definitely wouldnt want that on a flying bot!:D
#10  
this product could be used just take the LED terminals and input them to the ATD and if the voltage on the ATD is above 1.5 or 2 VDC then have a warning window pop up it will still turn-off the circuit then
Product
#11  
That might work but would only give a low battery indicator, I was hoping to be able toreadthe battery level and show the battery level so you can see how much time is "left". Do you think that is possible?
#12  
sounds like you want a voltage meter attached if you just want the robot to shutdown when the voltage on the battery is to low I wouldnt over complicate things. I am sure there are voltage readers for LiPos per cell but then u get into bigger and bigger circuits that overcrowd ur general need.
#13  
Yeah I supposed its not necessary, just a nice to have, I like how my UPS has a desktop gadget that tells me the UPS bat level as well as my iphone etc. But if its a pain I will stick to a straight cut off. I might order that part you suggested as well.

When you say hook the LED input up to the ATD would that just be a digital port on the EZ_b ?

Thanks!
#14  
no the EZ-B comes with 8 ATD ports that can read voltage up to 5V. And don't let me decide for you its your robot I am just saying sometimes its better to think easy, just giving you some ideas.