"balancers are just a money grab"

[Bondonutz]

Here's one to make you think ?
One of my buddys whom I rarely see for RCing due to his schedual asked me to take a look at his packs. He has a TP 3s 3850mah and a Venom 3s 4000mah. These packs are over 2 years old and never seen a balancer, he uses a Multiplex charger only.
All the cells in both packs had 4.18volts when checked with voltmeter. That blew me away ? These packs are run hard in a Slash once every few months and the packs are stored at full charge for months at a time.
Is that dumb luck or he's super lucky with his packs qaulity ?????

[lincpimp]

Originally Posted by Bondonutz

Here's one to make you think ?
One of my buddys whom I rarely see for RCing due to his schedual asked me to take a look at his packs. He has a TP 3s 3850mah and a Venom 3s 4000mah. These packs are over 2 years old and never seen a balancer, he uses a Multiplex charger only.
All the cells in both packs had 4.18volts when checked with voltmeter. That blew me away ? These packs are run hard in a Slash once every few months and the packs are stored at full charge for months at a time.
Is that dumb luck or he's super lucky with his packs qaulity ?????

The thunderpower pack does not surprise me, I have left enerland cell based packs sit for 6 months fully charged and they have lost very little voltage and always stayed in balance.

As for the venom pack, I have no experience with the 4000 mah cells, but the little 1800 cells were pretty good. They did not last very long, but I was pulling them pretty hard.

[hoober]

Originally Posted by Bondonutz

Here's one to make you think ?
One of my buddys whom I rarely see for RCing due to his schedual asked me to take a look at his packs. He has a TP 3s 3850mah and a Venom 3s 4000mah. These packs are over 2 years old and never seen a balancer, he uses a Multiplex charger only.
All the cells in both packs had 4.18volts when checked with voltmeter. That blew me away ? These packs are run hard in a Slash once every few months and the packs are stored at full charge for months at a time.
Is that dumb luck or he's super lucky with his packs qaulity ?????

All my packs are the same way , I check them once per year and balance them if needed. I have a range of mostly cheap, budget and many used packs that I bought used. Some of them are very cheap e-bay type packs. The cell match is nice on some, and terrible on others. Cell match has no bearing on cell balance as long as the pack was once balanced. I have a balancer that lives in it's box , and I don't even use it to balance. If ones packs are out by more than .1 volts then something serious is wrong and needs to be investigated.

[zeropointbug]

Simply put, a balancer is a long term insurance on your lipo packs.

I have been charging my 2 G3 3s lipo packs as a 6s pack, non-balance mode, intentionally didn't balance them for roughly 20 cycles, I just checked them last night, nothing, as soon as I plug it in, the 720i balance mode says complete on both packs after a short pause. So there you go, if a pack is matched, it is far from crucial to use balancing every charge.