balancing lipos

[ozzie-crawl]

just wondering how many of you regularly balance your lipos.
the reason i ask is some time ago i was talking to a guy whose job is repairing battry packs,he constantly goes over seas meeting battry manufacturers.
he told me that the manufacturers all say the worst thing to do is constantly balance lipo cells.
so the last 18 months i havent been balancing my cells,in saying this every time i charge i check to see if there is any difference in cell voltage.
what i have found in doing this my cells are always within .01 of a volt
i seem to have no trouble were as before the cells seemed to be out alot further.
these are all 2s 5000 packs.some prior to this were 4s packs
also i never run till the lvc kicks in.
maybe its just coincidence or the packs are just better quality
any thoughts ?

[andym]

I am with you Ozz, I check cells when upto approx 3.9 volts. If all is well I do not bother. On the odd occasion I have a out of balance cell it is an easy fix.

[BakedMopar]

Is there an explanation as to why it is "the worst thing to do to a lipo"?

[ozzie-crawl]

not that i can recall.
iam not saying people should stop balancing lipos.
i have just found i have had no problems since i stopped balancing them but like i say i dont run them till lvc.
was just interested if others do the same

[detox]

My Hyperion charger balances the cells near end of every charge. I may manually stop charging when balancing starts.

BTW...how do you charge a lipo when one of the cells reads low voltage? My Hyperion will not charge when one of the cells reads too low. Never run a lipo down to LVC.

[ozzie-crawl]

.

BTW...how do you charge a lipo when one of the cells reads low voltage? My Hyperion will not charge when one of the cells reads too low. Never run a lipo down to LVC.

havent had to do it myself but hear some guys charge on nimh setting for a short time till cell comes up enough for it to be detected on lipo charge

[sundog]

I've not been paying (as) much attention to that myself. I use a B6 charger and have just let it go thru it's charge cycle and run the boats and not worrying with it. I used to pay more attention to it when I used cheaper - lower C rating lipo's.

[screwball]

i have a balance charger and that what i use for all my packs although they are all under 1550 mah