Discharging lipo testing capacity ?

[SweetZ28]

I got some 3000 3s lipos and also have just got some 2s 3000 lipos.... Now i am not sure my older 3s lipos are in fact 3000 because they are tiny compaired to the new 3000 2s packs the 3s almost look the size of a radio sized lipo pack?
Anyhow what would be the best way to discharge and recharge to test capacity?
should i go down to 3v per cell or higher then recharge to see how much gets put into the pack?
Thanks

[Make-a-Wake]

I've often wondered if discharging mine to a 3.0v setting would actually discharge them to a resting voltage of 3.0v.............worries me a bit so i've never done it. When your LVC kicks in at 3.0 while running, batts come in at 3.7-3.8v resting which is 100% depleted. Not sure how that works with discharging, and dont want to risk my lipos by possibly running them to 3.0v resting.

[SweetZ28]

Well i did a test on my charger the discharge is set for 3V per cell max disharge current 1AMP.
So i discharged the 2 3000 packs and recharges to full and here is what i got.

Ebay purchased
EC Power 3000 3S = 2673 MAH

Turnigy 3000 2S= 3069 MAH

So the turnigy held just about 400MAH more so i guess the small looking EC power 3000 is not realy a 3000 after all?

[785boats]

Yep. Thats the accepted way of testing capacity.
Discharge down to 3.0V/cell under a light load of 1 Amp.
Then charge at the normal 1C.
That will give you pretty close to the packs capacity.
Older used & abused packs probably won't come up to their original capacities.
The voltages will start to climb up to resting voltages of 3.7V as soon as the discharge cycle finishes. Same as when you've hit the 3.0V LVC in the boat. By the time you get the boat in & untaped, the voltages have climbed back up. The difference being that the cells were discharged to 3.0V under a heavy load of 80A or 100A for example. That's why the packs get hot. But under a controlled discharge of 1 Amp they don't.
Cheers.
Paul.

[Brushless55]

what if you had a pack that actually took about 115% of the advertised mah size?

[H2OCamel]

what if you had a pack that actually took about 115% of the advertised mah size?

then you be thankful you got a better than adverage pack! :)

[Brushless55]

then you be thankful you got a better than adverage pack! :)

that was in my Turnigy 2200mah 25c or my Flightmax 2200mah 20c pack
I think I put back 2600mah after a sweet 3D flight in my Mini Funtana
and the pack still had life in it when I landed the plane

[sailr]

That is not unusual for high quality packs like Hyperions while the reverse is true of the cheap packs.

what if you had a pack that actually took about 115% of the advertised mah size?

[Brushless55]

That is not unusual for high quality packs like Hyperions while the reverse is true of the cheap packs.

Then that makes me feel even better about Turnigy packs!

[785boats]

Brushless, I've had a couple of Turnigy packs that took on slightly higher capacity than their rating when new, but I haven't checked them since. They have been well used & are over a year old Sounds like a good time to check all my packs & list the results. Just out of curiosity. Some packs are over 3 years old. Could be interesting.
Cheers.
Paul.