Buzzard Droppings February 2005

(Continued from page 6)

 

 

The CBA can also find unbalanced cells

within battery packs that appear to be

normal.  In the following picture of a 10 cell

2400ma Nicad pack, you can see where the

curve suddenly falls off and then continues

on with the discharge.  What the curve is

showing is that one cell is unbalanced from

 the rest and has finished its discharge early. 

The bad thing about this is that the cell can

either short or even reverse polarity.

 

In another 10-cell pack I found 3 cells that

would drop out early during the discharge

cycle, as you see above.  After a few days,

the whole battery pack just up and fully

died because of these bad cells.

 

I’ve tested the CBA with Li-Po batteries,

Nicad and NiMH and found that it works

great for all of them.  My Orbit charger also

has a discharge function plus can graph charge and discharge curves, but the charger is limited to a total of 25W during discharge.  For small packs this is fine, but is very restrictive when you are trying to get a handle of the condition of larger packs.

I’ve only just touched the surface of the use of the CBA, but this should give you an  idea of how handy the device can be.  While the CBA is probably aimed mostly at electric flight modelers, it is still extremely useful for also testing receiver and transmitter batteries.  With the ability to save your curves plus add others on top of them, it is very easy to keep a visual record of what is happening to any battery pack over time.  West Mountain also is constantly improving the software and providing it as free updates.  They also are very responsive to customers and have already included numerous suggestions in their software from modelers who have purchased the CBA.  They plan to come out with a really heavy-duty model of the CBA sometime in the not to distant future, however, for most modelers the current unit is probably all they would ever really need.  The unit is extremely well built and works as advertised.  So if you are in the market, I give it a big thumbs up. 

You can view their website at:  www.westmountainradio.com

 

Rick

Joe Goffin (middle) receives his well earned Special Service Award from Bob Martin (left) and Ron Swift .

The award winner for 2004, Joe Goffin, receives the certificate from Secretary—now Treasurer, Bob Martin and Club President, Ron Swift, just before the January 2005 club meeting. Joe worked with many of the club members to help get the field in the shape we enjoy today. You can see the project photos here http://www.barnyard-buzzards.com/Field/Maintenance/March20_2004/index.htm

and here http://www.barnyard-buzzards.com/Field/Maintenance/April10_2004/index.htm.

Thanks again, Joe!

Dave Weber

Special Service Award