I have an MRC charger and have a team orion 3600 on the way. My question is, do I need a balancer for this set up? Can I get by without one or will it shorten the life of the battery? thanks for any help on this.

I personally recommend that every LiPo owner have a balancer.

That disclaimer out of the way however, on smaller 2S1P packs (usually below 4k capacity) it's not as critical as the cells don't drift apart nearly as bad as a 2S2P or 3S and higher pack.

Orion packs usually have a 2mm plug that can be used to charge each cell individually in lieu of a balancer if needed. Just keep an eye on each individual cells voltage.

I also have team orion lipos and would like to know if you could recommend a balancer for them.

save your cash,plus you can do orion cells seperatly,thats what the center 2mm plug is for

I think in the long run a balancer is a GREAT investment. Plus for what they cost we as racers have spent money on worse things that still sit in our boxes

balancers are cheap... you DONT need to balance EVERY charge.. only if you see a dip in the seperate voltages. the orions can be done "manually" by charging each cell seperately thanks to the 2mm center tap... but if you do need one.. pick up a Team Checkpoint (or a similar one) that is around 25~39$ and keep it on hand.

if you ask orion, they say once every X runs. ive run my 3200 orion over 30 times already and have no need to balance yet. i have a checkpoint waiting in the wings.

if you dont have one.. you can always balance using another racers balancer :)

What adapter do I need to balance my Losi 3 cell lipo pack. I have a Team Checkpoint balancer but it doesn't have a plug that small on it. The battery has a 4 wire plug that is about 1/3 the width of the plug on the balancer.

Team checkpoint has a new adapter to do both kinds of batterys tower hobbies has them. :woohoo:

Do you have a part number?

i do think that is your standard 2s adapter. an equinox adapter (the checkpoint is nearly the same as the equinox balancer) should fit fine.

http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXNGC4&P=V

this SHOULD work.. but please call Team Checkpoint first and verify...

fyi.. team losi (i think its rebadged) has a lipo charger/balancer out now.. ;-)

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kenbajdek i back orderd one a couple weeks ago with some other stuff now they don't even have them listed so i'll check on it tomorrow.

I got the adapter from Team Checkpoint. Customer service had no clue. We are now stocking them. Team check point didn't know anything about the adapters. I ordered the adapter kit listed on the balancer manual and there were 4 of them in there. It works fine. Losi didn't want to help either. I was told to use there balancer only. I told them where they could go.

cool..... let me know where you got the extra adapters.. i'd like some.

Balancer is always a good idea for lipos, irregardless of how big or small they are.

In the case of airplanes, the lipos experience a relatively consistent amp draw, this is good in a way that they don't 'shock' the cells.
For cars, we have very different demands in comparison, our amp draw tend to have huge flactuations, going from low draw to massive surges in amps when we're exiting corners with full throttle, against the car's inertia and road resistance. This tends to put the lipos thru a much harsher 'lifestyle' which do tend to magnify the underlying micro differences in every single cell, which could promote an overall imbalance.

Another area to note, imbalance is almost gauranteed to happen when we subject the pack to over discharging. With the newer developments on voltage cutoff controls, chances are reduced, which is a good thing.

Chargers nowadays have came a pretty long way in their precision of voltage control and evaluation, which is critical for CC-CV charging, in other words, lipo. Certain chargers come with balancers built in as well, some chargers have circuitries which charge every cell individually, some requires an external balancer, some takes a feedback loop from their external balancer, etc.

Take your pick :)

so how can u balncer the orions with out a blancer

You can't balance w/o a balancer. A balancer is a small investment to maintain your cells.

From Orion's site. Rick Hohwart said, "To charge each individual cell you must use a charger than can charge a 1-cell LiPo pack (the Advantage can't).

So you set the charger to 1-cell, 4800mAh capacity, and 3.7V. You hook the charger positive to the positive on the battery and the charger negative to the balancing port, then charge.

When that one is charged. You hook up the charger negative to the negative battery and the charger positive to the balancing port, then charge.

Once you have done both cells, the pack is balanced. You should only do this every 50 cycles or so."