ViFly StoreSafe, a standalone lipo discharger. Supplied by ViFly

Here's an interesting idea, a small little gadget to plug into your lipo to safely discharge them to storage. Let's charge up some batteries and see how they perform.
This product was kindly supplied by ViFly for review and you can get hold of this direct from ViFly at (non-affiliate link) www.viflydrone...
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[@MCsCreations]

Awesome review, Wayne! Thanks a lot! 😊 But yeah, it's too small to be really useful. 😕 It would be useful, however, if it was for 1s batteries! It's not easy to put them into storage... And even with that size it could be fast enough. Anyway, stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊

[@CurryKitten]

I've not seen anything able to storage 1s other than the Flying Sandal board I reviewed a while ago. For 1s the 1W of discharge would actually be quite useful! Perhaps I'll try it with an adapter

[@theknowledgewithin6514]

Yes Curry Kitten great channel ❤️🙏

[@CurryKitten]

Thanks so much :)

[@theknowledgewithin6514]

@@CurryKitten Welcome. Good Channels Deserve Good Press. You have helped so many people. Think about how many people you have taught to fly :-) Great Guy

[@iPeel]

Whenever I got back from a meet where you'd smashed all my planes out of the sky, I used to put all the unused batteries on a whopping great 2.2 ohm resistor bolted to a heatsink. It needed an eye keeping on the cell voltages but only took an hour to discharge 4 or 5 batteries in parallel.

[@CurryKitten]

I don't know if I'm more outraged at the accusation that I was in the wrong (it was always you) or you had an opportunity to write some arduino code to automate all of this!?

[@iPeel]

@@CurryKitten The thought did always cross my mind and I did get some opto isolated relay modules to do it, but whenever I got around to using it I was always occupied with going through the binbag looking for what could be salvaged.

[@vendettasnares]

I build my first discharger recently out of four 100W 1Ohm power resistors. In that setup resistance of the whole thing is around 1.1Ohm. So the current is roughly the same as voltage. But it gets very hot - it exceeded 110 C / 230 F for both 2S and 3S. And I need better thermometer to get to know how hot that gets 😁 fun project, but for next one I'll definitely need better cooling or compromise and make the resistance higher, and thus limit the amout of dissipated power.

[@CurryKitten]

I used to use some halgen (IIRC) bulbs, which could discharge a lipo in about 5 minutes, but it wasn't a great setup I had to hold the lights out of the way as they were super bright and look at a voltage indicator so I'd know when to unplug. I tend to just use a charger to go back to storage these days

[@vendettasnares]

@@CurryKitten it was more of fun project to me than something that I actually needed. But what seems more attractive to me is charging my phone or power bank while putting my batteries to storage. And the most practical way is to use USB charging module with power supply mode/regenerative discharge from lipo charger. You know, zero waste mentality 💪😅

[@marklee4409]

Yea for me that is too slow also. I don't like leaving Lipos unattended. I use the ISDT FD-100 Smart Discharger. Its not cheap but works great for my 4-6s.

[@CurryKitten]

My Hobbymate charger (as seen in the video) manages to get from full to storage pretty quickly as well. Something that could do around a 1A discharge on it's own would be handy I think, but 1W not so much so

[@RCThis]

Pass

[@hanger9uk665]

Isdt fd200, done, 10 to 15 mins almost any battery. You could even go quicker but I think that's a sensible safe discharge time.

[@CliveFpv]

And Bluetooth connection

[@CurryKitten]

Yep - just about any charger ever will do a far better job at storage charging

[@rclabbotics5413]

didnt know these where a thing ... might get one im always leaving lipos on a fpv screen too discharge them to 30%

[@CurryKitten]

That's one way. I used to use 3 50w light bulbs, that brings them down pretty quickly, but did involve me sitting there watching a watt meter to see when to stop them. A decent charger works better for me these days

[@noforyoutubepremium3108]

@@CurryKitten AGREED! An ISDT Q6 pro works damn good!

[@Retset]

I use something that generates much more heat - an ISDT FD100 Discharger. Not sure they are still available but I bet ISDT have something. It's great when a 3000mAh 4S needs a discharge after not being flown - my mains charger would take forever! I'd rather have one meaty discharger than a few weedy ones.

[@CurryKitten]

Interesting - I've not looked at a standalone discharger. My main chargers do a pretty good job at bringing unused lipos back to storage, but I mainly fly 1300-1500 4s. Given a 5000mAh 4S, the time stretches out a bit more!

[@Retset]

@@CurryKitten They are well worth it. I put it outside as a loud fan dissipates all the heat! It brings it down to about 3.85V per cell. It is not balancing, of course but if the battery is good, the cells will be extremely close. Any tiny balance tweaks happen in the subsequent balance charge (I only balance charge, never quick charge)

[@frankdearr2772]

👍 Great topic

[@stevefox3763]

Storage voltage for your lipo? Na, I see some in field hand warmers for the winter there :)

[@CurryKitten]

Thumb warmers - unless the heat sink gets a bit bigger :)

[@stevefox3763]

@@CurryKitten I was thinking of them in a clenched fist inside a pocket when that pain we've all felt sets in. I have a 12v silicone 3d printer bed element, that thing gets crazy hot and held between two flat hands with wool gloves on is still very fast at putting heat in your hands :)

[@gliderkiteflier]

I was skeptical about these. As hard as my current battery dis/charger works to shed the mah, the size of heat sink just made me think it would take a long time. I suppose one way to use them would be to buy enough of them to just leave them on the day's unused batteries unattended until you get around to sorting them out properly. Is that risky? How important is it to constantly maintain perfect balance between the cells?

[@CurryKitten]

I don't like to just leave lipos unattended when discharging (or charging) usually a few hours sitting in the office means I can get through a days worth of storage charging. Balancing the cells - I guess mileage may vary. Having a cell at 3.9 is still better than one at 3.3 or 4.2 long term. But I like everything in balance - gives me a known quantity to go from, and it's easy to tell if a cell is going bad

[@johnk8825]

I guess if you have a battery that you've used but it doesn't have enough power left in it to fly with, you could plug it in and put it in your pocket on cold days as a hand warmer.

[@CurryKitten]

More of a thumb warmer, the heatsink gets hot, but it's hot very big so you'd have to do each finger individually :)

[@gerrysquire]

i just use a smoke stopper bulb to discharge mine and stop when at 3.8 volt. takes about 6 mins

[@CurryKitten]

I used to use 3x50w bulbs, but now I've got decent chargers, they do a great job

[@quadswithmods]

Like and comment algorithm helper but great video like normal 👍🏻

[@CurryKitten]

Legend!

[@marinehm]

So, would you say this was a piece of crap? Or in nicer terms “not worth buying”?

[@marinehm]

For the record. I use my HOTA D6 pro. Never an issue. That thing is “gold” for this hobby!

[@CurryKitten]

I'd always be nice - "not worth buying". But I am always open to opinions. Sometimes what I think is useless, some people like - hence the open offer to let me know if there's a use I'm not seeing. So far, people have come up with "hand warmer" if you stick it in your pocket with a lipo attached. Still, not a compelling reason.

[@CurryKitten]

Agreed - I have the HobbyMate version of the same, it's easts up storage charge of lipos. I can do a whole days worth in an evening in my office

[@FlyingBuzzard]

I simply use a 1157 car light bulb to discharge my batts IF needed, my charger also has a discharger mode...

[@Rich-TeaFPV]

so probably not worth it over a ISDT FD-100 which discharges a 1500mah 4s in 10 minutes, thanks Wayne

[@CurryKitten]

I'd tend to agree. Every charger I go will do a far better job

[@kelvinbloomfield6545]

To me I would rather plug my battery into a drone or plane to to run batteries down to storage level .by a voltage alarm

[@CurryKitten]

My chargers bring things into storage pretty well. It would be nice to fly them all around until at storage in an ideal world :)

[@RCThis]

Pass

[@CurryKitten]

Understandable

[@lemoncfpv8434]

omg i wish i watched this before i bought one of these... :/

[@CurryKitten]

Sorry - at least they aren't that expensive

[@lemoncfpv8434]

@@CurryKitten ...one of the reasons i even threw it in the cart. I guess in need an ISDT FD-100 SMART DISCHARGER for my 6s 1300's...

[@noforyoutubepremium3108]

1. They don't balance discharge! 2. They're ULTRA SLOW! 3. I have 2 chargers, and balance boards, so I can discharge multiple batteries at once and they turn out perfectly balanced! And doing 6 batteries at once takes less time than this thing will do ONE! Mine are balanced and this thing isn't! $6.99 would be a waste of money, IMO. 😕💸

[@gerrysquire]

dude its friday. you said wednesdays

[@CurryKitten]

Well there's usually a Wednesday video, and then a Friday video if I've done 2. I'f I'm really going for it, maybe even a Monday video

[@mayberrywj]

Useless piece of kit..... thanks for reviewing

[@CurryKitten]

Think of it as a public service :)

[@heliharris69]

Good review, clearly not very efficient or reliable.. not very impressed with these....I use a couple of AOKoda CellMeter 8 150W Discharge Module Sets....which i have found to do the job quickly and accurately ....

[@CurryKitten]

Does that know when to turn itself off or anything. I used to do a very manual version of this with 3x50w LED bulbs, but I needed to watch a watt meter like a hawk to decide when to stop

[@heliharris69]

@@CurryKitten Yes ...you can set the discharge voltage to any voltage you like.. in my case...completely discharge to 3.3v or storage at 3.85 for LiPo battery`s...Spare bulbs are available from Amazon...i ordered a couple at less than £3 each but not needed them after 2yrs of use...Good piece of kit IMHO.

[@heliharris69]

@@CurryKitten Another point with these units... I don't know what lead plug they use on there units... It's not a mini micro jst... It's even smaller which is a pain... Because i can't source them anywhere.. So if you wanted to move it to another quad... You would have to unsolder it from the FC each time.

[@viktoranatolifrank1378]

ANATOLI13