Micro Lithium Polymer packs

[Sceadwian]

I was given a gift of one of those micro RC helis that are inexpensive (15-30 dollars US) After a few fun flights, first thing I did was yank it apart to take a look inside. Electronics aside what interests me is the power source. A tiny foil vacuum packed Lithium rechargeable marked uselessly (AEC). It's about 12mms by 4mms overall (dimensions are nominal, it's irregular) Anyone know where I can get a handful more of something like this at close to cost? I'm guessing they're worth 2-3 dollars each. I'd be happy with 5-10 more, at 10-30 dollars total cost, with no more than 10 for shipping.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

I suspect you'll probably struggle getting them at less than the price for the complete chopper, you would probably need to go to China and order thousands to get a decent price.

 

[audioguru]

Hobby stores sell many sizes of lithium-polymer batteries for indoor and outdoor electric airplanes and helicopters.

I just looked at about 6 pages of lithium-polymer batteries at Tower Hobbies.
They are all much bigger than you want and the most expensive one is $579.00.

 

[Speakerguy]

**broken link removed**

That's the smallest I could find, and it indeed costs as much as a chopper. There are some larger 90-150mAH ones on other sites for $10 or so.

 

[audioguru]

My son and I are getting little IRC (infra-red control) choppers fror free.
It is a promotion by Energizer. Then we need to use Energizer (or Duracell) batteries to charge the choppers.

 

[Sceadwian]

Thanks for the link speakerguy, that's what I was looking for, little more expensive than I wanted but not a big surprise. Nice site has a good selection of packs and a couple nice chargers. Nice to see that one of the chargers has an Atmel chip as a controller =)

 

[Sceadwian]

The model I have is an IR one, the prop itself is crap for efficiency but durable. Controllability is a bit difficult because there is no direct head control, forward control is based on tweaking (PWMing) the throttle by hand, the change in the throttle and the flyweights on the head cause a centrifugal imbalance that tilts the head. Problem is you need to tweak the rudder the same way to keep direction constant and none of that is done automatically, the response time isn't really fast enough.

 

[audioguru]

They have new IR conrolled choppers now that can "shoot down" another one by shooting IR to it which scrambles its controls.