Today I flew 6 flight (8 minutes each) a fully charged ignition li-ion battery (2600 mah capacity) on a 100cc frame with a dle111 engine. Then, when I tried to charge the battery it only took 82 mah before it got full.

Is it possible that ignition battery only uses 82 mah for six flights occasionally??

This happened once before but I thought maybe I just did not notice how much mah I put back into the battery.

Now I am discharging the battery to make sure it has good capacity.

So, is there a chance that a dle-111 sometimes does not pull much mah out of ignition battery!?

Yep..entirely true. I have 2 DLE-111's and mine same draw. I use LIFEPO4 batteries, but hey juice is juice!!
I use Tech Aero IBEC..no need for separate ignition battery, inconvienience of charging and serves up the power off main batteries and also functions as a kill switch. http://www.tech-aero.net/ultra-ibec

Originally Posted by bobzilla

Yep..entirely true. I have 2 DLE-111's and mine same draw. I use LIFEPO4 batteries, but hey juice is juice!!
I use Tech Aero IBEC..no need for separate ignition battery, inconvienience of charging and serves up the power off main batteries and also functions as a kill switch. http://www.tech-aero.net/ultra-ibec

Just trying to confirm what you mentioned! Are you saying yes it only draws 82 mah in six 8 minutes flights? Which means only 14 mah per flight?

By the way, this only happens occasionally. So, I am not sure if it is the battery or the dle111 ignition that does this occasionally!

Correct. DLE-111 ignitions draw small currents. I estimate mine to be around 20-30 x 3 for three 12 minute flights.

Originally Posted by bobzilla

Correct. DLE-111 ignitions draw small currents. I estimate mine to be around 20-30 total for three 12 minute flights.

This is a big surprise to me.

Thanks for the confident answer

I am sure you are an expert in this area to be confident about such an odd figure. Thanks again.

BTW..3w and DA and ZDZ ignitions draw more..I used to run these twins, but switched over to DLE's quite a few years ago.
A typical day of flying my 37% MX2 semi aggressively (3 flights) cost me total all servos and ignition about 500-600mah per battery. I use a pair of 3600mah LIFEPO4 batteries on a powersafe rx, so I never have to worry about "out of juice" situation. Good luck flying and happy holidays!

Thanks and good luck flying/happy holidays to you too

No freaking way it's only drawing 14 mah per flight. Twins normally draw 120 mah per 10 minute flight. I would cycle the battery and double check that your charger is reading right.

Originally Posted by flatspinjim

No freaking way it's only drawing 14 mah per flight. Twins normally draw 120 mah per 10 minute flight. I would cycle the battery and double check that your charger is reading right.

I just finished discharging/charging the battery (it got full with only 82 mah post 6 eight minutes flights). The battery took roughly 2200 mah to get full. It seems the battery is ok.

As mentioned above, this happens only occasionally.

Simply charge a known good ignition battery. I used a 6v NIMH because my ignition can take over 6v (not like some other ignitions).
Fly your normal flights 3 times. Put the battery on the charger and fully charge again. My charger tells me total amps used to recharge. My 3w100 uses almost double from what my DLE uses. Give it t try.

Originally Posted by q8cub

I just finished discharging/charging the battery (it got full with only 82 mah post 6 eight minutes flights). The battery took roughly 2200 mah to get full. It seems the battery is ok.

As mentioned above, this happens only occasionally.

Your battery is not likely the problem. The 111 ignition would have used roughly 500mh in the 48 minutes of flight and associated ground running. I don't care what anyone else says, your data (and anyone else's that's similar), is wrong. This is not a dig at you, your battery, your ignition, or your 111, it's just plain cold hard fact.


Put an amp meter between your ignition and the battery, see the draw, you know the time span, do the math, you'll believe. Buy a new charger.

Shoot, my DLE-111 is so good that it charges the ignition battery off the engine while it runs. It's like a hybrid or something, and I never have to fill the gas tank either......

who the heck can fly for 48 min..hehe

If your charger says it only put back 80ma after 8 flights, the charger is either reporting bogus information or you perhaps recharged the battery using the wrong charger settings. For example, if you started out with a fully charged LiIon pack, discharged it slightly by making a few flights and accidentally tried to recharge it with A123 settings on your charger, since the A123s have a lower termination voltage, the charge cycle would abort almost immediately, reporting a very low number. Since most chargers when connected to a fully charged battery will report between 50mah and 80mah before they can determine that the battery is already fully charged and properly balanced, I would bet this is what happened. My twin ignition engines, including my DLE111 all use much closer to 80mah PER 10 minute flight.

Originally Posted by wfield0455

If your charger says it only put back 80ma after 8 flights, the charger is either reporting bogus information or you perhaps recharged the battery using the wrong charger settings. For example, if you started out with a fully charged LiIon pack, discharged it slightly by making a few flights and accidentally tried to recharge it with A123 settings on your charger, since the A123s have a lower termination voltage, the charge cycle would abort almost immediately, reporting a very low number. Since most chargers when connected to a fully charged battery will report between 50mah and 80mah before they can determine that the battery is already fully charged and properly balanced, I would bet this is what happened. My twin ignition engines, including my DLE111 all use much closer to 80mah PER 10 minute flight.

I always charge this ignition battery using the same setting (LIPO charge 2 cells) which peaks at 7.4 V. The LiIo setting is used for older LiIo batteries which had a peak voltage of 7.2 V.

There is a chance that the battery two cells were not balanced. I am using a charge setting (not a balance setting) since this battery does not have a balance wire; it is a duralite Li-ion battery. So, according to this theory when I tried to charge the battery the off-balance cell peaked quickly to 7.4 volts. After discharging, again according to this theory, the two cells went down to similar voltages and after recharging they both peaked to closer range voltage. Just trying to explain what happened in a rational way that accepts that an ignition battery is supposed to draw around 80-120 mah per 8 minutes flight on a dle-111 or similar size gas engine.