What is power battery?
Engine model which uses the electric motor to act as the engine is called electrical model, while the battery used to drive this kind of motor is the power battery. Due to the big difference between the power battery and other batteries, it is important for the performance of the model RC airplane.
The different types of the battery and its development
There are many kinds of batteries which can be used to act as the model airplane, solar cells, silver zinc batteries, lithium batteries, nickel cadmium batteries, nickel metal hydride batteries, etc. Read RC Battery Comparisons and Characteristics. The solar cell output current slants small, and it must been made larger to support the electric model plane fly, and the cost is very expensive, so little people has interests into that. Silver zinc battery has a strong power, and the big stream of the power makes the life of the battery short. At present, mainstream varieties of batteries used in the model aircraft are nickel series (including the nimh batteries and nickel-cadmium battery) and New lithium battery (including lithium ion battery and lithium polymer battery).
Why the electric model airplane was popular in European and American in the 1970s, the main reason is that it can be charged repeatedly and has already produced in a mass production. While the nimh batteries showed an extra advantage in offering power 50%-100% more than nickel cadmium battery. But in the large discharge power, it has been obviously lagged behind the nickel cadmium battery for a long period of time. However, in the early 21st century, nimh batteries have been widely used in model aircraft dynamics and become one of mainstream varieties by its small effect on memory, and little pollution to the environment.
In the early days lithium-ion batteries were used as a disposable batteries, it cannot charge, and with a high power, but the
internal resistance is very big, so they can’t provide larger electric power to support the electric model plane fly. The use of lithium-ion batteries is for military, but now it was used widely for our daily life such as our mobile, camera, PC ect. And it is forward to become the engine of model RC airplane in a long time in the future.
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