How do you charge a lipo battery while it's still connected to it's load (e.g. like all modern mobile consumer electronics) using an off the shelf lipo charger?
I have an Accucell S60 battery charger and a 2S 4000mAh 25C Lipo battery. Both are designed for high-current RC cars where you typically remove the battery when you're done, but for my project, I want to embed and wire the battery so it doesn't need to be removed, nor the load completely turned off. How can I do this with the minimal extra wiring?
The battery has the standard HXT4mm discharge plug and JST-XH balance plug.
When charging, my application's load will be minimal and will only require about 500mA of current, so it won't be drastically stressing the battery. If possible, I do not want to have to introduce a separate power circuit to disconnect the load and power it separately.
Options I've considered are:
- Charge solely through the balance plug, keeping the discharge plug connected to the load. Comments here suggest that this charger doesn't directly support that, but comments here suggest I'd need a parallel balance extension cable to connect the mains charge lead of the charger to the first and last pins of the balance plug.
- Create a special adapter to wire the charger in parallel with the load via the discharge plug. I think this is essentially what option #1 does.
Is this feasible? Are there other options I'm not considering?