Hi, i recently bought a 4 channel heli from a member of this forum. the battery specs are 3.7 v, 1600 mah Li po. It used to last for 7 to 8 min after appr 1 hour of charge. After about 20 flights, it lasts for about 2 minutes !!. I wonder if this is the total lifespan of batteries ? i followed the basic precautions for Li po. I know different company batteries have different performances but can any one explain how long a good battery lasts, so that newbies like me would have a realistic idea about RC stuffs before venturing further. Also i would welcome help in buying a replacement battery for GT 8008 (which is a great heli for beginners).

Thanks in advance.

Might help if you asked this of the  member who sold it to you. He may well be aware of the issue and could guide you accordingly.

+1 get back to the member who sold it to you.

If you did not over discharge it, then it should typically last longer.  Not over discharging LiPos requires a level of self discipline and control, which is hard to do if you aim to fly until the heli drops down because the battery is drained down.  It is common for people to do that in the excitement of flying.  A typical symptom would be that most lipos would puff up (gradually) when over discharged.

Yes Anwar, LiPos are not what they are puffed up to be!    :devilish grin: - need to add a new emoticon maybe?

hi, im not really complaining about the product and i thought, it is a sort of useful information for beginners like me so I posted it separately. I searched through the forum and got to know a bit about the Li po s but all i wanted to know was how many 'cycles' would a LiPo last. And Anwar sir, how do i know im over-discharging the LiPo, when should one stop flying the heli. I typically was flying it till it was sort of week (although not complete or not till it would drop down) and stopped immediately. Thanks for your reply guys.

All of this has been discussed multiple times before   Let me point you to the specific posts.

http://www.rcindia.org/batteries-and-chargers/taking-care-of-lipos/  (see item [4] in the first post).

Basically you need to use a timer and stop, when you know you are at 80% of usage.  To figure out that 80%, see this :

http://www.rcindia.org/batteries-and-chargers/taking-care-of-lipos/msg6305/#msg6305

Thanks Anwar sir.