DIY Li-Ion pack for Taranis Qx7

While building my first RC plane, I learned that the take off weight of the airplane is very crucial. The rule is, the more heavy you are the shorter you fly. So “one cannot simply” (Boromir meme here) dump so many batteries and expect a longer flight time. This fact makes me curious about batteries, and there I met with Li-Ion cells.

I spent some time on YouTube and surprised how people upgrade their electronic devices’ batteries easily with Li-Ion cells which are very easy to come by (they are very cheap or can be recycled from old laptop batteries, old powerbank batteries etc.) Then I decided to build my own pack for my airplane. But before building that, I wanted to practice with small stuff so I decided to make my transmitter rechargable! If you one Taranis Qx7, it needs 6 AA to operate. But luckily, the AA housing is modular and you can replace it with some other compatible battery (they sell official NiMh packs for Qx7). What I needed was 2 Li-Ion cells, JST connectors and some soldering.

I salvaged many Li-Ion 18650 cells from three old laptops and a powerbank which had been waiting to be thrown out. Even though some of the cells were done for good, I still got plenty of them. After I received my JST connectors and some necessary tools, I