the low voltage cut off is important factor as this stops lipos over discharging. I over discharged one the other day i have no idea how it happened but none the less it needed to be disposed of as it was scrap. You can buy low voltage alarms which plugs onto the balance lead of the lipo battery, this is a sounder which alerts you that to bring the boats in and change the battery. Theres plenty on the net about this lipo stuff.
you can get a 'dead' lipo back up and running, inside the battery is a switch that cuts the circuit if the voltage drops below a certain point, sometimes they can be flashed from a bigger SLA battery to kick the switch back to 'on' it is a risky procedure as that low voltage switch is there to prevent overheating when charged from too low a voltage. you connect the higher voltage battery for just a second or so at a time until it starts charging on its normal charger. I have used this so far on two mobile phones, a laptop battery two canon camera batteries and on a couple of batteries for my handheld computer (hp ipaq).
the way I see it is if it doesnt work you havent lost anything, so far it has worked ok for me in all cases, some batteries have needed 3 or 4 'flashings' to get them restarted.
I used 6v for 3v batteries and 12v for 5v ones.
this is a risky process and you risk (at the extreme) the cells catching fire, so be aware of this and do it somewhere safe (outdoors) and dont hold me responsible as I have warned you.
I would also say dont try this if there is any physical damage to the battery, if it has swollen or has damage then it is dead, and doing the above will probably cause it to catch fire. but for batteries that have just been over discharged it should work.
Grendel
