Hyperion EOS 1420i NET3 14s Balance Charger...

[MitchJi]

Hi,

This all-in-one connector is Gary's idea, although he's using beefier VAL-U-LOK connectors. I used DB25's because I have a large bag of them and I think they are good enough for the job.

The main leads are connected with 20 AWG (largest that fits in the solder cups). There are 4 short wires for the positive and 4 short wires for the negative. They are connected to a single 14 AWG wire right after the connector (4 x 20 AWG is the same cross-sectional area as 1 x 14 AWG). I haven't noticed any heat on the connector while charging. As for the DB25 pins, I've seen ratings anywhere from 2A to 7.5A continuous per pin. 5A seems to be the most common value I see.

Finally, when riding, I'll connect the pack to another set of DB25 connectors, each connected to 2 x Celllogs8 to monitor each individual cell. I'm working on a neat dashboard incorporating the cellogs and some LOUD piezo buzzers in case any cell dips lower than 3.4V (adjustable).

Are the VAL-U-LOK connectors big enough to allow single wire main leads?

Aren't the LVC and the Celllogs8 with the LOUD piezo buzzers redundant?

[chroot]

Where do you find 7s LiPo battery? I can find is 6s, 8s, and 10s. Never see 7s anywhere on HobbyKing.

[El_Steak]

Are the VAL-U-LOK connectors big enough to allow single wire main leads?

I don't think so. According to Gary they can handle up to 9A each:

Yes, I like the VAL-U-LOK connector idea a lot as well. These are very robust connectors, with pins that can handle up to about 9A, each. I'm looking at offering some pre-made harnesses as options with the charger.

Aren't the LVC and the Celllogs8 with the LOUD piezo buzzers redundant?

Yes and no. The Celllog8 / Piezo will give me advanced warning (adjustable) while the LVC will cut me off at the last moment (3V)

Actually, I wasn't planning on installing the celllogs when I first got the LVC boards, but after I came up with the simple DB25 connectors, I thought it be neat to had them in some sort of "dashboard"

[johnrobholmes]

I like the dashboard idea as well, post up somewhere when you get it all together!


I gotta just give my two cents again on this charger, I am really liking it. Hyperion quality, great price, and it works with zero hassle on my 10s and 12s packs.

[neptronix]

Where do you find 7s LiPo battery? I can find is 6s, 8s, and 10s. Never see 7s anywhere on HobbyKing.

You won't find them on HK. Get 5s packs and a 4s pack instead.
You will have to wire a custom balance connection. But doing so is quite easy.

[hillzofvalp]

It's safe to balance and charge a 14s10p lifepo4 (18650) pack with ONE charger, correct? I heard that each section would self balance.

[GGoodrum]

It's safe to balance and charge a 14s10p lifepo4 (18650) pack with ONE charger, correct? I heard that each section would self balance.

Yes, each charger is good for a pack configuration up to 14s, and all the cells will automatically balance. I use two chargers, driven by two isolated power supplies (Meanwells...), to charge/balance a 24s3p LiPo setup on my bike.

-- Gary

[hillzofvalp]

Any word on your pricing? I was thinking of getting a second 1420i down the road... I'm in Indiana

[GGoodrum]

Any word on your pricing? I was thinking of getting a second 1420i down the road... I'm in Indiana

I can't enable them on my site, as I don't yet have a way to separate international orders from domestic ones. I can only do the drop-shipping for domestic orders. For international, I've been having them shipped here, and then I re-ship the package as soon as it gets here, using flat-rate Priority Mail packaging. This adds a couple of days onto the process. The distributer is "next door", in Arizona, so it only takes 2 days to get here, once I order it. For domestic orders, it will ship right away, as soon as the order is placed.

Anyway, there are plenty available, so if you want one, PM me and I will get you a shipped price.

-- Gary

[GGoodrum]

I finally got a little time to put together a "single plug" charging solution, for a 12s LiPo setup, using the Hyperion 1420i. Here's a few shots:

There are two matching 18-pin connectors, one for the charger side, and one for the LVC/pack side. Each side has two 7-pin pigtails for the balancer wires, and each has two 14-gauge leads for the main charge connections. Each of these main charge leads are routed to two pins each on the connector.

The LVC boards are new, and as there's no need for the HVC function for this setup, that function was removed in this version. That makes assembly much easier/quicker. Each board still has four 7-pin JST-XH connectors, so these can be used as parallel adapters for up to four 6s-5000 Turnigy/Zippy packs.

There will be separate kits for the LVC boards and for the connection harnesses, hopefully by tomorrow, but I'm also going to offer a complete 12s package deal that includes everything shown in the first picture above, including the charger.

-- Gary

[neptronix]

Is it true about this charger, that the per cell voltage on lipo can only be set as low as 4.185v?

[Philistine]

The per cell voltage can be reduced to 4.18v, but you can reduce the capacity charge as a %, so, for example, you could charge to 90% of capacity if you wanted. The reason that you can only reduce the per cell voltage to 4.18 (interestingly you can also overcharge per cell if you want...), is that its intended purpose is actually to account for voltage drop due to resistance from different charge lead lengths (ie, it might be 4.2v at the cell, but if you had enough resistance in your lead, the charger might be seeing less).

[AussieJester]

I finally got a little time to put together a "single plug" charging solution, for a 12s LiPo setup, using the Hyperion 1420i. Here's a few shots:

Hyperion 12s Adapter Set-01.jpg

Hyperion 12s Adapter Set-03.jpg

Hyperion 12s Adapter Set-04.jpg

There are two matching 18-pin connectors, one for the charger side, and one for the LVC/pack side. Each side has two 7-pin pigtails for the balancer wires, and each has two 14-gauge leads for the main charge connections. Each of these main charge leads are routed to two pins each on the connector.

The LVC boards are new, and as there's no need for the HVC function for this setup, that function was removed in this version. That makes assembly much easier/quicker. Each board still has four 7-pin JST-XH connectors, so these can be used as parallel adapters for up to four 6s-5000 Turnigy/Zippy packs.

There will be separate kits for the LVC boards and for the connection harnesses, hopefully by tomorrow, but I'm also going to offer a complete 12s package deal that includes everything shown in the first picture above, including the charger.

-- Gary

Niiiice....doesn't get simpler than that, i just finished doing all the wiring on my own setup over the weekend, i used a DB25 connector as per El_Steak i.e


Would love to take pics of my setup but my camera/SD card aren't playing.

VERY VERY happy with the Hyperion and this wiring solution, simple to do and makes
charging/balancing a plug and play setup...LiPO care made simple!...OH hehe i also bought that second Meanwel
Gary should be here any day, my LiPOs will feel the full force of the Hyperion soon LoL...

KiM

EDiT: CORRECTION! I now have the second 24v meanwel Gary the courier just dropped it and a HUGE sheet of Carbon Fiber off
from Mr Recumpence SiR...DAMN i didn't think it was going to be such a big sheet

[wineboyrider]

AJ : I ordered my Hyperion today too! Will order my meanwells soon too. What kind of amps can I get with one 12v sla 250ah (big ass marine battery) charging a 12s 20.3 ah lipo pack? I'll find out when it comes, but just wondering if it would be around half the amps (around 10 amps)? Can't wait can't wait can't wait. Any how when my Ping is dead it's only lipo from now on!

[GGoodrum]

Nice job, kim.

I should point out that the new harness will work fine with Geoff's pre-assembled LVC boards as well. I purposely did it this way.

-- Gary

[LI-ghtcycle]

I have one of these chargers, and I have looked over this post, but I still can't see why I am having such long charging times when balancing.

I haven't built custom balance plugs yet, so I have just been using the two ports to charge 2 4S batteries at a time, but this is the crazy part!

Ever since I changed the TVC function to charge up to just approximately 4.18 (would have it at 4.15, but that is low as I can see to adjust it so far, just using the charger's menu, haven't been able to use it with my PC yet), it wants to take like 5 years to balance!!

I'm really pulling my hair out, I had one set of batteries today, that had been wired up with 4 more 4S packs that are 2p 3S for a total of 12S 12AH (Turnigy Nano Tech 4S 6000mah packs) with them parallel first, series second, but I kid you not, I only drained 2 AH's out of the pack on a quick trip yesterday blasting around at full speed, and it took no less than 4 hours to get them reasonably balanced!!

I have also noticed, even though I am charging up each of the three sets of 2 batteries (so 3 different sets) I always have a reading for the "#8" cell being about .04V higher than the rest of the pack, so for example, cells 1-4 on the first port will read:

1) 4.144
2) 4.156
3) 4.135
4) 4.148

(then the nest set of 4 starts with #8)

8 ) 4.185
9) 4.143
10) 4.164
11) 4.152

And in one case, it took no less than 7 hours to balance!

None of my cells have been below 3.5V, I have only once done a 75% DOD of this pack, and never saw more than 9AH's drained from this 12AH pack, so far as I can tell, nothing has gone low enough to get things out of balance, but for some reason, even though I can do a standard charge in just 20 min, if I plug in the balance plugs, it takes 3+ hours?!

I'm guessing I must have changed one of the values in the user programing that I shouldn't have, I hope there is a way to "restore to factory settings" I have the other 19 memory slots to use if this is the case, but I'm thinking once I get this problem resolved, I will set it for 4.18V and to stop at 90% and see what I get.

The other thing I have noticed is that it doesn't truly end at 4.18, that often it will have most all of the cells at 4.15 and one or two above that.

Am I just looking too close?

I am wanting to charge my batteries to no more than 4.15 as I cannot afford much, and I want these batteries to last as long as possible.

[neptronix]

Actually, what is happening makes complete sense.

The chargers were designed to work with a single pack, and the balance wires themselves are quite thin, thus their balancing current is very low. For example on the iCharger 1010b, it is "<300mA".. so 0.3a.

In order to balance, the charger basically drains off the current of an overcharged cell, then fills up the whole pack with energy, drains the ones that are over, fills up the pack with energy, again and again. At least that's how i understand it.

Now this small ability to 'discharge' power from the balance leads means the balance charge will take forreevver because you have 4x the mAH it was designed for.. so the balancing takes 4x as long.. as one pack!

Maybe you can increase the balancing discharge rate. This would be okay if you had 22 or 20gauge wires at the end of the balance connector that plugs into the charger.

Or even better, don't balance charge every time.. it is not always necessary.

[LI-ghtcycle]

Actually, what is happening makes complete sense.

The chargers were designed to work with a single pack, and the balance wires themselves are quite thin, thus their balancing current is very low. For example on the iCharger 1010b, it is "<300mA".. so 0.3a.

In order to balance, the charger basically drains off the current of an overcharged cell, then fills up the whole pack with energy, drains the ones that are over, fills up the pack with energy, again and again. At least that's how i understand it.

Now this small ability to 'discharge' power from the balance leads means the balance charge will take forreevver because you have 4x the mAH it was designed for.. so the balancing takes 4x as long.. as one pack!

Maybe you can increase the balancing discharge rate. This would be okay if you had 22 or 20gauge wires at the end of the balance connector that plugs into the charger.

Or even better, don't balance charge every time.. it is not always necessary.

I understand, but you must know that my previous charger did the same thing, not as accurate, but it didn't take a fraction of the time!

I would understand if I had discharged my pack to near depletion, but I haven't, and it's literally taking 3-4X as long as my last "less powerful" charger.

I am using a 12V 15A PS, but, if I understand correctly, the balancing is going to happen at any higher amperage just because I use a mean well with higher voltage, and I don't need a RC charger to simply charge up the pack, a regular power supply can do that, I need it for the balancing.

I'm going to try just modifying the second saved settings slot for TVC, and leave everything else at defaults, and hopefully this will solve the problem.

Before I went into the user settings and messed with it, it balanced in about the same amount of time as my last charger IIRC, so I am pretty sure it is my own doing ....

[LI-ghtcycle]

Well, here's something else I found frustrating, apparently if you tell it to go for just 95% capacity, AND you happen to have the battery over, in my case, 97%, it won't balance!

Since it was reading 97% apparently this keeps it from even taking the high cells down, so in order to get it to balance this after a regular charge (no balance plugs, it senses automatically) you have to allow it to go for 100% capacity!?

Well, anyhow, here is what it was reading when I had told it to go 95% charge, hoping it would just balance, and it gave me the little "I'm done!" ditty just as I started the charge cycle since it was already on 97%:

Port:
1) 4.149
2) 4.149
3) 4.150
4) 4.149

4.190
9) 4.178
10 ) 4.171
11) 4.169

I just now started the balance cycle, really all it needs to do is take down the 8-11 down to at least 4.18 (I hear that I should be able to make finer adjustments once I plug into my PC?) so hopefully this would allow me to get everything even.

The frustrating part for me is that I will see what would appear to be an artificially high reading on port 8 (the first cell in the second pack, I am charging the two 4S packs in series, so it's like I am charging one big pack that is 8S 6000 mah, but with two balance plugs, shouldn't make a difference right?) because I have seen it look really high, even in the 4.205V range, and then the next day I start again because I didn't want to be up another 4 hours charging, and now it's reading just 4.17 or 4.18?!

I'm really scratching my head on that one, and the weird thing is I charge all the packs in the same order, but each pair individually, so it's not like I am charging the same pack every time and the first cell in the second pack is always high, it's showing that for all three pair, so this would seem to indicate a extra high charging voltage on this particular "port".

Also, these packs aren't starting with that one cell higher than the others, they start on the charger all around about the same voltage.

Maybe I need to get another charger? This wouldn't be in the margin of error for this charger would it?

I mean, if I am charging a fresh charge from lower voltages, and everything is more or less balanced, and then after the charge it's not, that can't be right?

[snowranger]

The longest time to balance has been around 50 minutes for a pretty out of balance 6s 5 ah pack. 30 mV maximum gap. 7 hours seems too long.

[LI-ghtcycle]

Ok, here is something that makes NO sense.

I just checked the balance for #8, and it started at 4.190, it is now only down to 4.184 in 34 minutes??!

Please tell me this is not normal performance for this charger!?

I seem to have gotten two lemon chargers in a row now!

[LI-ghtcycle]

Ok, here is something that makes NO sense.

I just checked the balance for #8, and it started at 4.190, it is now only down to 4.184 in 34 minutes??!

Please tell me this is not normal performance for this charger!?

I seem to have gotten two lemon chargers in a row now!

Now at 48 min. it's only down to 4.183 ......... I'm going to try starting over, and see if it comes up with a different reading on #8.

This is my first Hyperion, and I don't think this is really the charger, but maybe some user setting that I screwed up, hopefully I can figure it out looking at the Hyperion site.

My last charger was a different one altogether, don't want to give the wrong impression that I'm on a second Hyperion with problems, just really frustrated!

****EDIT**** Sorry for the Hi-Jack, I can start another thread if you like, I just realized that I have taken your thread in a different direction than I should have.

[MitchJi]

Hi,

Ever since I changed the TVC function to charge up to just approximately 4.18 (would have it at 4.15, but that is low as I can see to adjust it so far, just using the charger's menu, haven't been able to use it with my PC yet), it wants to take like 5 years to balance!!

I am wanting to charge my batteries to no more than 4.15 as I cannot afford much, and I want these batteries to last as long as possible.

I'm pretty sure the problem is setting it to 4.18. Someone did some testing with A123 cells and lowering the max voltage still gave almost the same capacity but took a lot longer to get there.

I think you can accomplish what you want (longer cell life) by setting to charge to 90% or 95% and leaving the voltage at the default.

[johnrobholmes]

I agree with changing the TCS capacity and not changing the termination voltage. Give that a shot and see what happens.

Otherwise you may have a stubborn cell that is giving the charger a hard time. That is the only time I have had the charger give me grief from long balancing times.

[LI-ghtcycle]

Thanks, I will try that.

Here is the problem however, I wanted to confirm that it wasn't a particular cell in a particular pack, so I traded sides with the packs (I am charging two 4S in series) and then I got some really bogus readings!

Previously I had nothing lower than 4.15, and nothing higher than 4.17, then it had the cells that were all nicely balanced at 4.15, and it was showing one at 4.07 and another at 4.27!?!

I think I will try like you're saying and telling it go charge just up to 85% first and see where I am with the full voltage on the TVC, and see what happens.

If I continue to get bogus readings, I will talk to my hobby shop and see about getting another one. I have looked on Hyperion's site and haven't seen anywhere I can contact them, anyone know if there is a way to email them even?