Multistar charger

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Dec 15, 2017
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Hello everyone . Excuse me for my English. I'm building a motorcycle and I need help with batteries. I'm using an m0909 engine and a 36-48v 300a driver I want to ride a battery multistar 6s 20a a pack of 12s 60a I would like to know what is the best way to do it
for the download I thought to use an acoustic warning but for the load I do not know which is the best option if a bms or a good charger What would you do?
Thank you
 
If I understand correctly,
- you have 6 packs, each 6s 20 Ah, configured 2s3p for overall 12s 60 Ah
- you will use an alarm to detect low voltage for discharge
- you want opinions on how to charge

Did I get that right?

A common strategy is to do a bulk charge for routine charging, and occasionally use a balance charger on the individual packs. "Occasionally" depends on your comfort level with your packs getting out of balance, and it helps to have a way to monitor the cells so you know when they start to drift.

You ask "what would you do", and my answer would be to use a BMS, but there seems to be a preference among LiPo users for the bulk charge / balance charge method. Either will work if you know what you're doing, but BMS is more "set-and-forget" after you've got it set up.
 
Jesusgimeno said:
Hello everyone . Excuse me for my English. I'm building a motorcycle and I need help with batteries. I'm using an m0909 engine and a 36-48v 300a driver I want to ride a battery multistar 6s 20a a pack of 12s 60a I would like to know what is the best way to do it
for the download I thought to use an acoustic warning but for the load I do not know which is the best option if a bms or a good charger What would you do?
Thank you

12S/60,000 mAh is a very, very BIG battery pack! On my bike, that would be over 100 Kph range!
I have a pack made from 4) MultiStar 6S/10,000 mAh bricks configured 2S/2P for a 12S/20,000 mAh pack and I bulk charge using a Mean Well HLG-320-48A;
https://power.sager.com/hlg-320h-48a-2525479.html
It's a 120 Volt input LED lighting(Like a store window display) power supply and avail. from many industrial electronics suppliers. That's the charger I use and it's awesome. It's fully potted, waterproof, CC/CV, dead silent(no fan) and Voltage adjustable 45V to 52V. As it approaches the set top Voltage, the Current attenuates to mili-Amps, where it will safely stay,....forever. Only a very soft "switching" can be heard. It's faster than one would think by the spec.s. Unlike a balance charger, it does not go thru switching cycles to read the cells. W/ a steady 300 Watts, it will put back approx. 5 Ah/hour.
You will need to add a mini Voltmeter(to adj. the Voltage/Ebay) and add connectors on both ends. Make sure you get the one w/ the suffix A.
Since you have six bricks, you will need six Battery Medics to ck and balance the cells:

https://www.amazon.com/Targethobby-Disc ... discharger
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Here charging small 2S/1P pack
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100_0064.JPG
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Here charging 2S/2P pck in bike with 4) Battery Medics.

Search my posts for more details.
 
I use a Meanwell HRP 600 48, which charges at 13 Amps max. I have it set to 49.8V to charge to 4.15v per cell on 12S battery. I use it on 2 6S 16ah multistars charges very quickly and the cells stay within a few hundredths of a volt.
 
Thank you. I do not think that with that battery I have 100km. I use a 300amp controller and I do not want the batteries to exert much effort. I would like not to have to dismantle the batteries to charge
 
the bms with bluetooth seems to me a good idea and use it also for the download. Do you know anyone who serves me?
 
I would like not to have to dismantle the batteries to charge

That is what "Bulk Charge" means and why we recommend Mean Wells with a top charge in the 50's V range.
Good luck.
 
That is what the Battery Medics are for, to check and balance. They are low-tech, passive dis-chargers that bring all cells down to a set value. They are slow and only handle 6S each, but.....
With a big pack that does not have the serial connection "broken" and is not discharged too low. 95% of the time, they are used as checkers only.
MultiStar has very good cell stability and in the very rare event, the pack gets out of balance, the BM's get be clipped on and left to work. They are safe to leave unattended. When the cells are balanced, they make a "beeping" sound.
There are many Mean Well models. Another poster here just listed this one;

https://www.meanwellaustralia.com.au/products/rpb-1600

I like the less powerful HLG series, because they are water-proof and can be used as a on-the-bike charger.

Whichever Mean Well you use, the combo. of a Mean Well power supply and Battery Medics is a very good solution to bulk charging LiPoly. I know, because I have doing this 7 years and have had many RC balance chargers and they all failed after a while. The Mean Wells are very high quality and you only have to buy one one time.
 
I use the Meanwell HLG-600H-54A as a charger for 14s (58.something V) at 12A. I parallel two of them for 24A if I need a fast charge.. (these are sealed and potted except for the adjustment points, so ideal for mounting on a bike or vehicle, but they're heavier and more expensive). it can be used on 220v or 110vac

The Meanwell HLG-wwwH- vvA should do what you're after. The "A" version means voltage is adjustable down from whatever voltage the "vv" is marked at, and it can do total wattage up to whatever the "www" is marked at.

This page has a list of them towards the bottom; they also sell them but I have no idea if the site is trustworthy/etc:
http://www.ledsupply.com/power-supplies/mean-well-hlg-series?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI3I7bz4jZ1gIVUZV-Ch00XwBDEAQYASABEgLu9_D_BwE


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Some of the replies to you above already tell you about them, but if you need more info there's some in these searches:

https://endless-sphere.com/forums/search.php?keywords=%22battery+medic%22+accur*&terms=all&author=&sc=1&sf=all&sr=posts&sk=t&sd=d&st=0&ch=300&t=0&submit=Search

https://endless-sphere.com/forums/search.php?keywords=bat*+medic*&terms=all&author=&sc=1&sf=titleonly&sr=topics&sk=t&sd=d&st=0&ch=300&t=0&submit=Search
 
Jesusgimeno said:
hello I've been looking at the hobbyking battery medic. Are they good for me?
Unfortunately, the Original Battery Medic has been cloned and the clones are junk. The Black ones are especially bad as they over-heat and the screen goes black. HK should not be selling those as they are a rip off.
There are two Blue ones that work OK, but one is better than the other.
The best ones have the higher-discharge light-bulb arary for a faster discharge, like this one;
https://www.amazon.com/Targethobby-Discharger-Voltage-Balancer-Battery/dp/B01ET33R5S/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1514578484&sr=8-4&keywords=battery+discharger
The light bulbs are not necessary to use, but this BM allows setting the Values by .01 V, ie; 3.91V, 3.92V, 3.93V, etc.
The other Blue ones only allow setting the values by .05V, ie; 3.90V, 3.95V, 4.00V, etc.
 
Not really that big a pack, 20 ah of 44v. Tiny in fact, for a motorcycle, or bike with motorcycle like power.

Sounds like you will be going with manual charging, manual bms. I mean the BMS is you. No electronic bms, because you will be discharging at such a high rate. Inexpensive bms won't work for the amps you plan to run at.

The main things you will need are this.

A good bulk charger, pretty high amps like at least 5 to 10 amps of 50v output. 50v will slightly undercharge your cells, for a bit less risk of any cell overcharging. This can be a power supply, or perhaps a 1000 watt lithium battery charger set to 50v.

You will need a wiring harness to paralell the 6s 2 p sections of the packs. You make those out of the same size wire, and the same size bullet connectors on the packs. It looks like a letter Y so its called a Y connector.

You will need a way to check the individual cells using the balance wires. I like the cellog 8 for that. A bit more accurate than some. A genuine battery medic can work too.

For balancing the packs,, I would get a regular 6s or 8s RC charger, and power supply for it. This can be used to charge a single cell in any pack. This will be the quickest way to balance your pack. Individually charge any cells that are very low compared to the others. Low is more than .05v off. Less than .05 off forget about it, no problem. Thats just normal. The charger can also be used on any individual pack once you have it removed from the others, to balance charge the whole pack. But that is very slow compared to just filling up a few low cells in the packs, while still assembled as 2p 12s.

Have a whole pack volts display on the handlebars, to know when to stop riding, and pay attention to it. A cycle analyst is the best you can get.

When you see 42v on the display while riding, slow down. When it says 42v when you are coasting or stopped, STOP! As you ride, you will get a feel for when to stop, and Ideally you would stop when the voltage is 43.8v when stopped.

Riding fast, you won't hear the beeper warnings. You will only hear the roar of the wind in your ears.
 
Dman brings up a good point that went right over my head(I was focused on a charging solution).
MultiStar trades C-rate for smaller size, lower weight and lower volatility. It just doesn't have the "punch" behind it like a higher C-rate LiPoly.
Icecube57 has done some extensive testing w/ the MultiStar and from his data, I can interpolate that a 20 Ah/12S pack could sustain a max. continious discharge of 40 Amps. And as Dman mentioned, a high-powered system would chew thru that pack quickly.
I'm not familular w/. the components this OP listed, but I think he needs to think thru the fundamenials of this build.
 
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