Good charging setup for the lipo noobs.

[torker]

Yea I like that the packs are polarized so I can't " screw up " And the gold 4 mm connectors solder super easy. I have an alligator clip hooked to a stiff piece of wire and a weight so I can hold the connector upright. As the Aussies would say " Works a treat "

 

[El_Steak]

Not only are they not polarized, but the 2 banana plugs are completely exposed and could easily touch each other if you connect your battery before connecting them to the charger.

On my chargers, I made a short lead from the banana plugs that transitions to Andersons. The banana plugs always stay connected, I only disconnect using the andersons. Much safer.

 

[dogman dan]

Yeah, same here. the bannanas stay on the charger all the time, and I have andersons at the other end.

 

[moonshine]

Hey all, sort of new to the lipo charging world. Currently, i have a 350W PSU with a 206B icharger. I have a 24s2p pack (sometimes 30s2p) and i'm using icecube's lipo harness. I have 4 units of 2 6s parallel packs, meaning i ultimately have 4 sets of andersons in parallel. Those andersons connect to a series cable that goes into my controller. For charging, i have to unplug each of the 4 sets of andersons...(they're 75amp andersons) and plug each of the sets of andersons into a parallel harness, which condenses into 1 set of 4mm bullet connectors going into the icharger. What would you guys recommend for a "quicker" solution? The charge setup i have is fine right now, however, my packs will be immobilized in my bike's triangle, so i was hoping for a better way to charge them instead of undoing all those andersons.... When a set of 4 andersons are stuck together it is RIDICULOUSLY difficult to get them off (almost impossible) so i don't slide 4 sets together. I usually keep two sets together (still tough). Any help would be appreciated!!! THANKS!!

 

[dogman dan]

Must be pulling some real amps to need those connectors. Sounds like you are kind of past the easy anything stage.

Look into bulk charging. But it will take an expensive set of hvc lvc boards if you have 4 sets of 6s packs, even worse if you went with the 4s packs.

Once you have the hvc lvc "bms" on your pack, you can just get a high wattage charger from BMS battery for the bulk voltage. They will tune the charger to your specified voltage.

I disagree with this personally. After each run with my RC lipo, it gives me great peace of mind to know that I removed each pair of packs from the bike, handled them, and have the chance to notice that they are not unusually hot, or puffed. Then they go into a safe RC lipo storage area. Far from excessivly pita compared to wondering if the bike will burn my garage and car.

However, this is not used daily on a commuter. My commuters run on pingbattery lifepo4.

 

[Pure]

Dog, all but one of your original pictures in the first post are broken, can you reload them?

 

[dogman dan]

Ah, another old thead with the pics gone. My copies of the original pics are gone, but those are easy to re do. Almost two years later, I'm still charging the same way.

I don't regret the cheap chargers, but one downside has been that they don't have end of charge adjustability. So I end up charging to 4.2v every time. No lilo setting.

 

[Pure]

I don't regret the cheap chargers, but one downside has been that they don't have end of charge adjustability. So I end up charging to 4.2v every time. No lilo setting.

ew yeah, that's a problem. Do you think they can be modded by installing a POT?

 

[dogman dan]

I couldn't say. Nowdays I just recomend newbs to buy an i-charger. I believe those ones have a lilo setting that charges to 4.1v per cell. You could buy two of those, and by setting the amps to the right setting, about 7 amps, have a double charger setup that works the same.

Though I'm sure charging to 4.1v is beneficial, I've not had any RC lipo die early for charging AND storing at 4.2v. Or more accurately, 4.18 or so where they rest after a few days.

But I sure wrecked 4 packs fast by whacking em hard with deep discharges to about 3.4v. So I say worry a lot more about the other end of the voltage range. All my 20 or so other packs have been discharged to about 3.8 most of the time, and they are doing fine at two years of weekend use.

 

[Pure]

Thanks for the tip!

 

[spinningmagnets]

There are better and faster-charging power-supplies, but I have been happy using this one, and its the cheapest one I'd recommend for anyone starting with LiPo.

$40, 25A, 350W Power-Supply, It has a metal case and is fan-cooled.

100VAC-240VAC in, Two outputs to run two RC chargers at the same time, 14V out. I've been using it a year for 5S/6S

http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=9205