Let your Ping charger breathe! I melted mine

[JinbaIttai]

I went to unplug my charger when I woke up this morning. Green light was on, charger and battery felt cool. Then I realized that the housing is all warped and partially twisted, like it overheated badly. I wonder if it is because I leave both the battery and charger zipped shut in a cooler? The BMS on the battery as well as the charger are usually pretty warm, but I don't remember them getting hot enough to melt things. I just emailed ping. Any good inexpensive sources for a replacement?

Also, I've got a 36v SLA charger that came with my hub motor kit. Will that put out enough volts for the time being to charge this 36V LiFepo4?

 

[snowranger]

The SLA should work temporarily but will not balance the cells.

 

[dnmun]

didn't snowranger just have a ping charger blow out the inrush varister? maybe you have the same problem. PJD sent him a new part, better than the original part and it worked fine.

edit: found it @http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=7546

 

[Pete]

Any good inexpensive sources for a replacement?

Erm... Ping ?!

Does the charger still put out voltage ? And does the cooling fan spin ?

I have a problem with mine in that the fan does not spin until I give it a nudge. When I found the problem the first time the charger had been running for half an hour or so and was already very hot. I would not be suprised if it turned to gloop after a few hours running without the fan.

Oh and Yes, you need to get the charger out of the cooler bag, at least while it is actually charging. The BMS and charger should be quite happy sealed in a bag under normal discharge conditions. My Ping battery lives inside a sealed ammo box and shows no signs of even moderate heating apart from a couple of highly localised spots directly in contact with the FETS.

 

[JinbaIttai]

I'll test the fan and its charging ability when I get off work. I'll try to post pics.

 

[snowranger]

didn't snowranger just have a ping charger blow out the inrush varister? maybe you have the same problem. PJD sent him a new part, better than the original part and it worked fine.

edit: found it @http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=7546

PJD offered to send one, but I had already ordered one from digikey. It was rated the same as the original though.

The symptoms for this one are a little different though in that Jinba's charger still has the green charging light on. Mine was completely dead.

For the 5 amp charger at least, Ping said that the fan is unnecessary. There are two huge heat sinks inside the charger. There is always a bit of an acrid smell when using this charger. I am hoping for the best. The 5 amp charger actually charges at a little over 5 amps for most of the time and quickly tapers off to almost zero near the end at 60.3 volts. Although not that reliable, this charger is faster than most 48 volt chargers at the price point.

 

[JinbaIttai]

I really need to get a new camera. Anyway, no pics for now.

The charger seems to work fine, it just looks a little ugly now. The fan kicks on ok and it seems to cell balance like its supposed to. I guess I should have known better. Yes, the charger does in fact get hot to the touch during some parts of a charging cycle.

I am changing the title of this thread to, "Let your Ping charger breathe! Mine overheated and started to melt."

 

[dogman dan]

Fan or no, you definitely have to ventilate. On my soneil 2 amp 36v charger, one look at the vent holes told me it wouldn't cut it for New Mexico summer. I took the case apart and drilled as many 1/4 inch holes in it as I could. It lowered the temp of the thing a lot! It was previously too hot to touch when running. No way do you want to operate a charger sealed in some kind of box, it has to at least be open while the thing runs. I found several chargers couldn't handle the bumps of the road anyway, they simply aren't made for it, so carrying on the frame all the time is not the best idea for these cheap chargers. I keep one at work to avoid beating the crap out of it.