converting meanwell power suply into Lipo charger

wojtek

100 kW
Joined
Nov 29, 2009
Messages
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Location
Luxembourg
hello,

would it be possible to convert meanwell SPV-1500-24 into lipo charger?
http://www.meanwell.com/search/spv-1500/spv-1500-spec.pdf

thanks :)
Wojtek
 
I think there is a 500 page thread about this somewhere, but I read through the whole thing and didn't see "this is how to do it".

You can adjust the output voltage on the meanwells pretty easily, and the 24V supply can be adjusted up and down a couple volts. 24.5V should be the right voltage for a 6S lipo pack.

I think the issue is that the meanwell supply tries to charge the pack as fast as it can, and because it's a low resistance load, the power supply overloads trying to charge the battery, and eventually smokes. I think the tppacks circuit tries to prevent this by doing some throttling.

Is that right guys?

-Warren.
 
I don't think i read that.

Meanwell supplies, depending on the one you get, current limit by foldback. Meaning, They won't let the current go over a certain point, and if it does, it will drop the voltage until the current reduces.

With Lipo, I'd invest in a GOOD CHARGER, one that charges with a smart profile. Anything else is just asking for trouble.
 
First off,frodus , thanks for your comment about 'Foldback', that answers my question on another thread here
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=27207&p=393186&e=393186
about what is happening to my meanwells, and why output voltage is dropping down to 4.5 volts when under max load from my iCharger. The current limit I have set is causing the voltage to be pulled down, my iCharger is obviously trying to draw too much.

To answer the OP's Title to his original question ( at least from my complete reading of that long thread 37 or 38 pages...I certainly hope you were joking about a 500 page thread!!.). YES Meanwells can be used as a charger

As for the more specific question contained in the body of the post..... not sure if I have seen that particular model mentioned, but if the voltage adjustment is anything similar to the S and SE series, then it could be possible to modify the charger to operate over a greater range than indicated in the page you linked to. and at 1500 Watt I woul dliek one too

If the design is similar to the S 48-350 's that I have then the mod to extend the range is simply remove the voltage adjustment potentiometer trimmer and replace with one of greater range. For mine I swapped the original 1k single turn trimmer for a 5k 16 turn cermet trimmer. Well actually I swapped it for two trimmers and a DPST switch, so I can have two different voltage settings

I am posting this at 2 in the morning from my iPod in bed, while watching over my two meanwells and an iCharger charging my LiPo pack, and I am not going to the PC now, but if you like PM me and I'll forward you all my links I found on this site about the mods. If you don't Pm me then I am unlikely to remember.... Or try a board search but I do know that is a pain to use at the best of times
 
Just looked at the spec from work and not on the iPod...
Trimmer range shows as 9.6 to 56 volt for the 48 volt unit..much better than the + /- 10 % range of the S or SE series.

As long as the voltage control sense system is the same as the S and SE series,t ehn I see no reaason why the tppacks board would not work to contro it,

Would need to build one your self though...they are nto available at the moment..I got one second hand after posting in the Wanted section.

The schematic is aviailable so it would nto be difficult to build one up on some vero board
 
excellent - thanks guys for your output!

i do have a icharger 1410i but it is limited to 550W.

In future i will be using an offroad trike with 44v50ah battery pack [turnigy 30c]. I was wondering, would it be possible to charge 2 x 22v50ah packs at the same time with 2 the tppacks board?
In the specs it says: Current sharing up to 4500W(2+1)
http://www.meanwell.com/search/spv-1500/spv-1500-spec.pdf

I think this is a new model so i would expect high tech inside ;)

The reason i am looking at it, is that i am planning to do some off road holidays and would like to be able to charge the batteries twice a day. it would be easier to have just one charger instead of 2. and also faster to charge in general.

Yes tppacks they also make some "bms" solutions for lipo packs but i was never lucky to get any answer from them....
 
Well I charge my 20s4p LiPo pack off a pair of S-350 - 48 meanwells. The meanwells are set to 41 volts each to give 82 volt, could go higher but leaving it low for now. I do have a tppacks cc/cv board but have not used it yet. I have just tried direct bulk charging once till the current dropped down to about 1.5 amps, then I reconfigured the pack to 10s 8 p and balanced slow with the iCharger.
The tppacks cc cvboard fits to the charger not the battery pack , so you would only need 1 board. Or look at the full Bms that I know nothing of

Assuming your 44v pack is 10s ? Or 8s anyway, since those meanwells support load sharing, two in parallel would give you a over 1c charge rate
 
NeilP said:
Well I charge my 20s4p LiPo pack off a pair of S-350 - 48 meanwells. The meanwells are set to 41 volts each to give 82 volt, could go higher but leaving it low for now. I do have a tppacks cc/cv board but have not used it yet. I have just tried direct bulk charging once till the current dropped down to about 1.5 amps, then I reconfigured the pack to 10s 8 p and balanced slow with the iCharger.
The tppacks cc cvboard fits to the charger not the battery pack , so you would only need 1 board. Or look at the full Bms that I know nothing of

Assuming your 44v pack is 10s ? Or 8s anyway, since those meanwells support load sharing, two in parallel would give you a over 1c charge rate

thanks for the info! tppacks cc cvboard - i see, once i get hold of them, i will explore more...
My pack is 2x 6s4p [22.2v20ah] connected in series to give 44v20ah.. Zippy 20x
Another one will be 2x 6s10p connected in series to give 44v50ah. Turnigy 30c

gosh these projects are killing me! much more expensive than i thought they would be..
 
Same here, prob spent over $2000 US so far
You probably wont get a new cc cv board I got mine by putting an ad in the wanted section

Or just build your own
Pm me with your email and I will send u info

I will do a few calculations with regard to charger volts etc for your pack

Neil
 
NeilP said:
Well 12s at 4.15v per cell would need a 50 volt charger

yes exactly - i would have bought the meanwell 1500-48 but wanted to have a power supply to plug to the i-charger which cant take 48v... so i decided to go for 24v...

I am thinking to split the pack into 2x 22v and set the PS to 25V and connect parallel 2 packs into this one meanwell power supply. :?:
 
Well reading the spec sheet, it looks like you could do both with the Single 48 volt unit..OK, two gives you 3kW charge capacity so that is good, but if you only want to buy one unit then go with the 48 volt one.

The adjustable range is 9.6 to 56 volts...so her is what you do
The adjuster for the output voltage will be clearly marked....remove it and see what the value is...the original on mine S-350-48 was 1k
The get you self 2 multi turn cermet trimmers of the same value of what ever the original was and a change over switch, wire them up so you can swap between the the new trimmers...set one trimmer for 50 volt for direct charging of the pack and set the other trimmer to whatever the input voltage is for your iCharger. The max on my 3010b is 38 volt, so I have set my Meanwells to 37 volt.

You coul dmaybe get fancy and use a double, triple or 4 pole switch , and also wire two separate outputs with different fittings...when the switch is in one position, only one pair of outputs is fed...when the switch is flicked, the voltage changes, and the other pair of outputs is live...That way you do not accidentally shove 50 volts in to you iCharger, or send voltage from the battery pack in the to the Meanwell because the voltage is to low.

That is what I have done...two Meanwells and a pair of 4 pole switches. Bothe switch es up...I have series output at 82 volts...and CC/CV board in circuit...Both switches down and the other pair of outputs active at 37 volts and the Meanwells in parallel.
 
wow your knowledge and skills are impressive! :!:

i already bought the 24v like 6 months ago. i wasn't aware i could go down with voltage so much. damn it!!!

hmm for now i think i will leave it, what you described is still well beyond my knowledge and skills but thanks for sharing- im sure others will use your input here!

Happy Easter Neil!
 
Well, get a second the same to give you 3kw then you can parallel them up, or series to give 48 to 50 volt for direct bulk non balance charging.

Am posting this from iTouch so can't find my favs but search for posts from my ne and somewhere you will find a wiring diagram of how I wired the parallel/series switch.

Be aware that most of my knowledge is theoretical, I had not even seen an e bike till end last year or had much to do with battery theory. The parallel/series switch wiring was worked out over 10 or so iterations while stuck in a hotel room on Alderney ( a small island pop. About 2000) a few months ago.
Maybe some of the more established members can give better advice, I can only go from my experience over the last 6 months

I see from your profile you are also in Europe. I am in Jersey. Be careful ordering stuff from Crystalyte Europe, get advice from here first their info and knowledge is not very good.
 
NeilP said:
Well, get a second the same to give you 3kw then you can parallel them up, or series to give 48 to 50 volt for direct bulk non balance charging.

Am posting this from iTouch so can't find my favs but search for posts from my ne and somewhere you will find a wiring diagram of how I wired the parallel/series switch.

Be aware that most of my knowledge is theoretical, I had not even seen an e bike till end last year or had much to do with battery theory. The parallel/series switch wiring was worked out over 10 or so iterations while stuck in a hotel room on Alderney ( a small island pop. About 2000) a few months ago.
Maybe some of the more established members can give better advice, I can only go from my experience over the last 6 months

I see from your profile you are also in Europe. I am in Jersey. Be careful ordering stuff from Crystalyte Europe, get advice from here first their info and knowledge is not very good.

thanks so much! actually why not paralleling all cells to create 22.2v40ah for charging instead of keeping it at 44.4v20ah and keep just one meanwell power supply?
Oh Jersey, i heard it is very pretty! I had an old friend living in london who was going on holidays to jersey every year :)
 
Yes, Jersey is nice enough , but getting any parts for anything is aways very difficult

Yes , just parallel them up and charge as a single pack. I do that with my iCharger and my 8 10s packs..so i charge as10s8p with the balance board. Also plan to bulk charge as 20s4p direct with the meanwells in Series...but I have nt had the confidence to do that yet...not a full charge yet..I am only up to about 3 cycles with the batteries so far
Just got all the parallel leads off now and measurring the individual cells with a battery medic to see if any are showing any 'strain'.
Used about 15 Ah out of a 20 Ah pack and they are still up at about 3.70 volt per cell...just wondering if i should ride a bit further and drain them a bit more before charging again
 
http://www.ypedal.com/Lipo/Lipo.htm
http://sites.google.com/site/tjinguytech/charging-how-tos/lipo-terminology

useful info on those sites

Here is my Meanwell build
P4230506.jpg

Here is how the series /parallel is wired. The 4 switches shown are 4 poles of the same switch
Meanwell series and parallel switch 1.jpg
 
Since you already have the 24 vopt SPV supply, could you do me a favour and take the lid off and take a photo of the board
Thanks
 
wow that is a one big impressive build! :shock: :shock: :shock:

thanks for the info - will do a pic later today :)
 
I just set the charger voltage to be the HVC point I want, and plug the output into my pack, and the input into the wall outlet.

It works like a champ.
 
liveforphysics said:
I just set the charger voltage to be the HVC point I want, and plug the output into my pack, and the input into the wall outlet.

It works like a champ.

as simple as that? so if my HVC is set to 25v, i could charge 6s packs with no problem at all? the voltage of cells will never exceed 4.2v right?
But then does it mean that the power supply is intelligent enough to decrease the amps at the end of the charging cycle not to exceed 4.2v?
 
wojtek said:
liveforphysics said:
I just set the charger voltage to be the HVC point I want, and plug the output into my pack, and the input into the wall outlet.

It works like a champ.

as simple as that? so if my HVC is set to 25v, i could charge 6s packs with no problem at all? the voltage of cells will never exceed 4.2v right?
But then does it mean that the power supply is intelligent enough to decrease the amps at the end of the charging cycle not to exceed 4.2v?

Hi Wojtek,

I use a s350 48V meanwell clone to bulk charge my 12s3p (15aH) lipo pack. I replaced r33 with a 500 ohm trimpot resistor per boostjuice's mod:

http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=26039&start=0

You can see mine on my build thread. With the voltage trimmer set to 50V, I set the current limiting pot on about half and this took the built in current limiting to 5A from about 9A (i.e. psu destroying). No idea why this feature isn't exploited by the maker. Anyway this works really well, but when the fan comes on (when it gets warm) the current goes up to 6.5A. That's not really a problem for me, but I wander why the current control is linked to the fan being on or off, poor design?

Anyway, with this set up the current stays at 5/6.5A until over about 49V (guess) and then slowly tapers down to zero. More odd behaviour from the fan: when the current starts to drop off it goes to 0 when the fan is on and, say, 3A (or whatever) with it off. Again not a problem, but I have to wander about this design.

The chief benefit of the fechter board on meanwells is you can adjust them from the front without removing the cover, I guess :?:

Simon.
 
EDIT: more pics attached
 

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As liveforphysics says, yes, just as simple as setting the max voltage to what you want of the pack, plug it in and let it get on with it. You do have to watch for cell balance and take care not to overvolt any individual cells of course

The reason I was asking wojtek for pictures of his board was twofold...Foy my own interest and since he has a different MEanwell to the S-350 to see if it can be mod'ed similar to how boostjuice and other have done with regard to voltage mod (SVR1) Current mod (R33 and SVR2) and a fan mod.

I did both current mod and voltgae mods to mine ( see the letter box shaped slot on my picture ) In that letterbox , you may be able to see the tops of 8 multi turn trimpots. I have 8 trimpots, 4 for each Meanwell...Two current trimmers and two voltage trimmers per meanwell..Switchable so i can select two voltage ranges and two current limits.

Sico.. if you do the fan mod as per Commanda and her instructions, I do not think you find there is any change to the current output. Somewhere on one of the Meanwell mod threads is a schematic...take a look..then mod the transistor that turns the fan on...leave the thermistor etc as is. The mod involves shorting out the Collector and emitter of Q5.
I put a switch across mine rather than chop out Q5 entirely...see my pic again and the two switches either side up near the case hinge. Making it switchable like this you can either have always on in Manual or auto as meanwell intended

Meanwell_S-350-27-v1.1.png


Here is the inside of mine
24032011051.jpg


The chief benefit of the fechter board on meanwells is you can adjust them from the front without removing the cover, I guess

yes, and the end of charge detection As you can see from my build...if you are doing a mod to the trimmers to adjust voltage or current ...then bring the trimmer out of the case on leads as I have done

I set the current limiting pot on about half and this took the built in current limiting to 5A from about 9A (i.e. psu destroying). No idea why this feature isn't exploited by the maker

I think it depends on the version of the supply you have I bought two S-350-48's and they had un populated parts of the board near the R33 resistor. Off the top of my head R37 and SVR2...so some designs did have it used my the manufacturer. As standard many of these spplies seem to be set for 135% of their rated output...so if you just connect a pack up to one of these PSU's then it will run at 135% till it burns out...so a S-350 will put out 470Watt (11.4 amps at 41.5 volts...till it dies. The current mod is to reduce this down to at least it rated power.
I have made mine switchable with a 4 pole switch. so when i switch between voltages (36 and 41) I also get a corresponding change in the current limit....higher current limit for the lower voltage.


But having said all that...this applies to the S and SE supplies wojtek has a SPV 1500-24 supply...probably a complete different beast. Only pics of his internals will tell...or has anyone already used one?
A pair of those at 42 volts each in series...i could charge my 20S 4p 20 Ah pack at 35 amps....1.75 C...still well within the 5C charge rate stamped on them...Strange thing...7 of the 8 packs had 5C charge...one of them had 10C charge ...otherwise all identical
 
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