Cellpro Powerlab 8 balance charger and 1800watt power supply

Just thought I would give my review about the cellpro powerlab 8. I see that almost nobody uses it here. I am not sure but I think it could be one of the most powerful hobby chargers around and this is the charger most people in the RC hobbies recommend for high powered charging.

It has a power rating of 1344 watts with a max balance charge rate of 40 amps. This means charging 6s packs will be at 40 amps max with a charge output of about 1000 watts.

The charger also allows you to connect to a computer for graphs. However, I am not sure how useful the information is for bulk parallel charging.

The charger costs $240 dollars.

The best powersupply to get for this charger is to order two dell poweredge 6650 powersupplies for $25 each from ebay. These powersupplies are rated each at 12 volt 72amps, 900 watts. Connected in a series for 24volts 72amps or 1800watts, will allow the Powerlab 8 to charge 6s packs at 40amps. It will also allow 8s packs at 40 amps for the 1344 watts max output.
These powersupplies are easy to modify because they do not need any internal modication for grouding etc. You simply buy them and connect a wire for the series connection, and then solder your connectors on. Very simple an 1800 watt powersupply for $50 dollars shipped. The only issue is you need to buy a special c19 powerplug as it does not take a standard computer plug. Can buy that anywhere for like $9 each.

This charger has worked flawless for me and the voltages and balancing is also perfect. I am not sure if other chargers can can charge at such a high charge rate as this as I know a year ago this was the most powerful charger out. For around $300, you can get a charger that can charge up to 1344watts and included in that price is a powersupply.

Love those chargers. I started using them when they were still rated for 1000W. A bit later and a firmware update boosted it up to 40A. I have 3 of them for my bikes and RC's. Two of them had to be send back for repair. Awesome warranty service that only cost me shipping.

I had thread on the charger on RC-monster that dates back in 2010. Called it a Whatanut Charger.
http://www.rc-monster.com/forum/showthread.php?t=27529&highlight=powerlab

I picked up one of these after having balancing issues with my hyperion 1420i. I liked the convenience of the 14s in the hyperion, but given how slow/inaccurate the balancing is on that charger, I feel this is a much better option. Now I can charge my 12s 20ah pack in parallel at 1C . The option to balance for the whole charge significantly reduces the time to do a balance charge with my pack.

Note that on my charger at least, I needed to up the input voltage to about 26.1 volts to get the full 40amps.

I used the same powersupplies but did the mod below to adjust the voltage and up the high voltage cutoff.
I used a 680ohm resistor for the OVP instead of a 1k as I didn't think it sounded like a good idea to allow the pot to adjust the supply to a voltage that could blow the caps (if I understood the explanation correctly). In any case, my supplies cut out before hitting the 16v output capacitor limit.

I also added a switch to turn the dc on and off. There is enough room in the case in the little cutout to drill some holes and mount the pot and switch in the case.

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showpost.php?p=22193149&postcount=1625

Please, do you have the link for the powersupply? I am trying to find. For this price, I want one too. lol

THey are not hard to find. Just search ebay for:

7000245 power supply
or
086GNR power supply.

for 1000w output you need 24v

so with two 12v 900w supplys in series you have 24v900w (37,5A for 6S)
not 1800w

but the way is right
use IBM BLADECENTER POWER SUPPLYs (74P4453)
they have up to 2000w on 12v. (50$ each)

Merlin you have a link to the pin out mods needed for that charger ?

sry i dont use this IBM supplys....i was just a noob on beginning and buy'ed this efuel1200w 24v Supply

marcos7007 said:

Please, do you have the link for the powersupply? I am trying to find. For this price, I want one too. lol

Click to expand...

Remember you need to buy the special plugs, unless you solder on spade connectors.

Do you have any thoughts on how to use this charger with a lifepo4 or A123 pack 48v (16s) something between 20-60ah?

as u can see on revolectrix.com

For Battery types: Lithium Polymer (1s to 8s balanced, 1s to 2s unbalanced), Lithium Ion (1s to 8s balanced, 1s to 2s unbalanced), Lithium Manganese (1s to 8s balanced, 1s to 2s unbalanced), A123 (LiFePO4) (1s to 8s balanced, 1s to 10s unbalanced), NiCd (1s to 21s), NiMH (1s to 21s), 6v, 12v, 24v Lead Acid batteries (Flooded, Gel, AGM, SLA)

Pack capacity: 20 mAh to 360Ah

Input voltage: 10-32VDC, reverse polarity protected

Input current: 1A to 60A, software limited

you cannot charge a 48v akku. it is for RC Akkus produced and they dont fly or drive more than 6or8s accus.

when you go with lipo you can take
2x 6S 5000mAh lipos in series (12s = 50,4v fully charged) and 10/20 of them parallel.

12s 50Ah = 20x 6s 5000mAh

Similar setup to mine, but I have a PL6.

I also made this to balance all the packs. It plugs into the revolectrix MPA board.

looks cool. i also want to load and balance all my 9 packs at the same time.

did you leave the balance cable connected when using the accu?
iam planing to leave balance cable connected to the parallel connected accus....they balance himself in use.
but i have to use 2 (2x12s) or 3 (3x12s) balance connectors cos i cant use parallel and series connected same time.

Thats exactly what that lead does. It leaves the balance leads almost as individual packs, so you can connect the main discharge leads in series; it only puts them all in parallel when you connect the lead on the bike to the charge lead (DSub Connector).

Sacko -- thanks for your great information and the posted picture. I want to copy your idea in order to use my CellPro8 to balance charge several 'homemade' battery packs made up of Revolectrix 6S 5000mAH 'bricks'. I put 6 of these bricks into individual plastic boxes and wire them to be 12S3P for use as "48 volt" batteries for my CA3/Phaserunner/Crystalyte ebikes. I currently go through the bother of connecting each brick's JST-XH balance connector to the Revolectrix MPA board, as well as each brick's EC5 power connector to the CellPro with stackable banana plugs. I'm looking for an easier way to charge these packs, and have lots of old DB25 (or even DB50) connectors available.