New Imax B6 Quattro 4x6s Multi charger charge 24s?

Hi guys, i saw that Hobbyking is now offering a new cahrger that in fact is 4x 6s cahrger independent in the same box. But i dont know if it have independent ground to allo connecting a 24s pack instead of 4x 6s pack all independents...

-4x 50W (200W total on 4 charger)
-4x6s balancer and display ( 300mA bleeding current)
-PC connection availlable

Here it is:

http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbycity/...t_Name=Hobby_King_Quattro_4x6S_Multi_Charger_








But does it can charge a 24s pack????

( I sent the question to skyRC and hobbyking)

Doc

It would be nice if it did. It would solve alot of problems.

I've got one. They are all indivdually isolated. You can balance charge 24s, but its a slow charger.

You could use these in parallel with a bulk charger, but balance times would be pretty long as these have really puny shunts, which are then PWM'd so that they aren't all on at the same time. the other problem is that they don't balance to a fixed voltage, but to the lowest cell. That alone increases the balance time significantly.

-- Gary

It has an option to set it to continously balance, but its painfully slow. Roughly 70mA balance current... The auto power-off timer can be disabled, but you're looking at measuring balance-charge time in days for big packs...

A Gary BMS + meanwell = way better option if you've got a large pack you want balanced in a timely mannor.

HobbyKing is just about to release another 4-way charger under their "Turnigy" home brand name.

It's supposed to be under 100$. Some say its simply 4 x Accucel 6 chargers that share the same DC input. It was mentionned by an HobbyKing guy that it might do up de 100watts per port though (400 watts total).



http://www.hobbycity.com/hobbycity/store/twit.asp?id=100&err=1

liveforphysics said:

I've got one. They are all indivdually isolated. You can balance charge 24s, but its a slow charger.

Click to expand...

Great news, Thanks LFP,

We can now have an ALL IN ONE charger/balancer/monitor/lwith PC conection for up to 24s for 149$ with max 200W... not bad at all!

I dont say it beat the Tppacks/meanwell combo but fo rthe price... it's a graet deal for the newB or beginners!

At 200W and 24s it's 2A charging current for lipo or LiMn... and 2.25A for LiFePO4

That's the info i was searching for.. as well as many RCgroup members!... i'll post your answer for them on their forum.

The speed doesn't really mater.. it's more about monitoring 24 cells at a time with display and balancing the pack over a week ,during no intense use period of the battery...

You said 70mA bleeding?.. they claim 300mA.. probably it's for 4.2V lipo... current is higher as well... but the difference is higher than i would have expected.. 4.2V at 300mA or 3.6V at 70mA seem not linear... .. it must follow the bleeding resistor calculation value... but i know you said 70mA and you are a true LIPO user so 70mA at 4.2V is just... curious

It might be the balance wire voltage loss?.. are they 26 or 28AWG... I observed that it make a significant difference from using 28 or 20 gauge on the balance current as well as the CV of 3.6 or 4.2V..

Doc

liveforphysics said:

I've got one. They are all indivdually isolated. You can balance charge 24s, but its a slow charger.

Click to expand...

Does this mean that you could leave the charger connected to the pack at all time with no risk of slowly draining it?

This would be nice for a mobile setup. You could keep the charger in the bag connected to the pack through the balance leads and secondary discharge leads. To charge, you just need to plug-in the power supply to the charger and press the start buttons. Nothing to connect/disconnect.

El_Steak said:

liveforphysics said:

I've got one. They are all indivdually isolated. You can balance charge 24s, but its a slow charger.

Click to expand...

Does this mean that you could leave the charger connected to the pack at all time with no risk of slowly draining it?

Click to expand...

I haven't checked that, but I can. Isolated means you can tie postive from one to negative of another, which lets you charge a 24s pack as a 24s pack, rather than breaking it into 4x 6s packs for charging.

As far as portability, this thing is big! At least it's the biggest RC charger I've ever seen. It's like half the size of my 2kwhr battery pack, and then you still gotta bring along a meanwell PS to run it. If you use something like a Gary BMS, you only need to bring the meanwell PS with you, and you can charge and balance in a timely mannor.

Live/Doc

Have you guys tested the DISCHARGING capabilities of these Quattro chargers?


A few of us have scored a bunch of headway cells from dead packs. There's a helluva lot of completely dead ones..about 1 in 8 has voltage above 3v. The rest are below 0.5v and we are send them to a recycler.

So we need to cycle through the ones with voltage to check capacity.


I was wondering if the 5w discharge on the Quattro charger is per channel, or total. If it's per channel (20w total) then it's not bad. If it's 5w total (1.25 per channel) then it sucks ass.


Adrian_sm has a Turnigy charger which will discharge at 5A, so we can then check sag at 5w (and maybe hook up a light bulb (or a few) for a brief 20A sag test to sort them further.
But it will take us a month to get through them with a single charger.


The Quattro could speed things up...if it's 4 x 5w discharge, with readout of mAh in and out.


Thanks

Mark

Found the manual, looks like it is 4 x 5 w....but it's 1A max. It's designed for RC planes, so 3 to 6 cells. Not one single 10000mAh cell.

So it would take ~10 hours to discharge 4 cells, and a few hours to charge.


Too slow

I posted a video for John in CR for the mod for the 24s insulation from a 4 x 6s charger ( with the turnigy)

I should specify that tehre is some attention to make if you decide to make a plug and play harness for 24s:

Yes, you need 7 wired for the balance and 2 for the main power of each 6s so that make 9 wires.

I know that virtually, the two wires of the power (0V and +22.2V) and the wires number 1 and 7 from the balance plug have same potential.. but they MUST be independent so don’t link the two main positive and the two main negative between the balance and the power. Keep them independent.

An exemple of what it look like for the first 6 cells

DB37 pin1: power negative
DB37 pin2: cell 1 negative
DB37 pin3: cell 1 positive
DB37 pin4: cell 2 positive
DB37 pin5: cell 3 positive
DB37 pin6: cell 4 positive
DB37 pin7: cell 5 positive
DB37 pin8: cell 6 positive
DB37 pin9: power positive

So don’t connect Db37 pin 1 and 2 together and don’t connect pin 8 and 9 together. That will allow more accurate reading for the cell 1 and 6 voltage due to the power that travel to the db37 pin1 and pin9. By that way, That power will not affect the pin 2 and 8.

Doc

Click to expand...

new clip showing the detailed mod:
[youtube]rYuAcivabZ8[/youtube]


Old first clip about that charger:
[youtube]aqLwCllxIqI[/youtube]

http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=17561&p=357739#p357739

Hi all
Iv'e been reading about the quatro vs turnigy 4x6s, but quite a few hobbyking reviews say the balancing is off on both the quatro/ turnigy, so have you guys checked this with a accurate meter.
I see the price on the quatro is atractive now so as it doesn't need any mod for 24s like the turnigy i think it"s the one to go for, what do you think doc.

Yeah.. Balancing is not so good.. sometime a dif of 40mV between two cells.
My LBA10 is still the best balancer i have

Doc

Thats a shame do like the idea of 4 port
Have you tried calabrating the turnigy, this is posible if you hold down start+left status button at the same time, then power up the charger and you should see the
calabration menu then make your ajustments from there.
Although this prob won't do anything for the balance accuracy,

Not sure about the turnigy, but the early imax single chargers also suffered from inacurate balance, but one hk customer found that by changing the resistors from 1.0 to 0.1 was the mod that worked.
For me still im still wondering will the quatro be more accurate