Funky battery/charger meltdown

Used the icharge 208b.  Second time i used it.  There were big sparks at the balance port when i plugged the battery to it.  Id charged 3 batteries on lipo balance charge the first time days before and did the smar again this morn- 6 total cells(3batteries 2 cells each). The firdt time 2 cells hit 4.2 and the rest were coming up slowly...different batteries but same capacity n brand  Then i went to plug all 6 cells in again today and big sparks and melted the balance port prong for two ports on the negative terminal. It said voltage problem and wouldnt charge or discharge and two cells were listed at 5.2 volts!  They were listed at 4.2 days before when id charged and it was set to lipos.  Also smoke came out of the fan area!  Id just connected the balance leads when this happened.  Ive since read i should connect the battery neg terminal last but it didnt sound like a make or break it requirement and i wonder if that couldve been the problem.  
Im pissed.  This is the second time i used this and the firdt time i simply was balance charging and 2 cells hit 4.2 and stopped charging and the other four were coming up so slowly it shut off itself.  Id planned to charge the low ones seperately but didnt make a new cable for 4 s so tried with the six and this happened.  Two of the 2s neg prongs melted, black spot on the battery balance hole where it had gone in.

Sent from space

sucks man,,,better luck next time..
maybe use a 6x1 balance lead to make sure they are all totally balanced?

can you explain what happened? i could not follow that.

was the charger plugged in to the two B+and B- leads when you did this and did you reverse the JST plug when plugging in?

can you take a picture of which ones burned where?

Sounds like you reversed polarity or plugged into a series instead of parallel or a dead short of some kind happened to melt leads. Lucky it was small battery packs and only the balance lead instead of the mains.

100volts+ said:

Sounds like you reversed polarity or plugged into a series instead of parallel or a dead short of some kind happened to melt leads. Lucky it was small battery packs and only the balance lead instead of the mains.

Click to expand...

Very true... I know quite a few people use 208B. The charger is high quality. I would check your connections a second time around and make sure you are charging them correctly.

That 208B is polarity is plugged in backwards ---- it won't charge and will error out. Not quite sure what you did though without any photos.

maybe he will come back or not. but there is a mosfet at the very bottom of the balancing network inside the iCharger that connects the bottom of cell #1 to the ground, or negative of the battery, B-, when you select the balance charging from the screen.

if that mosfet is exposed to high voltage from the top cell being inserted into the lower cell spot then that little mosfet might have burned up from over voltage. that would give the error i think.

Whats a 6x1 balance lead?
Cant download a pic from my ipad it seems.
I hope i didnt ruin the charger.
I figured i could charge without reading any instructions. Not the best approach but i like to think i know what im doing and after plugging a couple things in it seemed i was well on my way and had figured how to balance charge. I saw my batteries' voltages on the screen and, whike there was a big difference in their charge they moved up. The six cells (3batteries) had timed out on the charger that first time and with (2)at 4.2 and the others around 3.8. I thought it would go faster or i could up the amps,and read the manual. After now reading the instructions im still not sure how to use it. Dnmun are you saying the batteries should be erranged in an order of voltage when balance charging? Is it important to plug the battery leads or the charge leads first, or reds or blacks first? The balance plugs are very difficult to remove and i feel i must be missing a button or something to get the plug back out.

In the pic u can see the most burned black neg chare wire. It was the last in the chain and the battery before it also burned the black negative. I though after the first spark that maybe sparks happen but i wasnt comfortable. After the second big spark when i tried to plug the last balance wires in I was cursing. Ive since read there should never be sparks when charging.
The voltage of two of the 6 batteries said 5.2 which was weird because theyd said 4.2 days before. So here they sit at 5.2 for all i know and i dont dare plug anything in What to do? What of my smoke out of the charger? The 2 negative burned balance board posts in my 2s spots? And the two batteries burned black/neg holes? What should i do? Plug it all in again and see what it says?

Funky :0)

4mm HXT Parallel Charging Wires 6x1

Hummina... your definitely having a bad run....

no pics. when you mention the cell voltage at 5.2V is that from a voltmeter measurement you made on the pack itself? or it a readout off of the charger display?

i have some 5S and 6S sense wires and plugs too. to replace the one you blew up. in the US.

The 5.2 was the reading off the charger. Here's a pic of the series conector I made and the batteries

What am I missing?! What do you think I should try next? A friend said I could borrow his voltmeter so I can see what the real battery voltage is.
Dnmun thanks. Let me send u some bucks or..an arduino UNO.
What's the responsible person to do next?

U might not be able to see all the details in the photo. I'm sure I plugged the right color cable in the right color holes and the loop around went appropriately for a series connection. And the balance wires only go in one way. (And they're really hard to get back out)
Is there an order they need to plug things in? or is the voltage important with one battery having higher voltage than the other two?
U can just see the black/neg balance wire is burned on the battery and its spot on the board in the bottom corner of the pic. Two black/neg blalance spots burned as well as their board spots.

why do all that when you could just buy a 6S pack? i suspect that one of the JST plugs may have been overlapping the other pack in series or the serial connectors are miswired. i doubt if the charger is gonna work anymore either.

Make your life easier and charge at 2 cells with a 6x balance plug with deans ends. You charge all packs in parallel.

Seies for 3 batteries is what i was doing. Maybe i plugged the balance port in the wrong order or i shouldnt have been plugging them in the 2sspots but 6s instead im thinking. Still dont know.

Here is a harness I'm using for a 30s 1p pack. It starts as a 15s 2p. It's paralleled at 5s pack level. I can't charge and balance unless I disconnect the series connection first. I have a charger that can charge both 15s packs at the same time at up to 40 amps. I only charge each 15s pack at 20 amps though because the charge cable gets too hot. BTW I think the 208b can discharge those high cells.

My neighbor who made an electric bike and keeps telling me im going to burn up my house convinved me i cant be using "balance charge" and be charging in series to begin with. At this point i checked all the cells and theyre 4.2 or 3.8or3.9 and im going to use them. Next time..cant i balance charge everything through the balance port? Maybe its slow. And in the future ill be charging in parallel. The shorted battery ballance black wire is good. The pole that burned out is gone and i watched on utube u can use others anyway as long as u do it in the right order.
I have the (3) 2s packs cause theyre small and i flattened them even smaller by opening them and reshrink wraping them.

I wish there was more info given to me about how to work these things. Plugging these all in series with the main wires and then doing the balance wires was a no no. So it seems. So series with the balance wires at the same time next time is a good idea? And no order i have to worry about either.
What about the c rate next time i charge? Ive got 25c 5ah 2c batteries and ill be checking my math again but doing a 1c charge rate i...forget.

I am using 3x2s on my board with onboard charing and a 9 pin dsub plug and it works perfectly fine. At the beginning, I did not look at the order of balance plugs and had sparks at the balance connectors (batteries already connected in series). The balance plugs just need to be in the right order so they dont short.

Just make sure balance and normal battery plugs are in the same order when series charging, maybe number them. If you connect balance leads 123 and then the batteries in 132 order, you will get sparks on the main connectors. Connecting main plugs first and balance after in the wrong order gets you sparks on the balance plugs.

Furp u charge just with just the balance leads with ur inboard charging? That sounds convenient. How do u turn on an off? and I guess u leave everything connected when not riding. I feel the times are passing me by before I get to throw my stuff together - I've got anti spark plug n button and would rather the x90 plugs I see now. But I'd rather a plain switch if it wasn't monsterously big and inboard charging. But being able to switch out 5ah 3x2s is wining in my mind at this point.

Here's a retarded slightly drunken video. Any jackass can make an electric skateboard an play with lipos!

This board is the easy way to do it. I've ordered it, but its still on its way.
http://hobbyking.com/hobbyking/stor...A_warehouse_.html?strSearch=parallel charging

You need to plug in the discharge leads first, then the balance plugs to avoid melting wires if the packs are severely unbalanced.

I'm with you on the xt90 plugs. I want to get some of the multistar batteries and they all come with those. Stinks that all my setups have HXT 4mm plugs right now. I've had one too many issues plugging in two batteries to each other. Won't happen with the xt90s and they are supposedly much easier to solder and reuse.

Hummina Shadeeba said:

Furp u charge just with just the balance leads with ur inboard charging? That sounds convenient. How do u turn on an off? and I guess u leave everything connected when not riding. I feel the times are passing me by before I get to throw my stuff together - I've got anti spark plug n button and would rather the x90 plugs I see now. But I'd rather a plain switch if it wasn't monsterously big and inboard charging. But being able to switch out 5ah 3x2s is wining in my mind at this point.

Here's a retarded slightly drunken video. Any jackass can make an electric skateboard an play with lipos!

Click to expand...

I charge with a Dsub 9 pin plug where 7 Pins are for balancing and 9 for loading. After once going through the trouble of making a 3x2s to 6s adaptor and connecting it to 7 Pins and taking two bigger wires and leading + and - there, it is just as convenient as charging through balance leads but I guess it is faster cause I can charge with 5amps. There are some pics in the post your board thread.

As a switch I use a small momentary switch with resistor for anti spark and an EC5 connector in line of the neg wire. This is as small and cheap as it gets. If you got a little more space, you can use one of those car hifi reusable fuses, which comes from china for 10 bucks or so (needs a momentary anti spark as well).

I leave everything connected at all times, just pull out the ec5 plug to cut power to the ESC and switch off the turnigy battery meter. This means that there is always power on the charging plug, but I think it is recessed well enough.

I always get the same feeling while building, as soon as I get a new part, there is someone selling a better version of it But at least that leaves room for upgrades!

Anyone want to/know how to fix my 208b(?) charger?
Plugged my batteries balance leads in the wrong order with the main leads or the variation in charge was too much when charging in series. 2 black pins scorched and now it says low voltage and wont charge.

Wait for my my friend Darwin he can help you with this...

Uhh. Good one. I tell you the book that comes with it tells nilch.

Hummina Shadeeba said:

Anyone want to/know how to fix my 208b(?) charger?
Plugged my batteries balance leads in the wrong order with the main leads or the variation in charge was too much when charging in series. 2 black pins scorched and now it says low voltage and wont charge.

Click to expand...

You could of fried any of the internal pcb components. which 2 leads are fried? The ones you plug into the charger? You can first try replacing the pins.

For the most part the 208b charger should let you know if you plug in the lead ends in the opposite direction.