teslanv
1 MW
I thought I would share my attempts at finding the "ideal" charging solution.
If you read through the forum enough, you will quickly learn that there are many options when it comes to charging your batteries.
The first step is to decide on a battery chemistry and format: for me, that started out with recycled laptop 18650 cells, and then quickly changed to Hobbyking 4S Hardcase LiPo packs.
I still use recycled 18650 cells, but only in my kids electric "toys" They have (and I charge & maintain) two stand-up scooters and a Razor MX500 electric dirt bike between the three of them. I don't use recycled 18650 cells in my bikes any more because they generally can't provide more than about 10A of current without stressing the cells. But for the toys, 10A is plenty. Since most of the toys have built-in Battery management systems built into them, I use the small 2A chargers that came with them.
For my HK LiPo 4S Hardcase packs, I use a variety of charging solutions, depending on where I charge, how fast I want to charge and if I need to balance the cells.
Here is my current charging station:
I have a "Kill-A-Watt" Amp/watt-meter that tells me how much "Grid" energy I have used to charge my batteries. It's usually only $0.02 to $0.05 to fill the tank.
The first charger I bought was an iMax B6 charger. Like many "Noobs" I was only concerned with getting something to charge & balance my battery, and the cheaper, the better, right?
Here is the iMax B6:
Most RC Balance chargers do not come with a power supply, so I picked up a 12V, 5A (60W) laptop style power supply to power the iMax B6.
http://www.amazon.com/Intocircuit-Adapter-Charger-Benq-Monitors/dp/B0023Y9EQC
On All my balance charging solutions, I charge my 4S Packs in Parallel with 6X Parallel Taps & 6X Parallel Balance leads. This effectively turns many 5Ah 4S packs onto one really big 30Ah 4S Pack. Charge voltage is a maximum of 16.8V (4.20V per cell) but I usually only charge to 4.15V per cell to keep my batteries happy.
Here is the complete set-up:
View attachment 10
So how to I rate this set-up?
The Good: Inexpensive. Accuracy is OK. Can Balance up to 6S Lithium Cells, as well as most other battery chemistries.
The Bad: SLOW! at the charger's maximum setting of 5A/50W (3A for 4S Packs), it takes almost 9 hours to charge a 30Ah Block of 4S Packs.
Verdict: OK as a starter charging solution. I suspect Many Noobs have gone this route, and it works.
I have the means to charge at work, and I didn't like packing up and hauling my iMax B6 charger with me to work and back, so I bought an even smaller charger. It's an iMax C-403 charger.
The iMax C-403 charger will only charge up to 4S lithium cells, and will only charge LiIon, LiPo and LiFePO4 chemistries. It is also only 3A/40W maximum charge, and with 4S Packs, it really only a 2.5A charger. But it's small and the limited functionality is exactly what I need to charge, when I am not in a hurry. Again, I use 6X Parallel tap & balance leads to charge all my packs at once.
The Good: Inexpensive, Compact, Charges 4S Packs in Parallel just like the B6
The Bad: SLOW. (Takes 12 Hours to fully charge a 30Ah 4S Pack), Can't adjust the High Voltage Cut-off (Charges to 4.20V per cell for LiPo, however by changing the Battery type to LiIon, HVC is at 4.1V/cell) Limited to Lithium Chemistries. No Discharge function. Requires balance leads be connected and ALWAYS balances the cells.
Verdict: OK charger for 1S-4S packs, when you are not in a hurry.
A Modest Upgrade:
I needed more than 50W of charging power, and I needed it in a bad way. But I'm still on a tight budget. The iCharger 106B+ fit the ticket nicely.
http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/...harger_USA_Warehouse_.html?strSearch=icharger
The Good: Same functionality as the iMax B6 charger, except 5 times as much power!!! And the build quality is superior to the iMax chargers. It will also test for Internal Resistance, cut foam and drive (break in) a brushed motor! Charges at 10A or 250W (For 4S packs, that's 10A or 168W Max, and will charge my 30Ah block in 3 hours.) Seems quite accurate for Voltage and Balancing.
The Bad: Could be faster. Only balances up to 6S LiPo packs.
Verdict: A good basic medium-power balance charger. If you are new to this game and have a little bit of money to spend on your first charger, THIS is the one to get, NOT the iMax B6. This is the charger I use every day.
Next Balance Charger on my Wish List:
http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__11597__iCharger_3010B_1000W_10s_Balance_Charger.html
Which requires a MUCH larger power supply...
One of my first power supplies for the iMax B6 charger besides the Laptop Style PS was a modified Decktop PC Power Supply. I had an old 250W Ps laying around and cut the ATX plugs off the leads and tied all similar colored wires together. Soldered on a couple 4mm bullet connectors, and I had a decent 12V power supply for my balance charger. But that was just the beginning. I soon discovered icecube57's website o' goodies.
http://lipoconnectionsolutions.com/
I had to have the Modified Dell Power Supply. Icecube's prices are very reasonable, but for the sake of my own education, I went to my local PC recycling store and they had some Dell PowerEdge 2850 power supplies for $15 each. We are talking about 12V and 57A for up to 750 Watts of power. You can learn how to modify them here:
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1750411
Again, I can't stress to you enough how cheap icecube sells these for. If the mod looks too challenging for you, just buy one (or more) from him.
If you Isolate the ground on one of these power supplies you can series it to a second and run them at 24V and 57A. Here is my 24V 1500W set-up:
So I now have the ability to supply up to 1500W of power to my chargers.
Dell DA-2 - The 220W compact Power supply. http://www.discountelectronics.com/product?product_id=14702&product_model=17
It seems silly to run a 250W charger on a 750W Power supply, so I started investigating more modest options for power supplies. I quickly found this little gem of a power supply. It is a Dell DA-2 Power supply meant for Dell's "Ultra Small Form Factor" line of desktop PCs. Because the Desktops are quite small, Dell opted to make a brick style power supply, much like a very large laptop power supply. A NORMAL person would plug it into the back of their desktop.
I opted to decapitate the plug-end, tied the three white leads together and three black leads & the blue lead (power-on) together, soldered on 4mm Bullets and now I have a completely silent, rock-solid 12V-18A Power Supply pushing up to 220W of power to my iCharger.
Since I only charge 4S packs, I only require 168W, so this PS is more than enough for my batteries.
Here is my Current charging set-up:
The other really cool thing with the DA-2 Power supplies is that they come DC Ground Isolated, so you can string multiples in series for higher voltages and more total power. Here are two in Series, pumping out 24V and 18A of "the goodness":
And for higher voltages, just add more.
Bulk Charging Solutions without a Balance charger:
For times when you want to fill your batteries fast, and don't care about balancing or high-voltage cut-offs, Mean Well Power supplies are a great option. They are particularly handy when you are on the road and need to do some "guerilla charging" when the opportunity presents itself.
I run a 12S Set-up on my bike and the charge voltage for 12S LiPo is right around 50V. There are many different models and versions of Mean Well Power Supplies. I have a S-240-48 PS as well as a SE-600-48 PS. Both come with an adjustable potentiometer or "pot" to tune the output voltage up or down between 42-56V. I have mine set right at 50.0V which would charge each cell to a theoretical 4.17V per cell, although since it doesn't "balance charge" it is possible to have some cells higher than 4.17V and some cells lower than 4.17V, so it is best to leave a little headroom, and to be sure to keep a close eye the charger and battery and unplug the battery before the charge is complete.
View attachment 1
You will notice that I no longer use the parallel balance leads, since I am no longer charging as a 4S block. Instead I leave my batteries connected in series (12S). The very simple way to do this with HobbyKing LiPo is to connect the negative bullet of one battery into the positive bullet of another. If you "stack" two sequential connections like this, you will have connected three 4S batteries in series for a total of 12S, with a positive and negative bullet free to connect the 50V charger leads. Extreme Caution should be exercised when making these serial connections as you don't want to plug BOTH negative and Positive leads of two batteries to each other. You will end up with "Kentucky Fried Fingers" (KFF) if you do.
The best "on-board" charging solution is looking like a grin "Cycle Satiator", universal charger. http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=60169
360W of programmable power. - This is like a Mean Well on Steroids. The only drawback is the cost, which currently looks to be around $295 USD.
Second best "on-board" charging solution would be one of these babies:
http://www.meanwell.com/search/HLG-320H/HLG-320H-spec.pdf
It's a special Mean Well built for running LED lighting in outdoor environments. It's IP65 rated and has Pots for Voltage and Current, so you can dial it to suit your battery. And it's 320 watts of power for around $120.
http://www.powergatellc.com/mean-well-hlg-320h-power-supply.html
And of course, there are many other options for Power supplies, RC chargers and bulk chargers.
I would love to hear what others are using.
If you read through the forum enough, you will quickly learn that there are many options when it comes to charging your batteries.
The first step is to decide on a battery chemistry and format: for me, that started out with recycled laptop 18650 cells, and then quickly changed to Hobbyking 4S Hardcase LiPo packs.
I still use recycled 18650 cells, but only in my kids electric "toys" They have (and I charge & maintain) two stand-up scooters and a Razor MX500 electric dirt bike between the three of them. I don't use recycled 18650 cells in my bikes any more because they generally can't provide more than about 10A of current without stressing the cells. But for the toys, 10A is plenty. Since most of the toys have built-in Battery management systems built into them, I use the small 2A chargers that came with them.
For my HK LiPo 4S Hardcase packs, I use a variety of charging solutions, depending on where I charge, how fast I want to charge and if I need to balance the cells.
Here is my current charging station:
I have a "Kill-A-Watt" Amp/watt-meter that tells me how much "Grid" energy I have used to charge my batteries. It's usually only $0.02 to $0.05 to fill the tank.
The first charger I bought was an iMax B6 charger. Like many "Noobs" I was only concerned with getting something to charge & balance my battery, and the cheaper, the better, right?
Here is the iMax B6:
Most RC Balance chargers do not come with a power supply, so I picked up a 12V, 5A (60W) laptop style power supply to power the iMax B6.
http://www.amazon.com/Intocircuit-Adapter-Charger-Benq-Monitors/dp/B0023Y9EQC
On All my balance charging solutions, I charge my 4S Packs in Parallel with 6X Parallel Taps & 6X Parallel Balance leads. This effectively turns many 5Ah 4S packs onto one really big 30Ah 4S Pack. Charge voltage is a maximum of 16.8V (4.20V per cell) but I usually only charge to 4.15V per cell to keep my batteries happy.
Here is the complete set-up:
View attachment 10
So how to I rate this set-up?
The Good: Inexpensive. Accuracy is OK. Can Balance up to 6S Lithium Cells, as well as most other battery chemistries.
The Bad: SLOW! at the charger's maximum setting of 5A/50W (3A for 4S Packs), it takes almost 9 hours to charge a 30Ah Block of 4S Packs.
Verdict: OK as a starter charging solution. I suspect Many Noobs have gone this route, and it works.
I have the means to charge at work, and I didn't like packing up and hauling my iMax B6 charger with me to work and back, so I bought an even smaller charger. It's an iMax C-403 charger.
The iMax C-403 charger will only charge up to 4S lithium cells, and will only charge LiIon, LiPo and LiFePO4 chemistries. It is also only 3A/40W maximum charge, and with 4S Packs, it really only a 2.5A charger. But it's small and the limited functionality is exactly what I need to charge, when I am not in a hurry. Again, I use 6X Parallel tap & balance leads to charge all my packs at once.
The Good: Inexpensive, Compact, Charges 4S Packs in Parallel just like the B6
The Bad: SLOW. (Takes 12 Hours to fully charge a 30Ah 4S Pack), Can't adjust the High Voltage Cut-off (Charges to 4.20V per cell for LiPo, however by changing the Battery type to LiIon, HVC is at 4.1V/cell) Limited to Lithium Chemistries. No Discharge function. Requires balance leads be connected and ALWAYS balances the cells.
Verdict: OK charger for 1S-4S packs, when you are not in a hurry.
A Modest Upgrade:
I needed more than 50W of charging power, and I needed it in a bad way. But I'm still on a tight budget. The iCharger 106B+ fit the ticket nicely.
http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/...harger_USA_Warehouse_.html?strSearch=icharger
The Good: Same functionality as the iMax B6 charger, except 5 times as much power!!! And the build quality is superior to the iMax chargers. It will also test for Internal Resistance, cut foam and drive (break in) a brushed motor! Charges at 10A or 250W (For 4S packs, that's 10A or 168W Max, and will charge my 30Ah block in 3 hours.) Seems quite accurate for Voltage and Balancing.
The Bad: Could be faster. Only balances up to 6S LiPo packs.
Verdict: A good basic medium-power balance charger. If you are new to this game and have a little bit of money to spend on your first charger, THIS is the one to get, NOT the iMax B6. This is the charger I use every day.
Next Balance Charger on my Wish List:
http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__11597__iCharger_3010B_1000W_10s_Balance_Charger.html
Which requires a MUCH larger power supply...
One of my first power supplies for the iMax B6 charger besides the Laptop Style PS was a modified Decktop PC Power Supply. I had an old 250W Ps laying around and cut the ATX plugs off the leads and tied all similar colored wires together. Soldered on a couple 4mm bullet connectors, and I had a decent 12V power supply for my balance charger. But that was just the beginning. I soon discovered icecube57's website o' goodies.
http://lipoconnectionsolutions.com/
I had to have the Modified Dell Power Supply. Icecube's prices are very reasonable, but for the sake of my own education, I went to my local PC recycling store and they had some Dell PowerEdge 2850 power supplies for $15 each. We are talking about 12V and 57A for up to 750 Watts of power. You can learn how to modify them here:
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1750411
Again, I can't stress to you enough how cheap icecube sells these for. If the mod looks too challenging for you, just buy one (or more) from him.
If you Isolate the ground on one of these power supplies you can series it to a second and run them at 24V and 57A. Here is my 24V 1500W set-up:
So I now have the ability to supply up to 1500W of power to my chargers.
Dell DA-2 - The 220W compact Power supply. http://www.discountelectronics.com/product?product_id=14702&product_model=17
It seems silly to run a 250W charger on a 750W Power supply, so I started investigating more modest options for power supplies. I quickly found this little gem of a power supply. It is a Dell DA-2 Power supply meant for Dell's "Ultra Small Form Factor" line of desktop PCs. Because the Desktops are quite small, Dell opted to make a brick style power supply, much like a very large laptop power supply. A NORMAL person would plug it into the back of their desktop.
I opted to decapitate the plug-end, tied the three white leads together and three black leads & the blue lead (power-on) together, soldered on 4mm Bullets and now I have a completely silent, rock-solid 12V-18A Power Supply pushing up to 220W of power to my iCharger.
Since I only charge 4S packs, I only require 168W, so this PS is more than enough for my batteries.
Here is my Current charging set-up:
The other really cool thing with the DA-2 Power supplies is that they come DC Ground Isolated, so you can string multiples in series for higher voltages and more total power. Here are two in Series, pumping out 24V and 18A of "the goodness":
And for higher voltages, just add more.
Bulk Charging Solutions without a Balance charger:
For times when you want to fill your batteries fast, and don't care about balancing or high-voltage cut-offs, Mean Well Power supplies are a great option. They are particularly handy when you are on the road and need to do some "guerilla charging" when the opportunity presents itself.
I run a 12S Set-up on my bike and the charge voltage for 12S LiPo is right around 50V. There are many different models and versions of Mean Well Power Supplies. I have a S-240-48 PS as well as a SE-600-48 PS. Both come with an adjustable potentiometer or "pot" to tune the output voltage up or down between 42-56V. I have mine set right at 50.0V which would charge each cell to a theoretical 4.17V per cell, although since it doesn't "balance charge" it is possible to have some cells higher than 4.17V and some cells lower than 4.17V, so it is best to leave a little headroom, and to be sure to keep a close eye the charger and battery and unplug the battery before the charge is complete.
View attachment 1
You will notice that I no longer use the parallel balance leads, since I am no longer charging as a 4S block. Instead I leave my batteries connected in series (12S). The very simple way to do this with HobbyKing LiPo is to connect the negative bullet of one battery into the positive bullet of another. If you "stack" two sequential connections like this, you will have connected three 4S batteries in series for a total of 12S, with a positive and negative bullet free to connect the 50V charger leads. Extreme Caution should be exercised when making these serial connections as you don't want to plug BOTH negative and Positive leads of two batteries to each other. You will end up with "Kentucky Fried Fingers" (KFF) if you do.
The best "on-board" charging solution is looking like a grin "Cycle Satiator", universal charger. http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=60169
360W of programmable power. - This is like a Mean Well on Steroids. The only drawback is the cost, which currently looks to be around $295 USD.
Second best "on-board" charging solution would be one of these babies:
http://www.meanwell.com/search/HLG-320H/HLG-320H-spec.pdf
It's a special Mean Well built for running LED lighting in outdoor environments. It's IP65 rated and has Pots for Voltage and Current, so you can dial it to suit your battery. And it's 320 watts of power for around $120.
http://www.powergatellc.com/mean-well-hlg-320h-power-supply.html
And of course, there are many other options for Power supplies, RC chargers and bulk chargers.
I would love to hear what others are using.