So after a year of lipo usage and being careful about balance charging only I finally chose a charger to bulk charge with.
I bought my bafang mid drive, then bought the programming cable and front chain ring and now bought the Satiator with programming/anderson plug dongle all from
http://www.emax-ebikes.com.au/
The guy running the show, is trustworthy and always backs up his product with info you need promtly with emails. I did business with him instead of many other overseas possibilities not only because I can trust local, but I want to spend my cash local for the economy here and not only that his prices are better than from overseas anyway. As a result it's a win win win situation buying through him.
As for the satiator.. I also want to support as I have many other products bought Grin products because they rock.
The satiator is unfortunately a bit slower and doesn't reach the voltage I wish it could... Maximum voltage it can charge to is 60v which is 4v @ 15s. At about 6 amps its not lightning. However, being a bulk charging virgin I feel safer with it than some Chinese charger. I also feel happier that I am not killing my batteries with high speed. And finally without a bms slower is better for the 3 slow battery medic balancers.
Currently I have two custom charging profiles. One is to the 3.9v which is my storage and basically a mid point for 0.05 difference in cells to catch up at. Then closer to when I ride I put it up to 60v custom profile. The battery should live a lot more lives at this low. And most my rides will be shorter but will give me a better feeling about riding. Everytime I charged it took so much hassle that when I rode I had to make it count for something and hated just going for a short spin somewhere unless it was a great ride. Now if it isn't such a hassle to charge I can just jump on my bike for shorter rides anytime.
I can still pull out my balance chargers to charge up to 4.1 as I have been recently. Or if I really want range I can disconnect the bafang battery connector and take them up to 4.2v and ride the hub motor until the voltage drops to 4.1 and then connect the bafang again. My bike has really just gotten so do whatever you want up to 15s.
For myself, here is the manual when I need to find it:
http://www.ebikes.ca/documents/Satiator_Manual_V09FW.pdf
EDIT 16/5
Have done a lot of shorter rides now. Most about 10km / 5AH so about a third of the battery. That keeps the battery in the 4v - 3.8v zone, so the cells stay pretty balanced, more balanced than the battery medics can tell. I am not totally happy with the battery medics. If I rotate the 3 I have I get variations on almost every cell. The worst balancer says the last cell is .05 out when the others don't. I have battery alarms that do similar different readings too. One of them says the last cell is like 4.25 which is out by 0.5!
My procedure is to first put them to balance down to 3.8 and then when they are nearing 4v I just put them all to discharge to 4v. I tend to rotate every few times the medics so one doesn't constantly do the same set. Over all they all sit around 4v at the end of charge.
Still, I can't explain how much more I love plugging in to charge.
EDIT 18/5
Bought a few of these auto balancers $15 each to try out if they are more accurate or at least to have a few different options.
22/5 These balancers hardly do anything and the readings are opposite the battery medics. Now that I have 3 medics, 3 of these, 3 cell alarms I can conclude they all show differences of 0.05! This is a real annoyance because I would like to be able to keep them at much closer.
In conclusion, it is not worth bothering to use them other than checking they are within .05
EDIT 23/5
Went for a 15km ride, sataitor is so cool telling me exactly how much AH was put in @ 8AH. It's like there's no real need to have a watt meter. Basically CA says over 6ah add in almost 1ah of regen roughly that's 7ah used on the hub meaning the mid drive used the remaining 1ah. As a result, you can conclude that either mid drive was barely used or it was and uses hardly any power. I would guess when the hub starts bogging down on a hill or I see full power being used around 3.5kw I use the mid drive which is between 3 to 5 times more efficient. Not only does it mean the motor gets a cool down before it gets critical but also waste less battery and don't need to carry as much battery too.
8ah 15km is right because I was using the full pack for 30km rides.
50% of the pack, the 50% in the middle. I charge to about 75%, and discharge to about 25% on the fuel gauge. Love the 3.85v area that lasts so long.
Now that charging has become so easy, there is no need for regen unless I am going for a longer ride. For short rides under 10km it is not worth the stress it puts on dropouts. I can hear the drive side squeak each time...
EDIT 27 / 5
I balanced charged over night, well got it to 60v and then left it balancing and it came out two packs at 3.99 another 3.97 so discharged the two for an hour and set back to balance and the result was the border between 3.98/3.99v that's the closest they'll ever get according to the medics. The CA says 59.8v however.
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