Best damn 6S lithium monitor on the planet for $15

[liveforphysics]

The 1010b also says 300w limit, yet it will hold 9.5amps at 41v if you keep it's input voltage around 18vdc.

From the pdf:

DC 42.0V Max., Up to 10A; 250W max. balance while charge

Does that mean 420w max when all cells are low and then 250w max when its balancing?

When it's balancing, it can't apply more current to the pack than it can balance away from the high cell of course. That sadly means something like 0.3amps during balancing. On the bright side, I rarely seem to get more than a few mV out of balance, so it still doesn't take too long, even when setup with 40Ah of LiPo. It has a mode to let you turn on "continous balance", which tells it to start shunting the high cells the moment it begins charging, so it can charge at full power, and the high cells get shunted to be charged with 300mA less current than the lower cells, so it works towards balance the whole time it's charging rather than just at the end. With this mode on, it gives full charge current right up to the point that a cell reaches HV limit, and it has to charge the whole pack at 300mA while shunting that cell 300mA while the other cells catch up.

The 300mA balance current thing is pretty ghey. However, LiPo with lots of cells in P rarely ever seems to even require any balancing, so it becomes less of an issue for larger packs, and for lower Ah packs, the 300mA balance current doesn't seem so weak, so it ends up working out pretty decent.


As far as the 250w spec, I think the gave the max charge spec at 12vdc input. These chargers seem to really wake up at around 16vdc, and after 18vdc, there are no gains in output from feeding higher input voltage, so I stick with 18vdc.


Best Wishes,
-Luke

PS: for the 20amp limit on that 16s charging/balance adapter tool, if it's anything like the mega-power or the hyperion one, it's very simple to throw in a couple extra fets in parallel, and add some solder to the current shunt, beef up the traces, and run whatever charge current you desire through it. With more types of modern LiPo being listed from the factory with charge rates at 3c-5c, high current chargers are going to become more common rapidly.

 

[mwkeefer]

Some people had a hard time viewing the videos I posed from my site, they were converted to YouTube and are available here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWxFiB3FzWM

-Mike

 

[shinyballs]

So - you lads will have to make due with 16S for now.
For a monitor only -> I dont see any benefit in a 24S vs 16S vs 12S vs 6S. It is not like a balancer where you need to compare all cells at once.

-methods

A 16s still doesn't cut it, although its better than nothing.
What advantage does a 24s monitor or even a 40s(for markcycle's X6 and other higher voltage EVs) have?

SIMPLICITY

An eighth grader doesn't even need Daddy for that simple question, much more a Batt expert.
To elaborate...
- simplicity in mounting and wiring
- cause the info are combined in one single lcd display, its easy for the eyes when viewing cell voltages...
but for now, its still science fiction stuff .

Presently, the Cell Log 8s is better for Ebike use. I'm wiring mine right now, using 3 for 22s. compared to 4 if using the Chargery 6s.

 

[enso]

Any updates on the BM16?
not seeing anything on the chargery site and id really love to be able to monitor cell votalge in my 12 pack without breaking out the voltmeter.

 

[Doctorbass]

Got my two celllog8 last week.

i'm pretty iimpressed and satisfied with.

I like the delta V indication of the diff between the lower and the higher cell and also the datalogin capability.

Doc

 

[enso]

Doc, How'd you wire these up?
You running 48volt?s
Just wondering, I am running a 36 volt pack (12 cells) so id need two, but not sure how to wire them up and if they can handle the 43.8 v fully charged pack.

 

[scoot]

Well, I ordered two Cellmon8s from hobby King today just before the sale price ended. I picked this one because of the reviews and both of my builds will be 8s LiFePO4 packs... convenient and perfect I'd say :wink:

According to the Junsi owner manual, the Cellmon8 does not come with a connector plug :? ... can anyone confirm this? Problem is I cannot for the life of me figure out where to obtain the row connectors for making a custom cable for the Headway cells I'll be getting... I can't even find extra BW-911 cables like the one that comes with the 208B icharger and I've been researching for over a week now . I found a nice 16 & 20 awg 9 element cable at Mcmaster for connecting up the cells but am not sure how I will get it plugged into the cellmon8.

Help

 

[MitchJi]

Hi,

Just wondering, I am running a 36 volt pack (12 cells) so id need two, but not sure how to wire them up and if they can handle the 43.8 v fully charged pack.

For 16s I can see an advantage as compared to the BM6. But for 12s why not use the BM6? It would also require 2 but they are less expensive and they are supposed to be "Best damn 6S lithium monitor on the planet".

 

[webfootguy]

Well, I ordered two Cellmon8s from hobby King today just before the sale price ended. I picked this one because of the reviews and both of my builds will be 8s LiFePO4 packs... convenient and perfect I'd say :wink:

According to the Junsi owner manual, the Cellmon8 does not come with a connector plug :? ... can anyone confirm this? Problem is I cannot for the life of me figure out where to obtain the row connectors for making a custom cable for the Headway cells I'll be getting... I can't even find extra BW-911 cables like the one that comes with the 208B icharger and I've been researching for over a week now . I found a nice 16 & 20 awg 9 element cable at Mcmaster for connecting up the cells but am not sure how I will get it plugged into the cellmon8.

Help

If you mean the "cell-log 8s" (not Cellmon8s which I have never heard of), then yes I can confirm it does not come with any connector plug. It has 9 pins on the standard 0.1" spacing so the standard JST-XH 9pin connector works fine. Digikey has them in stock along with the pins (search digikey for XHP-9). Easy to build a cable. I have not seen many JST 8s connectors available online though (most stop at 6s). Maybe demand will make them more available. It would be nice to buy a pre-made pigtail with 8s JST on it and just attach it to your pack rather than have to fuss making up all the cables. Just my opinion.

 

[scoot]

yeh, da... "celllog8"... it's been a long day thanx for the tips... I'll look into those tomorrow when my mind is functioning better :lol:

BTW, I am leaning towards the icharger 208b... from what I've read thus far, it seems to be a very nice charger. My plan is to use it to charge and balance the 8s headway pack using the same connector, and then plug the cell log 8 back in to monitor the cells during vehicle operation. I just don't have room for a full blown BMS

Thanx again webfootguy

 

[mwkeefer]

Hey all,

I just wanted to post a quick warning with regards to HobbyKing and the Chargery BM6 units.

My most recent order, placed end of week before last arrived in a timely fashion... New Turnigy Lipo 5AH packs some misc connectors and 2 replacement Chargery BM6 units to replace the 2 which are so bad now they are useless for monitering (way out of spec).

So even though their site (HobbyKing) says "New Version"... the 2 I just received are version 2, not version 3 as my previous orders have been.

Not sure the difference other than blue masking vs green on the V3 but they seem to work okay.

Just thought I should share this info with anyone else still ordering these from HobbyKing... in the future I'm ordering directly from Chargery

-Mike

 

[webfootguy]

I recently received an order for the BM6 from hobbycity and the unit has V2.0 stamped on it (rather than V3.0) which I was expecting because their text at http://www.hobbycity.com/hobbycity/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=8927 claims it is the *new* version. I sent email to them and they responded with a request for a picture of what I received. I'm waiting their reply. In the meantime, I tried it out and found that it would go down to 2.0 volts (not 3.0) for the low voltage alarm which is supposed to be a V3.0 feature. So it may be possible they just took all the old V2.0 monitors and loaded new firmware in the ATMEGA chip (this would only work if there were no hardware differences between V2.0 and V3.0). Does anyone know if this is true?

 

[dragonfire]

daisy-chaining of more than the signal to the piezzo-buzzer is not doable with soldering on the board itself only, the other features like displaying more than these 8 physical channels ( limited by avalability of plugs) on one monitor would require hardware modifications too fuzzy to make and still in need for a display and frameset alteration/ own layer for that bigger display.

but the piezzo buzzer can be chained and a cutoff signal being given to some drive controllers and maybe also chargersif the end of that chain is set in between the controller and batteries as an male/ female adapter that loops in the chained cutoff signal.

 

[Arlo1]

I recently received an order for the BM6 from hobbycity and the unit has V2.0 stamped on it (rather than V3.0) which I was expecting because their text at http://www.hobbycity.com/hobbycity/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=8927 claims it is the *new* version. I sent email to them and they responded with a request for a picture of what I received. I'm waiting their reply. In the meantime, I tried it out and found that it would go down to 2.0 volts (not 3.0) for the low voltage alarm which is supposed to be a V3.0 feature. So it may be possible they just took all the old V2.0 monitors and loaded new firmware in the ATMEGA chip (this would only work if there were no hardware differences between V2.0 and V3.0). Does anyone know if this is true?

Mine are new and they say v2.0 on them and they go down to 2.0 volts as well.

 

[mwkeefer]

hey all!

The new BM6 (cough, laugh) marked v2.0 do go down to 2.0 and other than the PCBs themselves they are very much the same except.. the variation or margin of error from cell 1 to 6 on these is far worse (wider variation) than the previous v3.0 or v2.0.

I can say that on my "working" (read that as not so far out of calibration) 6 BM6 monitors, if I connect them to my 5S packs but don't parallel the balance taps (which I don't want to do as I want to be able to identify a single failed cell) the voltage is skewed on a freshly charged and balance pack from 4.15v per cell to 4.20v per cell (the real voltage is actually 4.1520 to 4.160v when measured with my fluke on a per cell basis so the iCharger is doing it's job very well) - the new v2.0 are giving me an uber wide variation from 4.137v to 4.215 upon initial connect but then ... wait for it, yep the voltage creeps and suddenly Im hearing alarms but a quick test with the fluke and nothing has changed - I MEAN NOTHING!

The resistor divider network on these just seems lacking for calibration ... they are read on an individual channel basis so why they seem to be measuring using a common ground and multiple divider networks (different voltage steps) I have no idea but... I don't have a single one that is on point, they are all a bit off.

With regards to the firmware in the Atmega48 onboard this model... I have tried both methods of accessing the flash/eeprom data on these units... the 6 pins which aren't populated are wired for the ISP port of the chip and VCC - I'll post the pinout later from my other machine - this doesn't work, I assume the lockbit is set for noreset and noisp but... I even tried the old fashioned but little known Parallel High Voltage mode and still couldn't access the damn chip. I gave up for the time being but may work on it a bit more down the road.

One item I should mention... these are also equipped with an output for LEDs... if you combine a bright or infrared LED wired to each one then collect them all within a small cross section of PVC pipe, it is a simple matter to buuild an infrared or visible light detection circuit to trip LVC or HVC + you have full optical isolation. I have done this too and willl post the supporting schematic in a short while when I have a chance to incorporate one more feature for stand alone use a battery bypass circuit FET based so it will cut full power out when LVC is hit... will also lock power off until pack is disconnected and reconnected.

Hopefully for those of you willing to chance (this includes me most of the time since I don't go past 3.4v anymore) using the BM6 units for your bms this will be the last piece of the puzzle needed to work with any controller!

-Mike

 

[Hyena]

One item I should mention... these are also equipped with an output for LEDs... if you combine a bright or infrared LED wired to each one then collect them all within a small cross section of PVC pipe, it is a simple matter to buuild an infrared or visible light detection circuit to trip LVC or HVC + you have full optical isolation. I have done this too and willl post the supporting schematic in a short while when I have a chance to incorporate one more feature for stand alone use a battery bypass circuit FET based so it will cut full power out when LVC is hit

Mike have you made any progress with this ? It sounds promising

 

[mwkeefer]

Hyena,

Yes - I have made progress and in fact I am currently testing the stand alone LVC switch (FET based). Many thanks to dnmun for setting me straight on the whole methodology of switching the high side of the input using N channel FETs.

My testing is limited these past days since it's been raining and frigid out... i'm only averaging about 3mi per day (the bare minimum of travel) as I don't like the rain... and really I would be driving but I'm also testing the weatherproofing techniques Ive used on 2 different eBike builds... so far so good.

Once I have finished testing out the FET based switch for LVC... I will post the schematic and artwork for the PCB.

I should caution you (and everyone else) that as of now I cannot get the BM6 to be more accurate and there is a fairly wide margin of error but the error is on the side of caution (ie: when the cells read 3.2 they will really be between 3.2 and 3.4 it seems) - Gary has what I can only say is a much more accurate and robust solution in his new LVC/HVC balancer boards.

Personally I will be ordering atleast 6 of Gary's balance, lvc, hvc boards in kit form (for my 2 personal eBikes) because it's a much better solution than the BM6 (at a minimum more accurate and robust).

That said, I am still going to post this addon circuit for the BM6. They will not be as accurate or adaptable as Gary's solution but since so many of us out here have them... it's better than nothing = )_

Mike

 

[Hyena]

Just an update for those that were getting earlier versions from hobbycity / hobby king - I ordered a few last week and was shipped v3 units that DO go down to 2v LVC. The buzzer constantly beeps on these too, unlike the previous ones that had an intermittent beeping.

 

[Doctorbass]

Celllog 8 now have the 2.06 firmware availlable:

http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=12815&start=15

Doc