HK 2-8S Cell Checker w/ Low Voltage Alarm

[newb]

Finally, HK has a truly low cost Low Voltage Alarm. Might not be the most
accurate device but w/ having an adjustable alarm level who cares.

Features: 2-8S Cell Checker with Adjustable Low Voltage Alarm

only - $3.64 or wait a min and their one time offer price is $3.38

http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__18588__Hobbyking_2_8S_Cell_Checker_with_Low_Voltage_Alarm.html

 

[Hugues]

Any idea how much it consumes ?
I would like to keep it plugged in
Can't find the info on that page

 

[dogman dan]

Likely wouldn't matter if you were riding daily. Less than a minuite on charge would top it off each morning. Likely not to matter even in 2-3 days.

Adjustable alarm voltage is very cool.

Certainly inexpensive to just buy one and find out the drain.

 

[newb]

Any idea how much it consumes ?
I would like to keep it plugged in
Can't find the info on that page

sorry can't answer that but Methods posted this generalization about HK battery protection devices in his HVC + LVC + Parallel Boards sale thread.

A common question I hear is:

"Why cant I use product XYZ from Hobby King to do the exact same thing for 1/10th the price?"

Although it is true that I love Hobby King and they sell amazing products at unreal prices the trouble is that all of these devices have a very high quiescent current draw. If you plug any of these devices into your battery pack and leave it for any appreciable amount of time you will end up burning charge fairly quickly. Just a handful of mA add up quickly.

My boards draw about 3uA on average. This means that it would take a million hours to burn off 3Ah from your pack (literally... a million hours... that is over 100 years)

A Hobby King module might draw something like 8mA on average. This means that it can burn off 3Ah in only 15 days. Now 15 days may seem like a long time but when those winter months hit 2 weeks can blow by before you know what happened and it is not hard to project how many people will ruin their packs with a mistake like this.

So - yes I am well aware that you can buy very cool cheap stuff from Hobby King (and I encourage you to do so!!!) but please make sure that you are very careful if you choose to build a solution out of one of these inefficient devices. I am no fool and I would not waste my time bringing a product to market if I thought it could be easily replaced by a $5 Chinese gadget :wink:

-methods

I have a few of these which pretty similar and although i have never left them attached for such an extended period of time what Method claims would seem to hold true.