How to charge multiple Hobby King Zippy packs?

[NeilP]

I am looking at various ideas at the moment, regarding batteries, but if I went with these RC Zippy battery packs from Hobby King....how are they charged?

if for instance I used these
ZIPPY Flightmax 5000mAh 6S1P 20C 22volt packs
http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=8582

I imagine you use three packs in series to give 66 or so volts volts, and then parallel 3 or 4 of the groups (of 3 series packs) to get up to 15 or 20 Ah.

But how are they then charged? Do you have to strip the pack down to the individual 22volt 5000mAh packs again and charge them individually or is there a way that this homebrew 66 volt 20Ah pack is charged with a single big charger?...and what happens to all the BMS wires from each pack...what is done with them?

Thanks

Neil

 

[vanilla ice]

You can charge the pack as-is with three 6s turnigy chargers if the 12v power supplies to each charger are isolated from each other. Each parallel group gets charged together. You could parallel the balance wires too, probably should do.

I fried a couple slow chargers by using a shared 12v power supply, thinking they were internally isolated... don't do that!

 

[neptronix]

I use 2x 5s packs and an iCharger 1010b+, which can balance charge 10s at a time.
I charge my 10s strands individually to make up 20ah at the moment. But eventually i will parallel the balance leads to balance charge everything at once.

So the downside to that is that i can only do 36v or 55.5v ( which would be a hassle to balance charge ).

Hyperion has came out with a 14s charger very recently. It can charge up to 14s in a serial configuration simultaneously. 13s would give you 48v nominal.

http://media.hyperion.hk/dn/eos/

EDIT: I lied. It says in the user manual that you need two 0720inet's to do 14s wired in series. Lame.

 

[itchynackers]

I just make a charging plug that plugs into the pack so that you are charging in one big parallel string. Of course you disconnect the 2 series plugs first. Its actually worked quite well for me. One charger, one power supply, slower charging.

 

[jondoh]

if you have isolated chargers, you can connect them in series to charge your pack. This is what I do. I have 12s3p lipos (6x 6s bricks) that I charge this way. Make sure you connect all the paralleled cells (which you can do through the balance connector) so that charger sees them as one big cell.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z010Cgv_glM

 

[NeilP]

Ah shit...so i wont be able to easily carry a charger around with me...maybe just have one at work...Looks like it is almost as expensive to buy the chargers as it is to buy the battery packs. That was an expense I had not figured on.

Thanks for the videos and info

Neil

 

[neptronix]

Easy solution: add more aH so that you don't have to charge at work, charge at home, etc etc.
I have a hobbyking pack that can do 40 miles, possibly more ( since i pedal mainly on flats ). It's 25aH.

Or alternately you can buy a large pingbattery pack.

 

[solracotos]

Easy solution: add more aH so that you don't have to charge at work, charge at home, etc etc.
I have a hobbyking pack that can do 40 miles, possibly more ( since i pedal mainly on flats ). It's 25aH.

Or alternately you can buy a large pingbattery pack.

How many miles one way?

 

[vanilla ice]

Lipo chargers do add a lot to the total system cost.. check out the eco-6 or the other 50 watt 6s chargers. Those would work well enough for work day or sleep time charging. At $18 to $20 per 6s (plus a few 12v wall warts) its not too bad a deal.

 

[hydro-one]

I bulk charge with a meanwell. cost 45$ and supplies 63 volts, 420w , continous charging power , wieghs about 2 pounds. You need to make sure all your cells are matched. Then mod the meanwell unit. look for "switch mode power supply" thread, or meanwell thread. Buy off ebay direct from china. takes about 3 weeks (im in central canada). Make sure and mod properly , and watch the balance often.
And dont leave them upside down (blocked the fan) (1 dead) when charging. or reverse the polarity (2 dead). Also dont let salty water get in them too much (dead/repaired). And finally be careful kids (killed three so far!!) edit: i mean the chargers not the lipos!!!!

Good luck , and keep them packs tight!!!

mike

 

[neptronix]

How many miles one way?

That's the total mileage, so you can go 40 miles one way or 20 miles two ways

That's with a 500w kit though, doing about 20mph. With my current 250w kit i have gone as far as 20 miles roundtrip on 5ah. This is on flats with a lot of pedaling, and topping out at 18mph.

If you are hitting some serious hills, your mileage will vary drastically.

 

[dogman dan]

Charging out on the road is where the simplicity of a ping gets attractive. But like they say, you could just eventually afford more bricks to add range. The lipo is so small and light, you could have a pack for to work on the bike, and carry another for the ride home in a backpack.

There are threads on how to bulk charge a whole pack, but for nervous beginners it can be a good option to paralell connect packs to the ah size you need, then connect them series to ride. To charge, disconnect and charge each paralell set individualy. I do it this way myself because I do so much fooling around with different bikes. So I constanly hook them up differently depending on which bike, and how far I need to go. This is for the fun bikes.

My daily commuter bikes both use pings, and have spare chargers that i keep at work. I'm happy with 20 mph performance for the commuting bikes so the lame ping c rate is not a problem.

 

[GGoodrum]

Hyperion has came out with a 14s charger very recently. It can charge up to 14s in a serial configuration simultaneously. 13s would give you 48v nominal.

http://media.hyperion.hk/dn/eos/

EDIT: I lied. It says in the user manual that you need two 0720inet's to do 14s wired in series. Lame.

Not true. The new EOS 1420i NET3 balance charger handles pack configurations up to 14s, in pretty much any combination of smaller Turnigy/Zippy packs. I use one of these with a couple of MeanWell S-350-24 supplies, wired in parallel, to charge a 12s3p configuration that is made from six 6s-5000 Turnigy packs. Each 6s3p group is connected to one of the two balancer plug inputs, via a custom 14-pin adapter plug I did. This setup allows this 12s3p pack to be balanced charged at about 11-12A.

View attachment EOS 1420i-01.jpg

This bike actually has two 12s3p packs in series, for 88V/15Ah, so I'm now using a second EOS 1420i NET3 with two more MW S-350-24s, so I can balance charge the whole 24s3p configuration at at once, at 11-12A. With each 1420i putting out 550W, that's a total of 1100W.

-- Gary

 

[neptronix]

GGoodrum: thanks for clearing that up. I read the manual more than once and i suppose they are not clear about that matter.

x88x: yes, i was referring to that small iCharger. For one, it is an older design.. for two it pumps out a meager 50w.

 

[NeilP]

Ok, thanks guys...a lot to digest and even more to decide. I cant see my self ever doing this. I wanted to get a decent bike up and running within a couple of months or so, any later than that and (for me) becomes pointless. I am not driving a car for the next 12 months or so...after that I am back on the road again. if I do not get this bike project going soon, there will not be any point, as I will be driving again.

 

[liveforphysics]

If you monitor the cell's to make sure things are balanced, you can just bulk-charge from a meanwell. It's extremely cheap and simple, just a single 2-wire plug to connect.

 

[NeilP]

OK, I am beginning to get a bit of an understanding here.


Am I correct in thinking that LiPo cells in parallel balance each other? so if you have two 10 series packs...and connected in parallel for the output, you can also connected the balance wires in series and connect that paralleled set of balance wires to a single balance input on a charger?


So if I got a pair of these:
http://truerc.net/truercusa/manual/SM_510.pdf

I could make two packs of 4 x 10S packs in parallel 10S4P...is that the correct notation
and then series these two packs....two give 72 volt or so ...and then use the SM 510 balancer, one across each parallel pack, and then charge with a Meanwell supply capable of putting out the required voltage?