Hyperion EOS 1420i NET3 14s Balance Charger...

keysersoze310 said:
Can I charge two batteries in series on the same balance board with this charger?

For example, lets say I have two 4S batteries and two 3S batteries. First I connect the power cables in series to make 7s. Then I take the 5-pin and 4-pin balance cables and connect them to make an 8 pin balance cable - the last pin of the 5-pin connector in series with the first pin of the 4-pin connector. This should then be fine to connect to a single hyperion balance board and charge, right?
Click to expand...
Yes, or you can charge the whole 14s string in series.
 
wesnewell said:
keysersoze310 said:
Can I charge two batteries in series on the same balance board with this charger?

For example, lets say I have two 4S batteries and two 3S batteries. First I connect the power cables in series to make 7s. Then I take the 5-pin and 4-pin balance cables and connect them to make an 8 pin balance cable - the last pin of the 5-pin connector in series with the first pin of the 4-pin connector. This should then be fine to connect to a single hyperion balance board and charge, right?
Click to expand...
Yes, or you can charge the whole 14s string in series.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's what I was going for - charging the 14S string in series and being able to individually balance all 14 cells at the same time. Thanks for confirming Wesnewell, when it comes to lipo I double check everything before I burn my apt down :mrgreen:
 
How do I charge Li-ion with this thing?
My 18650 batteries are 3.7v if I put the charger in liIo mode then it want to charge a 3.6 battery with cut off at 4.1V
Should I select LiPo program instead?
 
The use of the hyperion is a bit difficult to understand at first, but that's the price you pay for a lot of features. There are program modes on the hyperion up to 10 (AFAIK) when you get the program 1 or 2 or whatever flashing you can push start and then begin programming the type of battery you have. I think it's Lilo on the hyperion.....It even let's you choose the charge rate, amp hours of the pack, how many s etc. etc. 8) 8) 8)
EDIT: On the first page of this post is a video tutorial link that shows it pretty clearly....
 
Allex said:
How do I charge Li-ion with this thing?
My 18650 batteries are 3.7v if I put the charger in liIo mode then it want to charge a 3.6 battery with cut off at 4.1V
Should I select LiPo program instead?
Click to expand...

Most lions are 3.6 nominal.. 4.1 HVC... so I'm not sure you have a "li-on" cell. Probably lipo if not similar to lipo. Try it with one cell and see if anything goes wrong... ;)
 
Thats the thing, If I use regular charger for it then it brings the cells to 4.2
But picked up my cells from a HP laptop battery, here they are:
http://www.batteryjunction.com/lg-18650-2600.html

Looking in pdf:
Cells shall be charged at constant current of 0.5C to 4.2V with end current of 50mA. Cells shall be
discharged at constant current of 0.5C to 3.0V.

So maybe I will just use liio mode and raise the cut off voltage to 4.2?
 
Allex said:
Looking in pdf:
Cells shall be charged at constant current of 0.5C to 4.2V with end current of 50mA. Cells shall be
discharged at constant current of 0.5C to 3.0V.

So maybe I will just use liio mode and raise the cut off voltage to 4.2?
Click to expand...

Sounds like LiPo to me ... "Li-ion" can be a catch term for the whole family. That bit you quoted is a procedure for the Performance testing section, for the conditions under which the capacity is quoted. Those are not instructions on what they are capable of, which is near the top of the document, up to max 1 C charging and max 1.5 C discharge.

I would personally charge these on the hyperion in LiPo mode, but program the amps to 0.5 C and, like always for LiPo, set TCS capacity to 90% or 95% for longer life and set TCS End action to Stop to avoid overcharging.
 
Does anyone have a source for the connectors that would mate with the balance ports on the 1420i?

I've Googled the Hyperion harness part number HP-EOSLBA-7UCBL and there are plenty of souces for that, so I could just cut the wires and splice on my own, but it would be cleaner to just find a source of the bare connectors and pins. Gary's website seems to be down, so ordering his harness kit, or its parts list :), is not an option at the moment either.
 
I don't see why not. You may be able to get even closer if you adjust the TCS set more than 100%.
 
Is it possible to discharge lipo through an external load (not using the 1420i's built in discharger) and monitor the discharge with the EOS software by connecting only the balance cables to the charger.
 
psycholist said:
Is it possible to discharge lipo through an external load (not using the 1420i's built in discharger) and monitor the discharge with the EOS software by connecting only the balance cables to the charger.
Click to expand...

I believe you can do this by going into the 1420i's SETUP menu and set the discharge current to ZERO amps.
 
itchynackers said:
I don't see why not. You may be able to get even closer if you adjust the TCS set more than 100%.
Click to expand...
hillzofvalp said:
May I charge 16S lifepo4 with the 13-14S lipo or li-on setting just to get them up to 90%? (no balancer)
Click to expand...

You could do that but you're basically using the 1420i as a bulk charger at that point.
If you do I'd highly recommend you follow the guidelines of good bulk charging practice:
Check the voltage diffence between the cells before and after the first few charge/discharge cycles to make sure you have no weak or dead cells and the bulk charge went well.
 
If your cells are out of balance at their nominal voltage, then they are likely to be extremely out of balance otherwise.
Unless you have some cells with a really bizarre voltage curve in your pack, which would be causing that.

Please tell me you discharge tested all your packs for capacity & other anomalies before starting a routine of bulk charging...
 
I haven't been able to tell if the 1420i is balancing when in storage mode (when balance plug is being used). So far though, this charger balances way better than my turnigy 8150 charger. I get to within 5mv now, and my 2 turnigy's can't get closer than 19mv. Also, my cellogs seem to agree very well with the 1420i.
 
When I cycle from 100%, charging takes 45-50min including balancing (1100W with 20s 11.5Ah pack). If I charge this way, cells are practically in balance when I bring them back up to 100% without storage cycle applied between.

When I charge from storage voltage (3.35?), it takes about 2.5Ah and an hour to get the cells up to 100% SOC BALANCED.I guess this would indicate that the charger is balancing at storage voltage or something... Any little difference (.001V) is a lot of capacity at this voltage. Nephrotix, wouldn't you seethis as a valid cause? Even if the cells are .006V gap, the Hyperion maybe is starting to do its balance algorithm...

Edit: when I do tcs 90% from a low soc they finish at exactly the same time. Pretty amazing. I guess I tabbed them fairly well.

Is it okay to unplug the psu while leaving charger connected to bike?
 
hilzofalp, I don't like using the storage mode on the 1420i because it balances the cells and this has the same effect as bottom balancing (puts the cells out of whack and takes forever to top balance). This would be especially noticable with a big pack such as yours. Try bulk charging (without balance leads connected) to TCS capacity ~40% and use this as your storage mode.
 
GGoodrum said:
I finally got around to testing one of the new Hyperion 14s balancing chargers I got last week. This is the one Doc first reported about in this thread. I had to make a special balancing harness, and put Andersons on the main charge wires, but that was pretty easy.

View attachment 7

I just used two 7-pin pigtails and crimped some VAL-U-LOK socket connectors on the ends, and stuffed them into a 14-pin VAL-U-LOK 4.2mm PE Series plug that matches up with the connector coming from the LVC boards in my 12s3p packs. To power the 1420, I used two unmodified S-350-24 MeanWell supplies, wired in parallel:

View attachment 6

I maxed out both at about 27.25V. I'm still trying to learn all the various charging/balancing options, but the basic operation is pretty intuitive, especially if you've ever used RC chargers before. The instructions weren't completely clear on connections for large packs, made from smaller sub-packs, so I was pleasantly surprised to learn that even though the pigtails I used only made use of 7 of the 8 available pins in the two balancer inputs, the unit simply ignored the two "empty" inputs and correctly identified the pack as a 12s configuration. I was worried I'd have to do a funny harness, that remapped the two 6s3p "chunks" into a 7/5-channel configuration.

I bought two of these chargers, so that I can do both 12s3p packs on my Townie at the same time, but for these first series of tests I'm only using one. As shown below, my 24s3p setup is split into two 12s3p packs that are connected in series. Each has 10-gauge discharge wires, with the large 75A Andersons, and each has a separate 12-gauge charge pigtail, with "normal" Andersons. Each pack also has two LVC/parallel adapter boards that provide the cell-level parallel connections and each have a 7-wire set of 18-gauge wires for balancing. These two sets terminate outside the pack in a VAL-U-LOK free-hanging plug.

View attachment 5

The connections between the 1420 and the pack are simply the matching 14-pin VAL-U-LOK connector and the two wire main charge leads, with the Andersons.

View attachment 4

First I tried straight balancing, which works quite well, simply pulling the high cells down to the level of the lowest cell. With 1/2A of balance current, it didn't take long (about 45 minutes...) to balance all 12 cells to within 5mV from an initial max delta of around 65mV. Actually, I think it could be even closer, as there is a setting somewhere for what is considered "balanced". There's several different monitoring screens, which is handy. One shows the average cell voltage, and the max delta. Then there's two more screens that shows all the individual cell voltages. On these last two, the decimal points change to small squares to indicate which cells are being drained. Finally, there is another screen that lets you select an individual cell, and see the voltage to three decimal places.

View attachment 3
View attachment 2
View attachment 1


Next, I tried a regular charge. There are 20 memory slots available, and setting the various parameters is straightforward. You set the number of cells (1-14), the max charge rate (up to 20A) and the pack capacity. I'm not sure what the maximum capacity that you can enter, but it had no problem with my 15,000 mAh (i.e. -- 15Ah...) 3p pack. If the balancer connections are not present, the charger will default to a charge-only mode. With the balancer plug(s) connected, it will automatically select the balance charge mode. Holding the "Enter" button down for two seconds initiates the charge/balance process, after first confirming the number of cells.

Since the pack in this first test was already 90% full, it didn't start out at a max charge rate. It ramped up and stopped at about 8.5A. What was interesting was watching the screens. All of the aforementioned balancing screens were available, as were a bunch of "Data Display" screens. There's a "Quick View" screen which I mostly used, which shows the total pack voltage, the input voltage (from the MWs...), the charge current and the total mAh going into the pack. What was interesting was seeing that the mAh calculation is smart enough to not get skewed by the balancing that is going on at the same time. Unlike most RC balancers and/or balancing chargers, this one uses 12-bit A/D conversions for better accuracy. The unit also "pauses" occasionally, shutting off the charge current, I'm guessing to get better voltage measurements. At the end, the unit plays a littly diddy, to indicate that charging and balancing is complete. I watched closely at the end, wondering how far down the current would drop, and what affect the balancing would have. The current dropped down to about .3A and stayed there awhile, as the cells continued to balance. When the max delta got down to 5mV, the current was down to about .21A. Amazingly, they will both get to their appointed "minimums", at the same time. :)

I used the default settings, for most everything, but there is lots of user adjustments that can be selected to change things like the charge to voltage, max "C" charge rates, max balance deltas, charge time limits, and a host of other settings. As I said, I will need to explore these further. There's also a USB port, with a supplied cable and a PC app for monitoring/logging. I still have to try this as well.

What I will do first is figure out how to lower the charge-to voltage, from the current 4.20V, down to about 4.15V. There's also the option of simply selecting Li-Ion instead of LiPo, which uses a slightly lower voltage setting. I'm also going to look at redoing the pack connections/charge harness a bit. I'm thinking if I use an 18-pin VAL-U-LOK connector, instead of the 14-pin version, I can dedicate 3 pins each for the two main charge wires, and end up with a single charge plug. Doesn't get much simpler than that. :)

I also need to do a set of harnesses for the 18s2p packs I use on the folding bikes. For this scenario, I will need to use both chargers, if I want to charge the whole pack at once. One would charge the first two 6s2p blocks, so 12s, and the second one will charge the remaining 6s2p sub-pack. This is pretty straightforward. I also have a 16s2p pack made from 8s-5800 Turnigy packs. Fr this I'll simply have a harness that lets each charger do one 8s section. I'll just spit the 8s connections so that it looks like two 4s packs. I now know that the charger will simply ignore the unused channels.

Anyway, I really haven't found anything that I don't like about these units, including the price. One of these, plus a MeanWell, or two, are all that's needed to do safe charging and balancing of a 12s LiPo or LiFePO4 "commuter" setup. I'm going to go ahead and add them to my site, and will offer E-S members enough of a discount to cover the "typical" eBay cost of a MeanWell. :wink: I'll also provide options for some pre-made harnesses. The 1420s also come with a couple balancing adapters, for most popular RC pack brands. When I get the site updated, I'll start a thread in the "For Sale" section, which will include a way to get the discount coupon.

-- Gary
Click to expand...

Hi Gary,
can you upload again the images because is not possible to see them. Thanks ;)
 
I suppose it would have to be an even number, like 20 or 22s, since you need to split the pack to balance anyway. If I could have my way, I'd have it be 24s, or 30.
 
itchynackers said:
I suppose it would have to be an even number, like 20 or 22s, since you need to split the pack to balance anyway. If I could have my way, I'd have it be 24s, or 30.
Click to expand...

This I did not know.

Will the Hyperion 1420i actually balance a 53 volt battery? Or do I need to make a pair of 7s cells?
 
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