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

[fractal]

so i tried charging at 12s. everything is plugged in perfectly but i get a battery connection error. the input voltage is 13 volts. is it possible that its too low for 12s. the manual dosent say shit!!!! (tried charging eac 6s packs separately and it works)

The "battery connection error" doesn't come up if your power supply is too small. If it charges your 6s packs fine it should charge your 12s packs too but just at half the amps. Remember these 1420i chargers were made for use largely by the RC guys who power their chargers with their 12v car batteries while they are out in the field flying their RC planes and helicopters.

I think something is still wrong with your connections when you series charge your two 6s packs. Can you take a pic and post it up?

The easiest way I can tell people to make the connections correct is to make sure pin #1 on port A (black wire) is connected to the same battery pack that also connects to the thick black (-) charge lead.

ok ill do that, but i can confirm that that is the way i plugged it. thanks for all the help!!!!

 

[Alan B]

All it take is for one balance lead to not make connection and you'll get this error. Replug everything.

 

[fractal]

ok i go it! in the menu it was still set at 6s. so i changed it to 12s and bingo! thanks everyone!

 

[999zip999]

There you go boy. Thanks Sacman, Alan B

 

[hillzofvalp]

Hyperion ought to release a new charger soon that competes with the power lab's power...

 

[999zip999]

I fill better with Sacman holding my hand. Thanks. Sucess 12s A123 20ah is charged on the hyperion. One more to go.

 

[Sacman]

I fill better with Sacman holding my hand. Thanks. Sucess 12s A123 20ah is charged on the hyperion. One more to go.

Hey now... me "holding your hand"... no no ... that's a pretty disturbing image (unless you are a hot young looking woman). :lol:

no but seriously... that Hyperion 1420 is an awsome charger and I'm glad you finally got thru charging 1 of your packs successfully with it. See it isn't so scary is it? You just needed to get comfortable navigating thru all the menus so you can see and monitor the individual cell voltages during the first few charge cycles. And after you've noticed the behavior of how it charges and balances you'll finally learn to trust it and not have to monitor it so closely.

So did you just charge or charge/balance that 1st pack. And did it play that little musical tune when it completed?

 

[mistercrash]

I use the Hyperion 1420i to balance charge the 14S16P battery I made using 18650V cells. The charger is set to charge each cells to 4.15V. All fourteen cells take charge pretty equally until they all get to the 4.12V mark. Then this one cell drops to 4.00V and the rest keep on going up until they all get to 4.14/4.15V and get the flashing little square beside them. The charger is now in balance mode and is trying to bring that one cell up equal to the others. It takes forever to do that and sometimes I just disconnect everything and stop the charging process.

When I stopped the charge today, the one cell showed 4.03V while all others were at 4.14/4.15V. I checked the voltage of that low cell with a Fluke 113 and it said 4.23V. Is my charger defective or is something wrong with that cell that makes the charger give false readings?

 

[ambroseliao]

....

When I stopped the charge today, the one cell showed 4.03V while all others were at 4.14/4.15V. I checked the voltage of that low cell with a Fluke 113 and it said 4.23V. Is my charger defective or is something wrong with that cell that makes the charger give false readings?

What did the other cells read with your Fluke meter?

 

[999zip999]

Mistercash I'm in the same boat.

 

[999zip999]

Sacman it's my first time so be easy. 500usd of A123 and.inside the garage ? First charge R/C 12s. Thanks again. The konion pack had a drift to 4.22v or more. So the 1420 was single cell charger till now. Konion pack charged with a ping 48v5a turned up tio 74.2v. Because it likes it. With balance wires ect.

 

[Sacman]

When I stopped the charge today, the one cell showed 4.03V while all others were at 4.14/4.15V. I checked the voltage of that low cell with a Fluke 113 and it said 4.23V. Is my charger defective or is something wrong with that cell that makes the charger give false readings?

My best guess is that there is additional resistance in the balance wires of that cell on your charging setup (most likely a pin connection on the JST plug). The additonal resistance could be fooling the charger into thinking that cell has a lower voltage than it actually has (hence when you take the charging leads away and test the cell with your Fluke meter test leads it reads higher voltage). I could be wrong so somebody with a good grasp of electronics theory please chime in and tell me if my reasoning is sound or not.

If you have another identical battery pack, charge it with the same setup and see if the same cell number gives you the same problem. If it does then I'd check the resistance of your balance leads going to that cell and compare it to the resistance of the adjacent balance leads. Also check that the pin/socket connection of the JST plugs are clean. Sometimes a thin crusty film of resin can prevent full contact connection and even read as a small additional resistance.

 

[999zip999]

Plus cell do have there own level some times good or bad and sometimes zero problems. But I monitor and use... Yea use It or look at it

 

[999zip999]

Maybe I have H.k. jst 6s balance ext cheapo's on the 74v kniona pack that has hyperion balance wires ? They plug in just fine. ?

 

[mistercrash]

All the other cells were at the 4.14V mark. I was hoping to find another solution to this but I have to take the battery out, open it and check that 16P string to see if a cell came loose. It is very likely that a bad connection is the problem since there are numerous connection points in that battery.

Thanks guys

 

[cwah]

My hyperion takes forever to charge pack that is not balanced. Here's on charge:

The cell n°1 reaches the peak sooner than others. And the hyperion doesn't allow other cells to go up and it just last forever in this state..

So I stopped the charge, and started the balance mode:

I've been waiting for 4h and it's still not ready yet!! There's only 0.02V difference between the top cell and the others.


Any faster way to reach 4.15V for all cells?

 

[Sacman]

Is your final target voltage set to 4.15v because your cell voltages seem to be dropping down away from it.
I'm not sure why your cell voltages are not increasing toward the final target voltage (4.2v) like mine do.

Here's a typical balance session of one of my more unbalanced packs.
Note that the highest cell voltage is held at 4.2v while the other cells are charged up toward it.

 

[cwah]

I've adjusted the TC voltage to -50mv, so it end up at 4.15V in order to keep the cell longevity. So the cell maximum isn't at 4.2V but at 4.15V.

It should have the same behavior for 4.15V :/

 

[Sacman]

Okay I think I see... you stopped the charge mode session, then started a balance mode session.
The balance mode session doen't try to get the cells toward 4.15v. I think it only tries to get the cell
voltages closer together.

I wonder if you started another charge mode session, would the cells votages go up toward 4.15v?
(although I'm not sure why it didn't do this in the 1st charge mode session to begin with)

 

[Sacman]

Could you also use a multi-meter and check the resistance of your cell 1 and compare it
with the resistance of the other cells?

 

[cwah]

I'm not sure if my multimeter can measure the cell resistance. How do I know if it can do that?

I set the end of TC with the "stop" option. I think if I try again with a "continue" option it may adjust?

 

[cwah]

I balanced the cell and then tried to charge again...

No much improvement..

ps:
I think I found what's happening: The balancing is so slow that it was hardly noticeable:

If you look carefully, all other cells are very very slowly catching up. If think in half a day my pack will be balanced... :?

 

[Alan B]

This is a sign of a bad pack. One cell has low capacity, so it charges up early and then puts the charger into a crawling balance mode. The charger cannot allow that one cell to go above 4.15V so it must charge the other cells at a low rate. Probably should weed out the low capacity cell, perhaps get it balanced and see if the same thing happens each cycle.

I also wonder if it would be better to use 4.2V for this, at least for a few cycles to see if it improves.

 

[Sacman]

@cwah
It does look like your #2 cell is getting to 4.15v first and putting the charger in balance mode. AlanB might be right that cell could be weak. You could verify if it is a weak cell by setting the discharge voltage to 3.6v the Hyperion 1420i and running a discharge cycle on your pack. (It will be considerably longer to discharge because the 1420i has a built-in discharge load that's pretty wimpy for discharging our relatively "huge" ebike packs). But take a look at the graph of the discharge cycle and see if that voltage in cell 2 drops noticably quicker than the other cells. If it does then you'll know for sure it's a weak cell and you might have to consider replacing it. Also, scroll thru the stats of that discharge cycle and take notice of the Amp-Hours expended and see if it's reasonable to the size of your pack (I believe you said your pack was 8Ah right?)

But honestly, on the first graph you posted of your pack charging, that cell 2 did not look like it shot up to 4.15v way faster than the other cells . Also, you're only looking at about a 20 milivolts gap (that's 0.02v) as your greatest difference between that cell 2 and the rest of the cells. To me it didn't look that bad and didn't look like the cell was weak. Looks more like an inconsistency in materials (chemical mix) or manufacturing between the individual cells.

One of my LiPo packs that I've used almost 2 years looks like that and actually has about a 35 milivolt gap when charged. I'm still getting a useable 8.9Ah on that 10Ah pack so I'm still using it and just keeping an eye on it.

 

[cwah]

I did the test 2 weeks ago on this pack:

From 4V to 3.65V I have about 5.35 AH available on the pack. My other pack has about 5.6 AH available for the same setting. It does seem like a weaker cell when you look at the red one.