Looking for a battery charger (with balance)

[thunderstorm80]

Hi,
After toasting my Turnigy 1-6S charger after mistakenly plugging the full battery voltage to it's output leads, I need a new charger.
A friend recommended the icharger 1010b+.
They have in fact quite nice products, but I now worry as those things are totally not fool proof: (we all make mistakes sometimes)
You would expect that such a device which can detect wrong voltages or reverse polarity, would not suicide if it see 50V battery by mistake, or 30V as input when it's supposed to receive a narrow range of 10-18V only.
Another disturbing usage issue with those chargers is the huge inrush spark when you connect your battery, including through the delicate balance leads. This is really scary every time I use it...
Are there any more user-proof products out there which are tolerant to higher voltages without breaking up? We all make mistakes sometimes, and many of us use more than 36V battery packs...

The second question regards choosing between up to 10S charge or 6S one.
The 10S have a single 10S balance port, and then you have an adaptor to get the lower series numbers, like this one:
http://www.icharger.co.nz/2-10s-jst-xh-balance-board
The problem with it, is that I find it problematic to balance-charge a 7S battery which has 4S + 3S balance leads.
With the Turnigy 1-6S charger - I did balance charge for the 4S part first, then the 3S. With a 10S charger, I think it would be impossible to charge the entire 7S battery at the same time and in fact I think I won't be able to balance-charge it at all without hooking up additional wires, which again, brings the user-fault issue.

I find that eventually, the easiest and safest way - is to use the above chargers only for 1 cell charging at a time. It takes longer, but I anyway do it once in a while when I check that the battery is fine. It's actually not so slow compared with the balance-charging mode of the above chargers - they can only drain 300mA or so during balance charge which is NOTHING for a 20Ah cell. I am much faster with charging all the cells in series, while monitoring and plugging an external load resistor on the higher than average cells.....

I will be happy to hear your experience with those.

 

[Hillhater]

10+S.. Use a bulk charger and either a BMS or cell monitors for balancing.
This will give you access to cheaper , high current, charging.
Otherwise, you are restricted to expensive 10-14s balance chargers.

 

[thunderstorm80]

10+S.. Use a bulk charger and either a BMS or cell monitors for balancing.
This will give you access to cheaper , high current, charging.
Otherwise, you are restricted to expensive 10-14s balance chargers.

I do not necessarily must have 10S support. I am fine with 6S.
I am trying to find a charger which is reliable. If icharger which costs 130$, can fry itself just like a cheap 27$ Turnigy does, then what's the point of risking 100$ more?
They both do the same. I understand the Turnigy is less accurate, doesn't measure resistance, etc... but it is prone to failure just like the icharger.
I thought the icharger was more trustable against user mistakes...

 

[dogman dan]

I'm not sure what you did to fry your old charger, but it may help you to do what I did, make it more or less impossible to plug the battery into the 12v input leads of my RC chargers.

I did this by arranging the andersons different on each end of the charger, so the battery can't plug into the input, only the output fits the plug. So any different plug, with the exception of an AC 110 plug on the input side would do the same thing.

Still possible to make other mistakes, like leaving it in series to have 50v, when your charger is 25v, or whatever. Arranging things so plugging in that way is impossible still a good plan to prevent another whoops.

 

[thunderstorm80]

I'm not sure what you did to fry your old charger, but it may help you to do what I did, make it more or less impossible to plug the battery into the 12v input leads of my RC chargers.

I did this by arranging the andersons different on each end of the charger, so the battery can't plug into the input, only the output fits the plug. So any different plug, with the exception of an AC 110 plug on the input side would do the same thing.

Still possible to make other mistakes, like leaving it in series to have 50v, when your charger is 25v, or whatever. Arranging things so plugging in that way is impossible still a good plan to prevent another whoops.

I understand what you mean, but still, there will be certain circumstances/batteries+not being concentrated for a second = plugging the wrong way...
I ended up buying another very-cheap charger like that. I will just be even more careful this time, but I am not going to spend big bucks on those poorly engineered devices.

 

[Hillhater]

Remember to always power up the charger before you connect the battery to prevent the inrush spark.

 

[thunderstorm80]

Remember to always power up the charger before you connect the battery to prevent the inrush spark.

I do it, and still - when I connect the battery it sparks big time, including even through the delicate JST balance leads. It's amazing how those devices are so poorly engineered (even the ones that cost 130$ like icharger) ....
But hey, at least you can buy those that are cheap enough (30$) to be replaced every time you fry one.

 

[bh4801]

Remember to always power up the charger before you connect the battery to prevent the inrush spark.

I do it, and still - when I connect the battery it sparks big time, including even through the delicate JST balance leads. It's amazing how those devices are so poorly engineered (even the ones that cost 130$ like icharger) ....
But hey, at least you can buy those that are cheap enough (30$) to be replaced every time you fry one.

Just in case you ever considered a premium product, here is what I personally find the Holy Grail of RC chargers these days:
https://www.pp-rc.de/CHARGING-TECHN....htm?shop=pp-rc_en&a=article&ProdNr=1234V&p=6
It's amazing how true it remains that "you always get what you pay for".
Yes, I own it, works great with a MeanWell 48V 2000W

 

[bh4801]

10+S.. Use a bulk charger and either a BMS or cell monitors for balancing.
This will give you access to cheaper , high current, charging.
Otherwise, you are restricted to expensive 10-14s balance chargers.

What is expensive?
Have we already forgotten what a BMS did to Dan's house?
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=87975

 

[thunderstorm80]

Remember to always power up the charger before you connect the battery to prevent the inrush spark.

I do it, and still - when I connect the battery it sparks big time, including even through the delicate JST balance leads. It's amazing how those devices are so poorly engineered (even the ones that cost 130$ like icharger) ....
But hey, at least you can buy those that are cheap enough (30$) to be replaced every time you fry one.

Just in case you ever considered a premium product, here is what I personally find the Holy Grail of RC chargers these days:
https://www.pp-rc.de/CHARGING-TECHN....htm?shop=pp-rc_en&a=article&ProdNr=1234V&p=6
It's amazing how true it remains that "you always get what you pay for".
Yes, I own it, works great with a MeanWell 48V 2000W

639EUR????
I only need an RC charger to balance the cells once in a while...
For everyday charging I use Grin's Satiator which costs less than half of that (300$) and it's the most reliable charger I have ever seen.
It's true that you get what you pay for, but with that amount I can burn 20+ of those smaller chargers and still get a change for 639EUR.

 

[bh4801]

639EUR????
I only need an RC charger to balance the cells once in a while...
For everyday charging I use Grin's Satiator which costs less than half of that (300$) and it's the most reliable charger I have ever seen.
It's true that you get what you pay for, but with that amount I can burn 20+ of those smaller chargers and still get a change for 639EUR.

1100EUR actually with BT and power supply, much cheaper than rebuilding your house after one BMS failure.
If you survive the fire....

Call me paranoid, I never use a BMS, only use naked LiPo, always balance-charge every single time, never unattended, always monitoring battery temperature and individual voltages.

Another issue is LVC - every some cycles I use the charger to discharge the battery till ANY ONE cell drops to 3,0 V and note battery voltage and NEVER discharge below that.
Other cells may be 3,5V, does not matter, that is how you test what the LVC of the entire battery ACTUALLY is.
The weakest becomes discharged the first, easy to overdischarge, what happens next is described in Dan's thread.

But sure everybody here on ES know all this and no need to flog the dead horse, right?
Ride on!

 

[thunderstorm80]

639EUR????
I only need an RC charger to balance the cells once in a while...
For everyday charging I use Grin's Satiator which costs less than half of that (300$) and it's the most reliable charger I have ever seen.
It's true that you get what you pay for, but with that amount I can burn 20+ of those smaller chargers and still get a change for 639EUR.

1100EUR actually with BT and power supply, much cheaper than rebuilding your house after one BMS failure.
If you survive the fire....

Call me paranoid, I never use a BMS, only use naked LiPo, always balance-charge every single time, never unattended, always monitoring battery temperature and individual voltages.

Another issue is LVC - every some cycles I use the charger to discharge the battery till ANY ONE cell drops to 3,0 V and note battery voltage and NEVER discharge below that.
Other cells may be 3,5V, does not matter, that is how you test what the LVC of the entire battery ACTUALLY is.
The weakest becomes discharged the first, easy to overdischarge, what happens next is described in Dan's thread.

But sure everybody here on ES know all this and no need to flog the dead horse, right?
Ride on!

You use LiPo??? Then now I understand why you need 1100EUR charger to protect your house from fire :wink:
I use A123 prismatic cells (LiFe), the safest chemistry out there - I charge the cells to 3.5V@cell without BMS. I only do balance-charging once in a while so I can monitor if some cells got drifted away. (that's why I need such charger). Whenever I do that balance-charge, it's under supervise, as instructed by the manual. I would never leave it unattended.
I really, seriously, don't understand why people keep using LiPo's for E-bikes after all those accident reports.
For your information, it's considered playing with fire (literally) when you do any charge mode on your LiPo's without BMS.

 

[dustNbone]

I also use A123 prismatics, without a BMS. Bulk charge to 3.5V per cell, and I use an iMax B8+ RC charger to balance them in 2 stages (2x8s balance leads attached). Honestly they really have never needed balancing, it's more for peace of mind than anything. The balance charge usually takes under 5 minutes for each 8S stack, and I try to do it twice a month or so just to be reassured that nothing terrible has happened. I have a real time volt/amp meter on my "dash" that I watch closely while riding, I'm fairly sure I'd notice anything going awry pretty quickly.

Link to charger http://www.skyrc.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=12

 

[bh4801]

...
I really, seriously, don't understand why people keep using LiPo's for E-bikes after all those accident reports.
For your information, it's considered playing with fire (literally) when you do any charge mode on your LiPo's without BMS.

If I understand correctly, A123 is ~130 Wh/kg, LiPo is ~220Wh/g.
Energy density makes a difference to me considering I carry the battery in a backpack, it's a fun machine, you know
Safety and performance again mutually exclusive?

 

[dustNbone]

I don't think A123 LiFePo4 was being suggested as the only alternative to RC Lipo. 3400mAh 18650 cans have at least the energy density of RC Lipo and are generally considered much safer, though not as safe as LiFePo4. They are however still somewhat more expensive than RC Lipo.