Please avoid ebay seller "rchobby*2012" ( BC168 charger)

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meelis11

100 W
Joined
Jul 30, 2013
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116
Location
Tallinn, Estonia
Hi,
I bought BC168 charger form ebay seller rchobby*2012

Received charger and it broke in 30 seconds.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exet4jAfA24

"When connecting charger to computer power supply, it probably creates short and everything shuts off. Probably power supply protection kicks in. When turned off and waiting 10 or more seconds, power supply protection resets and it is working again.
Input voltage is 12.3V. When measured resistance between charger input wires, it was about 511 ohms.
Tried same test with 11.1V 3S 2200mAh LIPO and just in case put 10A fuse inline - it created spark and burned instantly.
Nothing is connected to charger output."

Sent it back to seller to get it repaired. Shipping back to China was about 25dollars

After 2 months received charger and made some test chargings.
3cell lipo at 1.8A charged fine.
5cell lipo at 3.0A charged fine (tested few minutes), then stopped charging and
tested 6cell charging at 5.0A, about 30seconds later charger made a pop and let some smoke out - channel 2 is dead. That charger was DEFECTIVE again and broke again in 30 seconds! What quality is that?

I sent it once back, payed shipping and waited 2 months to get it back, I am not doing that again. This is crap, i want a refund!

Video proof is here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8Z5eQM_i1E

Seller does not answer emails anymore, only sait that at first time it broke beacuse of overvolting. Input voltage was 12.3V
PLEASE AVOID THAT SELLER!

Meelis
 
Bad luck on your BC168.

I got mine from shiptou2010, he actually seems to sell at a bit more of a premium price, I think I deliberately choose to pay a few extra bucks in the hope it would help me magically get a good one.
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/BC168-RC-Model-Super-Speed-Li-ion-Li-Polymer-Li-Fe-Hobby-Balance-Charger-BC016-/281120965932?pt=AU_Toys_Hobbies_Radio_Controlled_Vehicles&hash=item41741d852c&_uhb=1

I been using mine for about 10 months about 3 4 times a week and its fine. I saw a post that theorized the BC168 might work more reliably on a higher watt power supply. I use Turnigy 1080Watt PS.
 

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In some ways you were lucky I blew two of mine doing something stupid, ie forgeting to disconnect my 6s series link in my battery to their subpack levels

2 subpacks 6s into 12s. I tried to get help from the sellers (two different alibaba ones) and I got nowhere they just said that they only sold them but would do me a better price on a new one. In summary i have two chargers which read only some of the cells so wont even begin to charge any lipo.

I have bought two 6s+ type 5A ones as a poor mans comprimise for now since i can retro fit them with mini pots and in effect tune them myself with a little trial and hopefully nondestructive error.

Still looking for someone to pipe up and offer a repair service but nobody on ES seems to know enough about them. I agree with the 2nd poster about them needing a robust supply. They say error if your supply dips below the preset LV input (this is probs to save your SLA battery in the field) but a good server supply like a HP or Dell is your best bet.
 
You need a decent PSU. The pulses of current draw on a PC PSU will make the circuit in the bc168 freak because (IMO) the voltage drops so the BC 168 internal current goes beyond a safe level to make up the wattage.
Try a meanwell
Edit
Btw I've blow on up the same way
 
it would really have helped a lot more if you had opened up the bad chargers and posted up pictures from inside so we would know something about how they died.

the seller does not make them, he just sells them so it seems like a lame blame game to say he was responsible for the failure.

if you could have opened it up we might have seen what was wrong and you coulda fixed it for less than the $25 to ship it.

these things are not that complicated, we have seen inside one of them after the switching mosfet failed.

if he was not getting low voltage error signal i doubt if his problem is in the power supply, but it could be.........
 
I've purchased 2 of the BC168 chargers.

1. was 79.99 free shipping off ebay
2. was $110.00 expedited shipping from a random RC website

both boxes are completely identical. but one of the chargers is a fake. and does not operate or balance the same way a real bc168 should.

The only way I can tell them apart is by looking at the orange, pink and white paint on the front of the chargers. the finish on 1 is matte and the other very glossy.

Which one do you think performs worse?
 
pendragon8000 said:
You need a decent PSU. The pulses of current draw on a PC PSU will make the circuit in the bc168 freak because (IMO) the voltage drops so the BC 168 internal current goes beyond a safe level to make up the wattage.
Try a meanwell
Edit
Btw I've blow on up the same way
Click to expand...

Second time I powered it with a 12V car battery, when channel 2 let its smoke out.
 
dnmun said:
it would really have helped a lot more if you had opened up the bad chargers and posted up pictures from inside so we would know something about how they died.

the seller does not make them, he just sells them so it seems like a lame blame game to say he was responsible for the failure.

if you could have opened it up we might have seen what was wrong and you coulda fixed it for less than the $25 to ship it.

these things are not that complicated, we have seen inside one of them after the switching mosfet failed.

if he was not getting low voltage error signal i doubt if his problem is in the power supply, but it could be.........
Click to expand...

So are you saying that its okay behaviour from seller to ignore my emails when there is problem - because he only sells them?! Ignoring problems says something about a seller...

First time I did not want to open it because then seller can say that no quarantee. Yes I opened it up second time and small piece of microchip falled out. made finding burned part easier. It was same microchip (labeled IRF7832) like in this post, maybe location was different in PCB, there were 12 pieces of that chip: http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=50172&hilit=bc168+poof#p742620
Already ordered it here (should be same chip): http://www.ebay.com/itm/300953017111?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649
Order was made two weeks ago, should be here in any day or in a week. I will update this post when I start to repair it and let you know how it went. I will make pictures also.
 
meelis11 said:
pendragon8000 said:
You need a decent PSU. The pulses of current draw on a PC PSU will make the circuit in the bc168 freak because (IMO) the voltage drops so the BC 168 internal current goes beyond a safe level to make up the wattage.
Try a meanwell
Edit
Btw I've blow on up the same way
Click to expand...

Second time I powered it with a 12V car battery, when channel 2 let its smoke out.
Click to expand...
Oh OK. was the terminal connection adequate? If it got hot the voltage may have dropped.
Also check this, magic smoke has been reported here
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=41107
 
on the BC-168, each channel is single cell charger. that mosfet is the switcher for that channel. it should work if you can replace it but they seem to fail often. i think it is just too much for the little mosfets.
 
dnmun said:
on the BC-168, each channel is single cell charger. that mosfet is the switcher for that channel. it should work if you can replace it but they seem to fail often. i think it is just too much for the little mosfets.
Click to expand...

Then why they did not use bigger mosfets if they cannot reliably handle 8A, or even 5A what i was using when it failed?
Anyway, I shouod get 5 pieces of these mosfets soon, 4 will be for future burns :)
 
Posted some pics to other topic. mosfet replacement was unsuccesful - burned again.
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=50172&p=811921#p811921
 
Hello,
I want to buy myself a new lipo charger for my hexacopter.

I use 6S lipos with 4000 or 8000mAh.


I've read about the BC168 that seems to go up into smoke very often.

Then I did some more research and found this one:
http://www.myrcmart.com/unrc-una9-plus-battery-lipo-balance-charger-parallel-charging-p-5502.html

Seems to be the same, except for 9S capability.

Or this one...looks like the BC168.
http://www.r2hobbies.com/battery-charger/chargers/unrc-un-a9-plus-lipo-battery-balance-charger.html


Should I get this one or the BC168?
 
pendragon8000 said:
You need a decent PSU. The pulses of current draw on a PC PSU will make the circuit in the bc168 freak because (IMO) the voltage drops so the BC 168 internal current goes beyond a safe level to make up the wattage.
Try a meanwell
Edit
Btw I've blow on up the same way
Click to expand...
Yeah I recon you right about that. The other day I had mine setup with the FM radio going at the same time and every time the bc168/PSU stopped drawing power it made my radio buzz, so during charge it was (to put it crudely) like someone doing a 1 second fart every 2.5 seconds roughly as the BC168 was pulse sucking power, a cheap basic PC power supply wouldn't be designed to give out power like that I reckon.
Maybe if the BC168 was redesigned to build up its current draw more slowly so that crappier PSUs would have a chance to deal with it, down side would be it would take longer to charge and would be of no use/gain to people with quality PSUs.
 
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