Powering your ESC from a charger?

[mortifiedMORTY]

Hi, thank you for looking at the topic. I've run into some trouble wiring my new setup. Honestly it'd be a bit hard to explain so I made a picture!

So the top image is my current setup. My problem is that the jumper connection I soldered in only disconnects one battery. With the parallel setup I'm using, this will be a problem as I can only disconnect the ESC down to half power instead of zero. The below image is my solution. Just add in a second one further down the line. Easy enough right? Well my question is this: Could I charge the batteries by tapping into each of these connections even though the ESC would also be receiving power? The batteries I have use a laptop charger outputting 25.2v. Exactly what my ESC runs off of and in theory, I don't see why this couldn't work out. It would save my a lot of hassle because I didn't design my enclosure very well in terms of charging the batteries. Without this, I may have to disconnect the enclosure from my board each time I want to charge. Anyway, thanks again for reading and I hope someone can lend some information.

 

[torqueboards]

A question I always ask myself - is one battery sufficient enough for your total distance. IMO If I'm using lipos I prefer to swap packs. For this reason, I made my enclosure very easy to open. Although, others prefer on-board charging still which is perfectly fine just a bit more difficult.

Also your disconnect should be at the end of your series connector from the battery either on the positive or negative end. A loop key will simply disconnect the setup but you want it after the series connection that way it powers off complete power from your pack.

As for a charging solution. You would need to setup a Y connector from the end of the series connector, 1 side going towards the ESC and another towards charging leads. It would be best if you can completely shut off power to the ESC and strictly charge when you plan on charging. You will also need to join your balance plugs in series as well. (2) 3S balance plugs need to be a 6S plug and/or 4S into 8S if you wire in series.

 

[mortifiedMORTY]

Sorry I wasn't more clear in the first post and I'll try and actually post a picture of the setup tomorrow. I'm running essentially two pairs of 6s LifePo's in parallel. They each have their own BMS and don't require balancing. Also, they should last quite a bit as they are each 6600mAh and it's essentially four sets of six so charging shouldn't be something I have to do multiple times a day for a ride.

I'm really just curious if having the ESC and both the batteries hooked into a connection with the charger will cause problems aside from just the ESC being powered up the whole time. I would just attach a charging port to the board but it's very fragile and I'm not comfortable leaving it attached to the board at all times.

 

[mortifiedMORTY]

Okay finally got some time for some pictures after work. Hopefully this will help show what I'm talking about, also any other input is welcome!

Thanks for the reply torque, I know that it looks kind of sloppy underneath the hood right now I just haven't had time to really design a cleaner look let alone work on it (how I ran into problems in the first place).