The Cycle Satiator, universal charger for the enthusiasts

[johnrobholmes]

No heat issues here, using it to charge mostly Ping packs direct into the supplied XLR.

 

[justin_le]

The battery temperature readout was present during all trials which is slightly disconcerting when there is no thermistor connected. Perhaps the information should not be displayed when no thermistor is connected, or an Advanced Settings option should be added so the user can turn off the battery temperature display.

Hi Bill, I think this might actually point to a mis-wired XLR->Anderson adapter that has the 1K resistor for the LIN communications done incorrectly, which might also explain your issues with some inconsistency with the reprogramming too. Can you measure between pins 2 and 3 of the XLR plug and see if you have 1kOhm of resistance there? 1kOhm on a 10K thermistor would be about 85oC so that would explain the measurement. The firmware will automatically show battery temperature if it senses that a thermistor plugged in but not if there is no thermistor, and here I think you have a static 1K resistor between the signal line and Gnd.

If so, then we'll simply ship a new XLR->Anderson adapter cable to you and it would solve both the glitchy communications and the false battery temp readout.

We've been able to determine that the issue you were seeing with it sometimes completing at the 30 minute mark is indeed a result of the charger's power output stage getting tripped from too aggressive of a current ramp-up after it completed the the offset current calibration. I was using an electronic load in my tests earlier but when we switched it over to a low impedance battery pack the behavior was able to be reproduced, so it's clear what we'll need to do to fix that and will do so in the next firmware build.

-Justin

 

[Warren]

Justin,

"Have any others noticed signs of pin overheating on their XLR plug?"

Yes. I actually have two of the 1/8" phone jack/XLR-to-AMP adaptors that you sent me. I always charge at 8 amps. The first didn't get noticeable warm, the second did. I switched to using an XLR-to-AMP adaptor that originally came with one of my Ping 5 amp chargers because I didn't like the idea of having the 1/8" phone jack flopping around near batteries that might accidentally touch it. I will probably switch the Satiator out to Amp plugs, like I did to my Ping chargers, and modify one of your adapters to AMP battery connectors for programing. Still the best charger going. Now if my broken shoulder will just finish healing, so I can get back to using it!

Warren

 

[BVH]

Anyways if none of your packs use XLR plugs on the charging port, then I would actually recommend getting rid of the XLR altogether and just crimp andersons directly to the end of the charge cable, including a 3rd anderson for the signal pin. You could then easily rework the adapter cable to be anderon->TRS for reprogramming. Then there is no XLR in the mix at all.

Justin, I'm thinking of installing Andersons in-place of the SLR's. In reading the posts regarding this, I am unclear where and how the 1K resistor supposed to be connected in the Comm line? Or is is supposed to be there at all?

 

[mrbill]

The battery temperature readout was present during all trials which is slightly disconcerting when there is no thermistor connected. Perhaps the information should not be displayed when no thermistor is connected, or an Advanced Settings option should be added so the user can turn off the battery temperature display.

Hi Bill, I think this might actually point to a mis-wired XLR->Anderson adapter that has the 1K resistor for the LIN communications done incorrectly, which might also explain your issues with some inconsistency with the reprogramming too. Can you measure between pins 2 and 3 of the XLR plug and see if you have 1kOhm of resistance there? 1kOhm on a 10K thermistor would be about 85oC so that would explain the measurement. The firmware will automatically show battery temperature if it senses that a thermistor plugged in but not if there is no thermistor, and here I think you have a static 1K resistor between the signal line and Gnd.

If so, then we'll simply ship a new XLR->Anderson adapter cable to you and it would solve both the glitchy communications and the false battery temp readout.

We've been able to determine that the issue you were seeing with it sometimes completing at the 30 minute mark is indeed a result of the charger's power output stage getting tripped from too aggressive of a current ramp-up after it completed the the offset current calibration. I was using an electronic load in my tests earlier but when we switched it over to a low impedance battery pack the behavior was able to be reproduced, so it's clear what we'll need to do to fix that and will do so in the next firmware build.

-Justin

Hi Justin:

I'm glad to hear you were able to reproduce the problem and that it was a boundary or near-boundary condition that can be handled in firmware. I only observed it when charging a 10s/25Ah battery. My other batteries are 7s but with much higher Ah capacities (often around 50Ah or more). Why wouldn't I have observed the problem with my lower-voltage but higher Ah batteries?

On the Grin XLR->Anderson PP/stereo mini adaptor, I read the following pin-to-pin resistances:

1 - 2 : open
2 - 3 : open
1 - 3 : open

On the Satiator XLR plug itself:

1 - 2 : 650kOhm
1 - 3 : 674kOhm
2 - 3 : 13.26kOhm

On the XLR -> Anderson PP power adaptor I have been using for routine charging:

1 - 2 : open
2 - 3 : 0 Ohm
1 - 3 : open

I checked, and I only get the batt temp readout when I'm using my own adaptor. The batt temp readout does not occur when using the Grin adaptor. I built my adaptor many years ago when I was using Soneil SLA chargers where pins 2 and 3 are normally shorted. Soldering the 10ga wire to both pins 2 and 3 made for a more physically-secure connection.

I can live with the spurious batt temp readout, but can you tell me if shorting pins 2 and 3 causes any other Satiator malfunction? If so, I can rework the connection, otherwise I prefer to leave it as is.

The intermittent connection I get with the stereo mini jack remains.

 

[justin_le]

Anyways if none of your packs use XLR plugs on the charging port, then I would actually recommend getting rid of the XLR altogether and just crimp andersons directly to the end of the charge cable, including a 3rd anderson for the signal pin. You could then easily rework the adapter cable to be anderon->TRS for reprogramming. Then there is no XLR in the mix at all.

Justin, I'm thinking of installing Andersons in-place of the SLR's. In reading the posts regarding this, I am unclear where and how the 1K resistor supposed to be connected in the Comm line? Or is is supposed to be there at all?

There should be a 1kOhm resistance linking the TX and RX lines of the TTL cable in order that it becomes a single wire bidirectional bus, since there is only 1 communication pin on the Satiator.

 

[johnrobholmes]

A lower voltage profile won't trip the output sensor because the charge wires have enough impedance to keep the current restart in check. Higher voltages cause higher inrush.

 

[BVH]

Got it. Thanks Justin!

 

[justin_le]

On the XLR -> Anderson PP power adaptor I have been using for routine charging:

1 - 2 : open
2 - 3 : 0 Ohm
1 - 3 : open

Hi Bill, OK that totally explains your battery temperature readings showing up.

I can live with the spurious batt temp readout, but can you tell me if shorting pins 2 and 3 causes any other Satiator malfunction?

No, it won't harm anything, although it did spurn us to have a new detection for shorted thermistor rather than it treating a short like a valid thermistor at a high temperature. So in a future build we'll only have it show a battery temperature if it measures within a certain range of resistance, but not if it's all the way down to 0 ohms.

I'm glad to hear you were able to reproduce the problem and that it was a boundary or near-boundary condition that can be handled in firmware. I only observed it when charging a 10s/25Ah battery. My other batteries are 7s but with much higher Ah capacities (often around 50Ah or more). Why wouldn't I have observed the problem with my lower-voltage but higher Ah batteries?

There seem to be a lot of factors at play that need to come together to cause a power stage fault at the end of a calibration interval, which is why you were the first person to report this behavior. In order to replicate it we had a custom firmware that was doing the zero amps offset calibration once every 90 seconds in stead of every 30 minutes in order to have many more incidents to scrutinize. It ended up catching some other stuff too.

We had a close look at the effects of the calibration interval on a NiCad pack and noticed that it was also terminating charge early, although for quite different reasons. After the brief several seconds with no current for calibration, when the current resumed again the voltage would recover but would temporarily go higher than the voltage it was at when it turned off, and then it would settle back down about 30 seconds later. With this particular pack the relaxation dropped about 0.4V, which is the same threshold we had for the negative DeltaV charge termination, causing the Satiator's charge algorithm to think that the packs' voltage was on decline even though on the whole it was still in the ramping up state.


We're up to V0.912 with the firmware for internal builds and have a few more little things to fix and test before we make a new download available, but it won't be long. So far nobody else has noticed this same effect that Bill had where a pack would stop charging after 30 minutes, right after the offset calibration?

Also, I'm wondering if there are any of the beta/pilot users who are using their Satiator with a NiCad or NiMH battery pack and could help us validate some fixes for -DeltaV charging, or are all the nickel dinosaurs off the road and I'm trying to fix a prior decade's problem?

 

[amberwolf]

Also, I'm wondering if there are any of the beta/pilot users who are using their Satiator with a NiCad or NiMH battery pack and could help us validate some fixes for -DeltaV charging, or are all the nickel dinosaurs off the road and I'm trying to fix a prior decade's problem?

I'm not a tester/user but I do still occasionally use some old NiMH packs, and am slowly working on reviving what I think is a NiCd pack off an old Crystalyte X5304 system. So, not all the dinosaurs are off the road quite yet. These packs will actually end up in a trike for a friend once he decides which kind of trike he wants.

I think there's still a couple of other NiXX users here on ES, too, but I can't remember who. I think at least one is using an older Ezee system, and I am not sure but I think another was using a stokemonkey or "clone".

 

[justin_le]

Also, I'm wondering if there are any of the beta/pilot users who are using their Satiator with a NiCad or NiMH battery pack and could help us validate some fixes for -DeltaV charging, or are all the nickel dinosaurs off the road and I'm trying to fix a prior decade's problem?

I'm not a tester/user but I do still occasionally use some old NiMH packs, and am slowly working on reviving what I think is a NiCd pack off an old Crystalyte X5304 system. So, not all the dinosaurs are off the road quite yet. These packs will actually end up in a trike for a friend once he decides which kind of trike he wants.

I think there's still a couple of other NiXX users here on ES, too, but I can't remember who. I think at least one is using an older Ezee system, and I am not sure but I think another was using a stokemonkey or "clone".

Yeah. I was wondering with all the hazmat shipping restrictions and impossibility of air travelling with ebike lithium packs might have resulted in some niche resurgence in NiMH as an attractive chemistry. I know we came really close to re-stocking a few NiMH battery options when the lithium shipping process was seeming particularly onerous, and few of the available ebike batteries even had the required UN38.3 testing to be legally shipped. It didn't happen, but I think there's a case to be made for a pack with almost as much energy density as LiFePO4 and no BMS, shipping, or fire risk hazards.

For what it's worth, the V0.913 build now seems to handle even problematic Nickel packs without a thermistor to good effect. The 90 second offset taring is interesting because you can see as things progress the evolution of the charge voltage vs. the open circuit rest voltage.

 

[Ypedal]

Hmm.. i do have a few old dusty nicad packs in the garage... would be curious to know how the Satiator handles them.... only one i have left in use is in a kids mini-moto toy.. amazing that it still keeps on going.

 

[Warren]

While waiting for my Ping pack to arrive three years ago, I charged up and wired in series, some old 6 cell, NiCad, RC packs that had been on the top shelf above my workbench since the 1980's. They got me the three miles up and down our road!

 

[justin_le]

Hmm.. i do have a few old dusty nicad packs in the garage... would be curious to know how the Satiator handles them....

Hi Ypedal, if you use the earlier firmware builds then almost for sure it would terminate charging on the old packs way early, and you'd need to restart the charging multiple times before the pack got warm to the touch and was properly topped up. But we'll very soon be pushing a V0.914 firmware release to the website which will handle even old crusty nicads pretty well. It's just that on the first charge after it's been sitting for a long while, you'll want to increase the maximum -DeltaV termination threshold. The earlier firmware was clamped to -0.5V max, but in the V0.914 it can to up to -1.0V which is what you'd want it to be at.

The NiCad charging profile is a lot more interesting than lithium, which is kindof as boring as things could get. Even the little crudely implemented display graph looks interesting, and you can see the max voltage peak, the slight voltage decline, and then the top-up charge period.

 

[amberwolf]

Just curious, and maybe confused: If that's Time from left to right, 0 to 24 to 48, is it in Hours or Minutes? If it's Hours, just how big *is* the pack you were charging?

And if that's Volts at the left from bottom to top, 0 to 30 to 60, is the charger really putting what looks like 50+ volts across the pack?

I assume that if it's a 36V NiCd pack, it's 10s, 1p? If so, I wouldn't expect more than 40-42V across it, max, which is what the numbers on the bottom (time) might indicate if they were on the left. And if it took only a little less than an hour to charge up (just topping up a pack off a shelf?) it'd fit with the numbers on the left, if theyw ere instead across the bottom?

 

[justin_le]

Just curious, and maybe confused: If that's Time from left to right, 0 to 24 to 48, is it in Hours or Minutes?

It should be in minutes, but I'm not 100% sure how accurate it is at the moment. This is still just the placeholder graph until we figure out how to implement our target graph design in the limited remaining memory space, which I discussed a little while ago here:
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=914831#p914831

And if that's Volts at the left from bottom to top, 0 to 30 to 60, is the charger really putting what looks like 50+ volts across the pack?

Yup, the 36V nominal pack hits about 53-54V at the voltage peak when charged with a 4A (C/2) rate:
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=982393#p982393
NiMH packs don't usually peak quite so high, about 48V IIRC. I know in the past we had some real problems using NiMH chargers on NiCad battery packs because the NiMH chargers had a max voltage setting on them (~50V) which was slightly below the actual max voltage that a NiCad would exhibit, and as a result the NiCad batteries would only charge to about 85% and never go through the balancing/top up charge, and were then super prone to going out of balance and having internal cell reversals at the end of discharge etc.

I assume that if it's a 36V NiCd pack, it's 10s, 1p? If so, I wouldn't expect more than 40-42V across it, max,

Indeed it is 10S 1P, bit it's only the rest voltage once you stop charging that sits about 42V. While the charge is ongoing it is a lot higher than this, especially towards the end when you have all the secondary reactions taking place. Have a look again at the graph where we had the 90 second calibration interval, and you can see both the open circuit pack voltage and the charging voltage as the charge progresses. Here it is called out

which is what the numbers on the bottom (time) might indicate if they were on the left. And if it took only a little less than an hour to charge up (just topping up a pack off a shelf?) it'd fit with the numbers on the left, if theyw ere instead across the bottom?

Correct that it was a quick ~40 minute charge that you see on the OLED screen, I had the fully charged NiCad and put it on a 10A load bank for 10 minutes or so before starting the charge you see on the OLED profile. Otherwise there would be a much longer period where it sits at around 43-44V before climbing up to the peak.

 

[BVH]

I reflashed from .910 to .914 a few days ago and noticed that when in Setup mode, regular quick button pushes result in the action taking place delayed by a 1/2 to 1 second. I don't remember that being the case prior to upgrading. Seems like button pushes were immediately followed by the expected action. Example: When changing termination from 57 to 58. When the "7" is highlighted to be changed, I touch the upper button and the number changes from 7 to 8 about 1/2 to 1 second later. That's just an example and the delay is present on every button push. The long button push function seems to be normal. Is this an intended change?

 

[mrbill]

I'm glad to hear you were able to reproduce the problem and that it was a boundary or near-boundary condition that can be handled in firmware. I only observed it when charging a 10s/25Ah battery. My other batteries are 7s but with much higher Ah capacities (often around 50Ah or more). Why wouldn't I have observed the problem with my lower-voltage but higher Ah batteries?

There seem to be a lot of factors at play that need to come together to cause a power stage fault at the end of a calibration interval, which is why you were the first person to report this behavior. In order to replicate it we had a custom firmware that was doing the zero amps offset calibration once every 90 seconds in stead of every 30 minutes in order to have many more incidents to scrutinize. It ended up catching some other stuff too.

We're up to V0.912 with the firmware for internal builds and have a few more little things to fix and test before we make a new download available, but it won't be long. So far nobody else has noticed this same effect that Bill had where a pack would stop charging after 30 minutes, right after the offset calibration?

Update: With firmware v0.908 I am now seeing early charge termination more frequently with large 7s packs (46-61 Ah). Usually the charge "terminates" before it even starts, just after I select the charge profile. Unplugging and Re-plugging the charger (after it has gone "full off") and trying again, usually works. But, it's a nuisance. I am looking forward to the next firmware release that fixes this problem.

 

[Marc S.]

Ahem Justin...

I've used a text editor and changed the 60V max voltage restriction for Lithium batterys in the current firmware (v 0.914.4) to 63V to be able to fully charge a 15s/55.5V lithium battery.
Unfortunately the battery is full already, so I couldn't run a proper charge cycle yet. The Satiator correctly states the battery is full at 63V, though.

Any potential harm for the Satiator with this little firmware 'hack'?
As far as I could decipher the firmware code, lead and nickel battery profiles have a 63V max voltage restriction as well.

 

[Marc S.]

I'm glad to hear you were able to reproduce the problem and that it was a boundary or near-boundary condition that can be handled in firmware. I only observed it when charging a 10s/25Ah battery. My other batteries are 7s but with much higher Ah capacities (often around 50Ah or more). Why wouldn't I have observed the problem with my lower-voltage but higher Ah batteries?

There seem to be a lot of factors at play that need to come together to cause a power stage fault at the end of a calibration interval, which is why you were the first person to report this behavior. In order to replicate it we had a custom firmware that was doing the zero amps offset calibration once every 90 seconds in stead of every 30 minutes in order to have many more incidents to scrutinize. It ended up catching some other stuff too.

We're up to V0.912 with the firmware for internal builds and have a few more little things to fix and test before we make a new download available, but it won't be long. So far nobody else has noticed this same effect that Bill had where a pack would stop charging after 30 minutes, right after the offset calibration?

Update: With firmware v0.908 I am now seeing early charge termination more frequently with large 7s packs (46-61 Ah). Usually the charge "terminates" before it even starts, just after I select the charge profile. Unplugging and Re-plugging the charger (after it has gone "full off") and trying again, usually works. But, it's a nuisance. I am looking forward to the next firmware release that fixes this problem.

In the beginning I've had now and then an early charge terminations after the update to v0.908 as well. It didn't occured lately (last couple of weeks), though.
Battery is a 10s/10p (37V/22Ah) LiMn Sony Konion V3.

 

[justin_le]

In the beginning I've had now and then an early charge terminations after the update to v0.908 as well. It didn't occured lately (last couple of weeks), though.
Battery is a 10s/10p (37V/22Ah) LiMn Sony Konion V3.

Hi guys, sorry for the long delay in updating. We've now made it so that the firmware is no longer downloaded as a separate file from our website but instead is done from within the Satiator Suite itself. If you click the "check for new firmware" link in the file menu, then it should pull the V0.914 release directly from our server and make it quick and convenient for flashing the Satiator build. I recommend everyone still running with a V0.908 or earlier do this.

The last few weeks most of the development work has been focusing on having a more universal build to the firmware that can accommodate different hardware models of Satiator in the future. So if (well, when more likely ) we do a 72V 5A version, or a 24V 15A model, then the same firmware can install on those too and automatically adapt for the correct limit ranges rather than maintaining a different software/firmware suite for each model.

So that is why there hasn't been many updates of late, but give it a couple weeks more and we should start seeing more features being added to get at the 1.0 point, specifically better graphing and retaining lifetime charge statistics for each profile.

Hope everyone has been happily charging away over the holidays.

 

[Alan B]

Really looking forward to the 18S Lipo (75.6V) version!!!!!

 

[johnrobholmes]

I could use a 72v version for my 24s LiFe scooters as well, it would be nice to hard mount the charger on there and stop lugging around the brick of a king charger I'm always afraid is going to fail or catch fire. I've had so many of those things poop out with no warning, it feels like a gamble every time I take a trip on something without pedals as a backup.

 

[Warren]

Justin is as good as his word! Back in November I was whining about how hard it was to download VO.905. I use computers like I use vending machines. If it doesn't give me my candy bar when I push the button, I slam it with my fist. I had been using it just fine, but liked to think I could upgrade it as new stuff became available. I told he needed to make it idiot proof for guys like me. He was very gracious, and didn't say what I am sure he was thinking. I just checked back to this thread to see what was new. I don't think it took more than a minute to do the upgrade to VO.910. It was all intuitive, and I pushed the right buttons on the first try. Got my candy bar, and am topping up the battery for a ride as I write. The Satiator is now ready for us flip phone users.

After I typed this, I realized I had hit the wrong button, and had loaded VO.910, but had not hit "check for new firmware." I did mention I use a flip phone. Anyway, I unplugged the charger, did the upgrade, and it is back charging the battery with VO.914 firmware.

 

[justin_le]

Justin is as good as his word! ..
I told he needed to make it idiot proof for guys like me. He was very gracious, and didn't say what I am sure he was thinking.

Yes, thanks indeed Warren for providing the extra impetus to get us to make the software as user friendly as possible in this sense, and glad that you checked in on the threads for updates and were able to confirm that the latest iteration did the trick.

On the note of firmware updates, we've just done a V0.916 build which is available if you click "check for latest software". This should address two issues. First, a couple people had contacted us after getting an erroneous "power fault: restart" error message right at the end of charging with the V0.914 builds even though everything was in principle perfectly fine, which would be fixed in this release.


Secondly, now when you press and hold the _top_ button, you get the message "EXIT" rather than "OKAY. This should make it a little more clear what is going on in the navigation, as some users had been holding the top instead of the bottom button to try and get into a submenu and then wondering why it seemed that the device would reset.


So not major change by any means, but if you have on occasion seen the power fault message at the very end of a charge cycle then it would be worth doing the reflash.