What Lipo Charger Do You Like the Best?

[teslanv]

I haven't use this particular model of Meanwell, but it's near the top of my buy list.

Charge time will depend on how many amp-hours your battery is. at 320W, figure about 10 mintues per amp-hour (12s) to get through CC stage (~90% full) and another ~hour + to top off the battery.

on the HLG-320H-48A you can adjust the Current & Voltage with internal pots.

 

[hie2kolob]

The thread https://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=60575&p=905753 expressly addresses the HLG-320H-48A power supply being used as a 48v bulk charger. The point is raised that there may need to be other modifications made in order for it to be used as a charger...

 

[ebikeforever]

Hello i am a new member from Sweden.
This is what i like for the moment, a couple of Accucel-6 and 3 more will be ordered soon, then i have 12 of them
that is enough i think.
Very nice when you shall test a lot of lipo cells for a new batterypack build.

 

[999zip999]

Welcome ebikeforever. Enjoy E.S.

 

[jesusmartin]

I used USB LiIon/LiPoly charger for charging only single Lithium Ion/Lithium Polymer 3.7/4.2v batteries require 500mA charge current.

 

[hie2kolob]

I am now using this great bulk charger. The Mean Well HLG-320H-48A. This power supply has current and voltage adjustments and charges my entire pack in about 45 minutes. http://www.onlinecomponents.com/mean-well-hlg320h48a.html?p=43123430

 

[leffex]

Hello i am a new member from Sweden.
This is what i like for the moment, a couple of Accucel-6 and 3 more will be ordered soon, then i have 12 of them
that is enough i think.
Very nice when you shall test a lot of lipo cells for a new batterypack build.

Funny I did that too. First I bought some kind of charger with a laptop brick and cord into the wall that one went bust. Then I bought another brand and it was high quality chargers almost same like yours so got a total of four but that took forever to charge. Then I got a bc168 and after that more of them. Late 2013 I bought a bulk charger, 4 months later I dared to try it because I didn't know how to bulk charge. So I tried it out on my old lipos adding nice beefy anti-spark connectors and it worked flawlessly. It was exellent. 80% charged in half an hour for a 20s 5AH battery pack and all finished in max one hours time with the best charger 84V 6A plastic charger rated at 500W output and 900grams the size of a 1L milk cartoon. :lol:

 

[teslanv]

I am now using this great bulk charger. The Mean Well HLG-320H-48A. This charger has current and voltage adjustments and charges my entire pack in about 45 minutes. http://www.onlinecomponents.com/mean-well-hlg320h48a.html?p=43123430

How low can you turn down the current on that model?

 

[hie2kolob]

I am now using this great bulk charger. The Mean Well HLG-320H-48A. This charger has current and voltage adjustments and charges my entire pack in about 45 minutes. http://www.onlinecomponents.com/mean-well-hlg320h48a.html?p=43123430

How low can you turn down the current on that model?

The adjustable current range is 3.35 to 6.7 amps. So the current could be turned down to 3.35A

Thanks for the recommendation, this power supply is working well!

 

[Allex]

Hello i am a new member from Sweden.
This is what i like for the moment, a couple of Accucel-6 and 3 more will be ordered soon, then i have 12 of them
that is enough i think.
Very nice when you shall test a lot of lipo cells for a new batterypack build.

Funny I did that too. First I bought some kind of charger with a laptop brick and cord into the wall that one went bust. Then I bought another brand and it was high quality chargers almost same like yours so got a total of four but that took forever to charge. Then I got a bc168 and after that more of them. Late 2013 I bought a bulk charger, 4 months later I dared to try it because I didn't know how to bulk charge. So I tried it out on my old lipos adding nice beefy anti-spark connectors and it worked flawlessly. It was exellent. 80% charged in half an hour for a 20s 5AH battery pack and all finished in max one hours time with the best charger 84V 6A plastic charger rated at 500W output and 900grams the size of a 1L milk cartoon. :lol:

Welcome Welcome to year 2011 guys : ))))))
I had the pleasure to test Adaptto, now I will never go back to that that old school setup with a bunch of chargers and balancers, omg what a headache it was back then.
I have the controller which monitors and charge the cells(whole pack) as for power supply I use this 55v30A (CAR1248FPB-PSU48v)
It does charge a 20s10Ah pack in 30min

 

[izeman]

it's not that much different than any other bms type bulk charger. i can charge my pack in about an hour with my 1kw charger and the hcx-d131 bms. i just miss the single (parallel) cell monitor the adaptto can provide. would be nice to check voltages w/o having to open the box.

 

[knighty]

can someone recommend me a balance charger for 6s lipo ?

I figured I should balance charger my packs before I build them into one big pack

I've got 18x 5ah 6s packs

to make a 18s 6p 30ah pack

going for an adapto controller/charger for long term charging needs
(also have a founding power BMS here if I ever need it)


I bought an ImaxB6 figuring it would be slow, but good enough (got a couple of weeks before bike is ready for battery)

but... it's crap for balancing/charging/anything.... cells are miles off... after a balance charger they vary from 3.9v to 4.3v
(I ran a short decharge cycle after to drop all cells under 4v after that)


I just need something to balance the cells once..... what should I buy ?

 

[izeman]

for balancing imho the very best (most convinient) is BC168 or UN-A6. those charge through the balance leads. they can even charge AND discharge individual cells of one pack at the same time. i limit charging to 3.5a and never had an issue. jst-xh connectors are specified for 3a.
here is a pic from dx.com

 

[knighty]

couldn't find a BC168 with quick postage to me, so bought a UN-A6

thanks for the help

Alan

 

[100volts+]

subscribed

 

[izeman]

couldn't find a BC168 with quick postage to me, so bought a UN-A6

thanks for the help

Alan

wow. where did you find the un-a6? i had to order it from taobao. i really like it. not easy to handle, but once you get the idea it's a great piece of hardware. look here for english manual: http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=62542 thanks to user BRERAX.

 

[knighty]

well... I just did a 'storage' charge on my 6s 5ah nano-tech with the UN-A6... and the cell voltages are....

3.81
3.78
3.84
3.81
3.77
3.81


so... not really balanced at all ?

it took forever for it to drop the voltage from ~4.2v/cell at the 0.2amp balance rate...
(I had to disable the 2 hour built in timer because it was far far too short)

I'll try a 'balance charge' next... but I'm not confident :-(


I just want to balance them all out before I parallel/series them up and build my pack

 

[izeman]

good thing: not sure what you did, but you did something wrong
you can discharge with 3.5A per cell as well. so discharging a 5000mah cell from full to storage takes around 25min. did you read the manual?

 

[dnmun]

if you wanna balance them why did you discharge them to storage mode? you have to charge to full charge to balance them.

 

[knighty]

because I did a balance charger before (with the old charger) and they were still imbalanced...

I won't be using them for at least a month, so figured storage was better

from what I read of the manual, as long as the balance leads are connected, it should balance the pack out no matter if it's charging or discharging ?



I had the charge limit set to 1 amp, because I'm running from a crappy old pc psu right now, anything over 1amp and there's a lot of electrical noise, and it cuts off at 2amp... maybe discharge is auto-set to 20% of charge ?


doing a balance charge now....

 

[izeman]

that's not how it works. you don't need any ps power for discharging, as all power from the battery goes into resistors and is converted into heat. the charger has 2 modes, in mode 1 it charges only and in mode 0 it charges/discharges.
for balancing it's better to CHARGE to a certain voltage as all batteries have the tendency to raise it's voltage once the load is removed. so let's say you discharge with 3a to 3.5v and then remove the load the voltage will climb a bit. then the charger engages again ans starts to discharge for 1s or so. this goes on forever (almost). so if you want to storage charge you can discharge the full battery to 3.85v, or if you need more balanced results better charge it to 3.7v and then charge to 3.85v. i get an accuracy within 5mv after the charge is done. no idea why yours is so unbalanced.
so what you do is: w/o battery connected from the main screen press GREEN/SELECT twice, then use UNDER or ON to set this to E0 (the mode where you can discharge and charge at the same time). press GREEN until you're back in the main screen.
press GREEN again. you should see on charge preset. to change is long press RED. press GREEN to jump to voltage setting. set to 3.85v. press GREEN again to go to amps. set to 2.5a. press RED to save. press GREEN until in main screen. press RED to start charging/discharging.
hope this helps

 

[knighty]

looks like my UN-A6 is conterfit.... I didn't really research it, just picked the first google result and bought it because I was in a hurry....

it looks nothing like any of the UN-A6 chargers I can see on the net

mine looks like an ImaxB6 with a paint job


I've bought a BC168 now

 

[izeman]

looks like my UN-A6 is conterfit.... I didn't really research it, just picked the first google result and bought it because I was in a hurry....
it looks nothing like any of the UN-A6 chargers I can see on the net
mine looks like an ImaxB6 with a paint job
I've bought a BC168 now

wtf! could you post a pic? maybe at least to help others avoid the same pit. did you see the thread i posted? there are pictures all of un-XX models.

 

[ugn]

There are maany different "lipo" chargers out there, in many different price ranges.
Have anyone actually measured the accuracy of the chargers they are using, with a decent multimeter (Fluke, HP, eth. NOT radioshack or another $2 meter)?

For me I could live just fine with a face imax b6, if it's accurate enough (after calibration).

 

[izeman]

I haven't had a charger yet that wasn't accurate. At least accurate enough. I have fluke meters and checked the charged batteries with the fluke. They were all in a +/-3 mV range.