The Turnigy balance charger misbehaved and let one of the LiFePO4 cells go way over voltage. So I'm trying a storage charge (with balancing), but 8 hours later it's still not finished.
By Julian
Youtuber, shed dweller, solar charge controller aficionado
Get a bike with a 3.2 volt motor!! Or maybe a heavy duty boost converter.
Out of curiosity,Well more like i watched all 6 videos because i want to change out the batteries on my electric bike.But all of a sudden it's a solar charging project…If you actually just plugged this into the grid does it work well.And did you ever manage to get the lights green?
Great series of videos!
Turn the timer off
should have used18650 charged voltage is 4.2v a cell and you needed to swap the leads around on your meter it was showing negative because they were the wrong way round
I would strongly suggest that the input charge from the car battery is too low. Try connecting another 6 volt in series.
I've got experience with these chargers. The Turnigy charger is actually a copy of the Imax B6 Charger. Unfortunately this charger never balances my packs correctly. But we're talking of 0.02 of a Volt here. The storage program will terminate when the battery cycle reaches 0.1A. In your case its 0.3A. If the batteries are actually discharging its done at 1A by the charger. Now the issue you have is that you are using Headway 10Ah Batteries. The Turnigy was never intended to charge such huge battery packs. You need a 1000W or 2000W charger but stay away from the turnigy brand if you need proper and accurate balancing. You may also be pleased to know that the total voltage of the battery is not the actual voltage of the battery if 0.3A are still being pumped into it. Use any CV/CC charger to charge a 18650 battery to 4.2 volts and at termination check the voltage.. Usually not more than 4.18V after a couple of minutes.
I'm designing a solar charger for 48V series string of 18650 LiFePO batteries. I'm making a battery pack where the series strings of batteries are in aluminum tubes with screw in end caps that can be unscrewed and the cells slid out in order so I can monitor the balance voltage manually at first, and intermittently over the life of the battery pack. My goal is to charge the entire pack to 85% of total capacity to hopefully ensure that none of the cells has overcharged. Similarly, I'll avoid deep discharging. By operating the batteries along the flat linear range on the voltage versus %charge graph, I can hopefully maximize battery life without the hassle of balance charging. Some cells will work a little harder than others but none should be overstressed. If a cell dies, I can easily replace a single cell to repair the battery pack without any soldering.
I'll have a 200W solar panel driving a DC to DC converter with the output voltage set to the desired charge termination voltage. The sizing of the solar panel will ensure a safe charge rate for the battery pack. Keep it simple!
Hi, the Balance circuits in your charger can only sink a max of about 200mA at bet. The Turnigy unit you are using is realy only designed to charge/balance smaller batteries up to about 5400mAh not the big batteries you are using. Regards Derek
skyrc (the genuine ones) are great. the imax b6 (the genuine ones) are made by skyrc. they are really nice. too small charger with big battery. big lithium batteries are a wonder to discharge but can be a pain to charge
i use po life for po fugger usa land of china junk and po folk
Hi Julian , great idea mate, as the arduino nano or mini are so cheap you could design a charger with 6 or so boards within it as you are so good with the software it would be a cool project to build also, my turnigy accucell 6 seems a bit flaky too, cheers Brett
this episode pretty boring..but your videos always somehow very useful and interesting to watch! Keep them going! 😀
Let's conclude that… this charger is of a low quality?
Perhaps time to build a dedicated discharge unit?
I wonder if you have visited RC Electric Heli forums? compare to other RC (car,airplane) they seems to be most hardcore with batteries & chargers.
Also, do speed up the process of balancing the cells or best case like yours where single cell is out of balance to other cells is to simply charge/discharge that specific cell only via balance port using a two pin plug.
That is what I do when one of my cell is higher/lower than others, it is so much faster to do it this way.
Thanks for cool videos, i like it all!
Julian you should have a look at the balance chargers used inside the rear battery bay of full electric metro city buses. Similar idea but much more industrial size and reliability performance 400 volt total battery voltage with about 128 cells…