Lipo Charger

[SurfnSkate81]

I know bugger all about this, but I'm going with @RolandS888 he knows his stuff.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[RolandS888]

Everyone else that has already tried this would disagree with your assumptions. I will be testing it myself to be sure this week. But others who have already done this report the battery's smart circuits limit it for you. Maybe they're all wrong.

Could be a firmware difference in the control circuitry of the battery I tested months ago, but it was drawing >4C charging at 16.8v on a 1500W power supply, I didnt let it continue.
There is no charging control in the battery itself. The Solo charger is actually a 4S Lipo charger, although many people refuse to believe this as well.

 

[SurfnSkate81]

@RolandS888 so in short keep using the 3DR chargers and not bother buying something I can charge 2 or 3 at a time with?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[RolandS888]

@RolandS888 so in short keep using the 3DR chargers and not bother buying something I can charge 2 or 3 at a time with?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Not exacly, I use a multi charger to charge 2 Solo batts at 1C when Im out flying. Depends how long you want to wait I suppose.

 

[PdxSteve]

Everyone else that has already tried this would disagree with your assumptions. I will be testing it myself to be sure this week. But others who have already done this report the battery's smart circuits limit it for you. Maybe they're all wrong.

Please show me someone who hooked it up to a DC power supply (as opposed to a CC/CV lipo charger) and it charged. All I have seen have been people hooking it to up after market LIPO chargers (which do cc/cv) and just not used the balance mode of the charger. I have seen zero claim they hooked it up to a straight up power supply and it worked. I've seen things like "it should", which means speculation without anything to back it up. Please correct me if I'm wrong. I'd like to see the posts.

But I can tell you that using a regulated DC 16.8V 25Amp power supply did not charge the battery and caused it to power cycle itself rapidly (in order to prevent itself from blowing up!!!). I'm glad I didn't try it with 1,000 amps that you suggested it should be able to take.

It's also good to see you prefacing your statements now using words like "allegedly" instead of passing off things you've read or assume as facts. People can be hurt attempting this stuff you know...

 

[Pedals2Paddles]

OK. Here. Charging Solo batteries to storage level??


Yes, he's hooking it up to a LiPo charger rather than directly to a power supply. But that's irrelevent. The question is will the battery take more than 5.2 amps charge rate. With his charger set for 6 amps, the Solo battery still refused to take more than 5.2 amps. Now, if this is wrong, that's fine. But I didn't just make this stuff up.

I finally received my solo and batteries. It's late now, so I'll probably start making Solo to XT60 pigtails tomorrow evening. Then I can test for myself, document with photos, etc. If the end result is the battery will run away unlimited, then obviously a LiPo charger set to LiPo charge will be required to limit the current. We'll see. Either way, I plan to make the 3DR charger obsolete.

 

[Pedals2Paddles]

Some very interesting results in my testing tonight.

• Hooked up to my LiPo charger (set to charger, not balance), the battery does not self limit current to 5.2 amps as previously reported. It will slowly climb above 5.2 amps if you let it, however......
  
  
• Hooked up to my LiPo charger, the current slowly climbs and once the current exceeds 5.2 amps, the battery disconnects itself, causing the LiPo charger to stop and say "Connection Break". This protects the battery from exceeding exceeding 5.2 amps.
  
  
• Hooked up to my LiPo charger, with the current appropriately set for 5 amps, it charged the batteries from 20% to full in about 45-50 minutes.
  
  
• Once I make some pigtails, I can hook several batteries to my parallel board to charge simultaneously. With all three of my batteries connected, I would set the LiPo charger for 15 amps since that current would be divided roughly evenly among the 3 batteries. I will try this once I get my connectors in the mail to make some more pigtails.
  
  
• Hooked up directly to a 16.8 volt power supply, no LiPo charger, the current on my meter immediately pegged up past 20 amps. It wasn't a slow rise without the LiPo charger there to slow it down. I didn't leave it connected long enough to see if it would disconnect itself like it did with the LiPo charger connected. It was going to high too fast for my comfort. I think it will disconnect itself, but I don't want to ruin a new battery to find out. So in summary, never connect directly to a power supply without a LiPo charger to do the regulation unless you want to burn down your house.

 

[divemasterphil]

I guess I failed to mention the "Connection Break" part. Even set at 5.2a I get that sometimes so I only use 5a now.

Some very interesting results in my testing tonight. Clearly there are high power

• Hooked up to my LiPo charger (set to charger, not balance), the battery does not self limit current to 5.2 amps as previously reported. It will slowly climb above 5.2 amps if you let it, however......
  
  
• Hooked up to my LiPo charger, the current slowly climbs and once the current exceeds 5.2 amps, the battery disconnects itself, causing the LiPo charger to stop and say "Connection Break". This protects the battery from exceeding exceeding 5.2 amps.
  
  
• Hooked up to my LiPo charger, with the current appropriately set for 5 amps, it charged the batteries from 20% to full in about 45-50 minutes.
  
  
• Once I make some pigtails, I can hook several batteries to my parallel board to charge simultaneously. With all three of my batteries connected, I would set the LiPo charger for 15 amps since that current would be divided roughly evenly among the 3 batteries. I will try this once I get my connectors in the mail to make some more pigtails.
  
  
• Hooked up directly to a 16.8 volt power supply, no LiPo charger, the current on my meter immediately pegged up past 20 amps. It wasn't a slow rise without the LiPo charger there to slow it down. I didn't leave it connected long enough to see if it would disconnect itself like it did with the LiPo charger connected. It was going to high too fast for my comfort. I think it will, but it will probably cycle and eventually fry itself. So in summary, never connect directly to a power supply without a LiPo charger to do the regulation unless you want to burn down your house.

 

[Pedals2Paddles]

I guess I failed to mention the "Connection Break" part. Even set at 5.2a I get that sometimes so I only use 5a now.

I was getting that too. Apparently there isn't much wiggle room. So 5.201 amps is enough to trigger it to cut off. That's why I too decided to just stick with an even 5 amps.

I would assume since the battery has an on/off button, that there is a big ass MOSFET or something that can switch on/off the battery's positive power. That must be what is cutting off the circuit when it reaches full, or when it exceeds 5.2 amps charging. It apparently can handle the high current of flight power.

 

[PdxSteve]

It's all part of the BMS/PCM circuitry. BMSPow makes the ones in the solo battery. And thanks for confirming what Roland and I were saying about the power supply not being a charger lol.

 

[Pedals2Paddles]

Listen, I'm aware that a power supply it isn't a charger. And I never claimed it was one. It seemed from everything I was reading that the solo battery pack had the brains of a charger in it, meaning all it needed was power, plain and simple. That is only partially true, as is evident by the results I posted above. The brains in the pack balance it, and it will protect rather than regulate it from over charging. It totally cuts off rather than limiting.