Chargers New Parallel Charging System

[murankar]

Looks like I am late to the game. As for the charge boards. Go to progressive rc and order up the prc modular balance boards. Then order the lead board that has just wires. Then solder your own connectors.

As for field charging do you need to supply your own port source or do they have power?

I just out fitted my car with a solar rig. It cost as much as a generator but with less maintenance. If you go solar you don't need any extra stuff like power supplies.

If your looking to build a charge case then go to progressive rc again and get the chargery 12v-36v 1500 watt power supply. I have it for when I have access to 110v power. If not I go with my 12v solar system.

My charger is the powerlab PL6 (1000w 40amp @ 36v). The PowerLab PL 8 is 1000w and the pl8 dual is 2688w. Plenty of power .

 

[Heliman450]

Hi murankar, I'm all sorted now with my system apart from waiting for delivery of three 6S balance cables. The weather hasn't been great for flying over the last 10 days or so and probably not for a big part of the coming week either. Fingers crossed on that.

I'm really interested in your solar charging system. Is it portable to take it from the parking lot to the helipad about a quarter of a mile away?

 

[Smoggie]

I'm also interested in solar power but more for the technical aspects because it would never work for me in this part of the world where most flying days I dont even see the sun.
The solar setups I've seen in fact use batteries as the main power source during charging (so you need large and very heavy batteries). The solar panels just slowly top up the batteries.
The size of panels you would need and the strength of direct sun make it impractical to have a solar setup that would supply enough power to charge purely on solar without large batteries. The setups I've seen would not be practical to hand carry as the panels are large and the batteries are heavy.

 

[Heliman450]

Not sure what vehicle murankar has, maybe a big truck???? We get lots of sunshine at our field on flying days (sometimes too much!). Like you, I'm more interested in the technical aspects of it than expecting it to be a practical solution.

I'm seriously considering making up a custom trailer and down-sizing the vehicle. Then my wife can drop me off at the field and use the car. The trailer could stand in the full sun and I could walk backwards and forwards to collect the batteries and helis as and when......we'll see.

 

[murankar]

Nissan rouge. I have one panel. When I take it I put it on the floor in the back seat. I am guessing my set up will net a good amount of time at the field without the panel. My batteries are 227 amp hours at 12v.


Again this is a less maintenance route over a generator.

 

[Heliman450]

Hi murankar, not sure I've seen the Nissan Rouge. Must be a model not sold in Europe.

Adiagram/pictures of your system would be great if you can get round to it. I guess that charged up batteries with a trickle charge from the solar unit would work for an extended period at the helipad in my case. The owner of the land has already said no problem to bypass the car park and go straight there from his farm. Main problem would be my wife's acceptance of driving 'her' car across a field to get there

 

[murankar]

It's in the articles section under solar charging.

 

[Heliman450]

Cheers, here's a link:

Solar Charging For The Rc Hobby

 

[Heliman450]

Hi all, latest update is that I'm still waiting for my final three 6S balance cables before I can charge all eight batteries at the same time. I can do four with no problem at the moment............. fingers crossed for the delivery.

 

[murankar]

Sure. You can do 2 at a time if you wanted. My only question is: is the balance cables needed to connect your para board to the charger? I guess what I am asking is do you have usable balance cables for your cell count? If not then no.

 

[Heliman450]

Hi murankar, I have five balance cables from a required eight. I've tested my rig by charging four batteries on one channel only and there's no problem there. According to my charger instructions, I'm supposed to be able to remove the default limit of one C but up to now I've had no joy changing this setting so my fastest charge rate is limited and it takes an hour to charge multiple batteries, no matter whether four or two are connected to the channel.

At the moment, this is no problem and a big improvement on the previous timing before I bought more batteries. In combination with my flight times increasing thanks to feedback elsewhere on the Forum, I'm able to go to the field for much longer periods limited only by weather/temperature. I had to abandon two of my sessions recently before using all batteries to prevent freezing to death

 

[Smoggie]

Phil,

Like Uri I'm a bit confused over this talk of 'balance cables'.. The balance cables come with the battery, normally you just plug the battery balance cable direct into one of the ports of your parallel charge board, there is no requirement for additional cables.


There must be a way to remove the 'nanny state' charge rate limit on the charger. But if you cant find the way to disable the limit you can cheat the limit by telling the charger you have a much higher mAh capacity than you really have. I MUCH prefer chargers where you simply set the charge current in Amps rather than the charger insisting it knows best.

 

[Heliman450]

Hi Steve, when was anything you recommended 'normal'? Normal is boring , that's why I'm using Supra X connectors.............. nobody makes the adaptors for Supra X to anything standard i.e. Deans/EC5. Just joking. Here's a couple of photos of my multi-story charging station.

I mentioned some time ago about being limited for space here at our home (a loft). In Switzerland (my flying club) we're also paranoid about burning down our rented accommodation, hence the 'over-the-top' arrangement.

 

[Smoggie]

Thanks Phil,

I also use adaptors for the main power connectors, which I think is what you are talking about. The balance connectors on the vast majority of batteries and boards are 'JST-XH' type so the battery should be able to plug direct to the board. But I see on your setup that you are using extension leads for the balance connectors due to the layout, which explains it!

 

[Heliman450]

Maybe I should have said extensions rather than adaptors. My sincere apologies for any confusion to readers

 

[murankar]

I have the brand connectors on my packs. Except my are not supra X.

Let's get down to the real issue first. If I am understanding everything you have a slow charging process? Meaning it's taking a long time to charge packs.

That's not an issue with balance connectors or main lead connectors. That's solely a charger issue.

Just so we are clear and on on the same page. The more packs you add to your charger the longer it's going to take even if you had the best charger out their. One thing to help speed up charging is to increase the charge rate.

For instance if your running a 2200 mah pack a 1c charge rate for that pack is 2.2 amps. Now if you add a second 2200 mah pack your 1c charge rate is now 4.4 amps. If you add a third pack at 2200 mah then your 1c rate will now be 6.6 amps.

Now as Steve said your balance cables are on the packs. I thought you were referring to the balance cable that goes to the charger and the para board.

If this is not the root problem please please explain again what exactly it is you are wanting.

 

[Heliman450]

Hi Uri, I think you've picked up something a bit skewed. I don't have a problem that needs fixing here in the Forum.................... way back in thread #22 I mentioned waiting for the last three balance cables (30 cm extensions) and it seems a long time ago now. I'm still waiting for the delivery. I know that the charging will take longer when more batteries are connected unless the charging rate is increased. The instructions aren't very clear for the charger and although I did what it says, the rate is still fixed at one C.

I'm still getting all the batteries charged up faster than previously, albeit not at the absolute maximum capacity of the charger. Resolving that one is just another item on my list of 'to-dos'.

Thanks for looking in and contributing

 

[Heliman450]

Hi Uri, I think you've picked up something a bit skewed. I don't have a problem that needs fixing here in the Forum.................... way back in thread #22 I mentioned waiting for the last three balance cables (30 cm extensions) and it seems a long time ago now. I'm still waiting for the delivery. I know that the charging will take longer when more batteries are connected unless the charging rate is increased. The instructions aren't very clear for the charger and although I did what it says, the rate is still fixed at one C.

I'm still getting all the batteries charged up faster than previously, albeit not at the absolute maximum capacity of the charger. Resolving that one is just another item on my list of 'to-dos'.

Thanks for looking in and contributing

 

[Smoggie]

Phil, as I hinted at in my previous post, one way to cheat the 'nanny state' software that tries to force you to charge at 1C is lie about the battery capacity.

So lets say you have four 5000mAh batteries to charge in parallel. Instead of entering 20,000mAh tell a little white lie and type in 40,000mAh.. The charger will now charge at 40A (or as close as it's rating allows) which it thinks is 1C but really you have tricked it into a 2c charge rate Of course this leaves you wrestling with your conscience after telling lies to your charger, but you will learn to live with the shameful deceit in time!

Personally i much prefer the iCharger programming where i just pick a charge rate pre-set based on purely on Amps, so I dont have to go typing in battery capacity and all that nonsense.

 

[Heliman450]

Hi Steve, thanks for the tip. I'll look into the options available to me to kid the charger. As a translation from German I'm sure that's where the instructions fall short.

When I bought the charger I didn't think this would be such an issue. However, it's not causing me any problems as yet.