I just had my ebike batteries, LiFeP04 16S/12Ah each, upgraded to LiIon 14S/22.4 Ah each or about 1,800 usable Watt Hours. With my style of always peddling with a medium load on my legs, I can get about 125 miles on a charge using both batteries in Parallel. I frequently ride from 35 to 50 miles so I needed a way to discharge the packs down to storage when I return from a weekend day ride. I don't usually ride during the week. I have Transistor Devices Incorporated 1,500 Watt and 4,000 electronic loads. However, they are very heavy and bulky and are kept in a garage cabinet. It takes a lot of effort to use them. I toyed with going the hair drier, resistor bank route but thought there must be something more precise and fun to use. I did a lot of investigating and finally, came across this fantastic, tiny up to 150 Volts DC, up to 40 Amps current and a 400 Watts maximum , very versatile programmable load and battery discharger. In battery mode, you can program Low Voltage Cutoff (LVC) and the load will be disconnected when that Voltage is reached. It also has an available option upon reaching LVC, to reduce current to half and then resume discharging until LVC is reached again, at which time, the load is cut permanently. It does standard CC, CV, CR and CW/Power mode discharges and shows capacity out in Ah or Watt hrs. It's fan is PWM controlled and is pretty quiet up to the 250 Watts that I have discharged at so far. This thing is tiny! There are two quite good videos on operation, tear down and accuracy out there to watch. All the reviewers are impressed with the quality of the build including PC boards and accuracy. For about $210 delivered from Chino, CA, this gem is very hard to beat. You could storage discharge four, 4S packs in parallel at up to 25 Amps total assuming a starting Voltage of about 4 VPC.
I can't seem to embed or link the short video I have of the unit in battery discharge mode reaching LVC and then dialing back current to half. I have no idea why, but I'm thinking of buying another one just to have. For me, it sure beats the light bulb, hair drier, resistor bank method. Just having the automatic disconnection of the load at LVC makes it worth the price. And it saves wear and tear on your charger not doing the high heat discharges.
The unit is software controllable and has two different interfaces on the back panel for this purpose. They are all over Ebay pretty much from one seller. Be sure to choose the one that ships from Chino, CA and not china if you're in the U.S. They have a warehouse there.
The manual: https://www.scribd.com/document/5167...2-KP184-Manual
First of a three-part video review:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/265198724437
I can't seem to embed or link the short video I have of the unit in battery discharge mode reaching LVC and then dialing back current to half. I have no idea why, but I'm thinking of buying another one just to have. For me, it sure beats the light bulb, hair drier, resistor bank method. Just having the automatic disconnection of the load at LVC makes it worth the price. And it saves wear and tear on your charger not doing the high heat discharges.
The unit is software controllable and has two different interfaces on the back panel for this purpose. They are all over Ebay pretty much from one seller. Be sure to choose the one that ships from Chino, CA and not china if you're in the U.S. They have a warehouse there.
The manual: https://www.scribd.com/document/5167...2-KP184-Manual
First of a three-part video review:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/265198724437
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