"storage charge" for li-ion / 18650 - chargers and voltage

[vicv]

Thats why the smiley face. I was joking. I personally wouldn't solder them unless you really want to. Just stick them to the side of the steel alligator clamp. From what I understand it is very easy to lose the magnetism from soldering. The magnets are coated in nickel which is pretty conductive. More so than the steel plates on the cell ends. I use one between two cells in an Incan light that draws ~6A and they handle that fine

 

[novarider]

Thats why the smiley face. I was joking. I personally wouldn't solder them unless you really want to. Just stick them to the side of the steel alligator clamp. From what I understand it is very easy to lose the magnetism from soldering. The magnets are coated in nickel which is pretty conductive. More so than the steel plates on the cell ends. I use one between two cells in an Incan light that draws ~6A and they handle that fine

I was on a work computer and the smiley face didn't show up.

The main reason I am thinking of soldering them is so I can't forget the magnets on the batteries.

I think I'm going to try to use a washer between two magnets and shrink wrap it all together.

 

[vicv]

If you're worried about that you can put the magnets in the jaws of the clamps. The magnetism is plenty strong to still stick to cells

 

[littlebattery]

one is the SkyRC MC3000, but it is a rather expensive charger.

I hacked together a "6 cell battery pack" based on a cheap xtar 6-cell slider charger, and added RC power and balance connectors. Unfortunately what i found is that this tends to exercise the fail-safe error checks in my rc charger.

It seems that In a real rc pack, the batteries start off very similar (probably even same lot) and while they all degraded individually, they do all see exactly the same discharge, storage, etc ... whereas my "faked" 6-cell pack was different enough to (eventually) be caught as an error. For example, i start off by using 'equalize mode' to set the same voltage on all cells, then commence storage (charge or discharge, depending). Invariably one cell would diverge fast enough from the others for the charger to enter an error state.

So, i found a sale on the sky MC3000 Should have done this from the get-go, i suppose, although it was fun to put together the slider unit.

I'm very happy with the MC3000 *except* that the metal tabs seem quite weak compared to the springs. I have already bent a couple and had to bend them back ... i hope it holds up.

 

[gearfreak.next]

noob resurrecting zombie thread, apologies!

Despite my searches here and e.g. batteryuniversity, I can't find a definition of what constitutes 'storage' time.

Is there supposed to be a time limit that defines it?

The case at hand is my bike battery pack, it gets used about once a week.
So for ~7 days unused, should I be bothered to discharge them, or just leave them until the next ride?

* the practical answer might end up being: setup a pack that uses fewer cells.

cheers all