Revolectrix PL8 Balance Charger Working a 4P Charge

[BVH]

RCGroups is a fantastic forum for learning tons about chargers, batteries, electronics and electrics - not just about RC equipment (cars, planes, heli's ect.) I've have learned a awful lot there and have this great charger because of my time spent there. I don't see much in the way of threads on high power hobby chargers so I thought I post a teaser. The PL8 has been out for a couple years and is capable (with a the right DC power supply) of providing up to 1344 Watts of output power to charge multiple large capacity, high voltage, balance wired Lipo packs. They just released their new MPA parallel charging board shown in the pics which will handle up to 6 each, 8S packs packs. Before, there was a small board for each pack - more spaghetti. Here, I'm charging 4 ea., 6S/3000 mAh Blue Lipo brand Lipo packs in parallel (used for my Megaray) at a total of 12 Amps (3.0 Amps each). I charge at 1c but my 12 Volt, 55 Amp PS is near maxed out - according to the PL8 software so a few minutes later, it dropped down to 11 Amps. There are many, many safety algorithms programmed into this charger and input current limits is one of them. The charger will accept up to 30 Volts input and that's what's needed to unleash the very large current flows. If I had the right supply and I wanted to, I could charge these 4 packs from completely empty to full in about 15 minutes. The charger can be used by itself or controlled by the included PC based op system which is much easier and faster. There are 25 Preset pack "slots" to set up your regularly charged pack combinations so you can set every pack up just once and then choose it when you're charging that pack combination. You can charge as low as 10 mAh and up to 40 Amps. You can change termination Voltage and just about all parameters involved in charging. Of course, it's an "all chemistry" firmware upgradeable charger. You can make your own parallel charging cradels for charging up to almost any practical number of cylindrical cells. I have a 4-cell cradle. The only real downside to the charger is that any Lithium battery with a cell count of 3 or more, must have balance connectors and they must be connected for the charger to allow it to be charged. I guess that's not really a downside, but a safety point.

My setup






The starting screen



The screen to choose how many packs, ect.




PL8 Charging in progress

[Wrend]

Yep, the PL8 is the big daddy of hobby chargers.

CPF is great for learning about loose and occasionally protected cells, and RCG is great for learning about battery packs and how to do things like parallel balance charging with unprotected Li-ion type packs, and how to calculate their safe charge and discharge rates.

I would recommend charging loose Li-ion type cells in parallel on the PL8, if charging multiple cells at once. And like you mentioned, if charging cells in series (even those in a pack), because in part of the high charge rate capabilities of the PL8, you need to have balance taps between the cells so the charger can check each cell's voltage level. Without that, there could very easily be a safety risk caused by cell imbalances.

It's also worth pointing out that the stock balance lead ports on the PL8 don't match the cell order of some other common packs, so people should double check their pack's configurations. I think they're offering the other more common cell order balancing ports as an option now too.

[snypr]

I have this exact charger and still cant determine whether or not to get a (new version) Intellicharge I4, or use this charger (just bought a new TM11 (new version) and 4 redilast 3100 18650s). My PL8 has v3.30 F/W, so its all ready to go. I think I have used it twice to do a lipo maintenance charge and thats it. Like BVH said, it is super configurable and can put out massive power (pending the correct supply is sufficient)...top of the line.

[tandem]

I have a PL8 as well; a darn fine product it is. I like that it can discharge up to 100W, more externally, which makes it great for testing capacity under load of anything I am likely to throw at it. Even nicer it can export data in the same format the WMR CBA III uses so you can chart purdy charts using CBA's own software even if you don't own a CBA.

snyper - I built a parallel charging rig for my 18650's to do 4 at once; it's also handy for putting a bunch of cells back to storage charge. I constructed it out of flexible thick gauge wire and heavy duty cell cradle that I found here or on CPF Marketplace, the seller's name escapes me at present.