SkyRC — IFA 2014 — MC3000 charger-analyzer

[OttaMattaPia]

Odd occurrence today with the MC3K and DEX.....

Refreshing an INR 18650 3000mAh Samsung 30Q...but it got stuck on the first discharge cycle....

Program set to .7A discharge current
Cutoff voltage at 3.0v

For reasons I can't discover, the charger went to 0.0A discharge current when the battery was at 3.1v and never recovered.

That caused it to "hang" (because it could never reach 3.0v if there was zero discharge current)...and so it sat for an hour at 3.1v until I noticed....which is not good to leave batteries that far discharged for long so I was a bit disappointed with the charger. I'm not certain, but my guess would be that the charger failed to account for the rebound voltage after the discharge load was removed.

Here is the log entry where it went from 3.1v to 3.0v after about 4.5 hours....
00:16.277 / 3.00 / -0.7 / 2766 / 2.1 / 10.2 / 27.7 / 24 / 41.6

Here is the log entry where the discharge current dropped to zero........about 3 minutes and 45 seconds later.....
00:16.501 / 3.00 / 0.0 / 2809 / 1.3 / 10.3 / 27.7 / 24 / 39.8

Then the battery voltage rebounded back up to 3.1v.....only 36 seconds later...(probably because the discharge load was removed)
00:16.537 / 3.10 / 0.0 / 2809 / 0 / 10.3 / 27.6 / 24 / 38.5

And almost an hour later......still at 3.1v....and 0 current (stuck forever!)
00:19.711 / 3.10 / 0.0 / 2809 / 0 / 10.3 / 25.7 / 24 / 26



Here were the program parameters....

• Battery Type: LiIo
• Mode: Refresh
• Capacity:3000
• Charge Current: 1.0A
• Discharge Current: .7A
• Charge Cut Voltage: 4.2
• Discharge Cut Voltage: 3.0
• Charge Cut Current: 0.1
• Discharge Cut Current: 0.5
• Cut Temp: 45C
• Cut Time: OFF

The Temp never exceeded 42C for the system or 29C for the batteries

Anyone have any idea why it did this and how to avoid it?

Thanks

[kreisl]

your log says "3.0V", so the charger reached cut-off voltage -you set it to 3.0V didnt you- and current dropped to "0.0A". sounds legit to me!

what symbol are you seeing in TOV when the current is 0.0A? the symbol indicates the operation mode and or the routine, in which the charger currently is.

[OttaMattaPia]

your log says "3.0V", so the charger reached cut-off voltage -you set it to 3.0V didnt you- and current dropped to "0.0A". sounds legit to me!
what symbol are you seeing in TOV when the current is 0.0A? the symbol indicates the operation mode and or the routine, in which the charger currently is.

I could understand that if it was in Discharge mode. But it wasn't. That's my concern.
It was in Refresh mode as I said above, and it essentially left the batteries discharged.

IIRC, it showed the up/down arrow and was in Refresh mode.
I wasn't expecting the charger to leave the battery dead. I was expecting it to Charge > Discharge > Charge and then leave it fully topped off. Isn't that Refresh operation?

The only possible explanation I can think of is IF the rest period between the charge and discharge or discharge and charge is a full hour. And I don't think it is.

If that is not the explanation, then it could be a firmware bug.

[kreisl]

haha.....I see what you did there ;-)

[OttaMattaPia]

How can we know how long the rest period is? It should be noted somewhere in the manual me thinks, did you check?

haha.....I see what you did there ;-)

Thanks!

Definitely a learning curve for an old goat like me.

[dfacex]

Can we hook to MC3000's one of the battery channels, something similar to this universal external cellphone battery charger dock cradle? Will it charge discharge cellphone batteries without problems? Any specific parameters needed? Someone tried to charge, test phone batteries with mc3000?

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Newe...742006874.html

[kreisl]

Testing smartphone batteries

Started by kreisl, 01-10-2016 02:41 PM

Yes you could misuse the AX thing as holder for your smartphone battery. You'd still need to wire up its cable to the positive and the negative terminals of the mc3k slot.

( for smartphone batteries there is imho no advantage of misusing the mc3k instead of a hobby charger like IMAX B6 other than for better accuracy and graphing capability. i don't do it anymore because all new premium-like phones with metal or glass housing have built-in batteries and one would have to break the sealing of the smartphone screen to get to the battery. me not likey. )

[dfacex]

Oh, Thank you kreisl for quick and helpful response!

[Nev]

If it charges by usb ,you can charge it with a drok or similar usb tester inline to get mha put into the battery , that's what I do to my iPhone & iPad.
I also do it when charging my led lenser H7.2 , from empty it shows virtually the mha that's it's suppose to have (1400) Same with phone , it shows about 2000 mha short of the speck iPad mha but it is a few years old now.

[HighLight]

Did some Googling, and found it.

Two codes (sounds like either work, I used the top one) - 12% off, for use on Gearbest.com:
GB17LED
GBCHS
https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/show...arger-(-79-19)

Just ordered one myself (included free 3-7 day shipping )

Just ordered the MC3000 from GearBest using the top code and saved 12%.You have to register on the site first. Best price I can get here in Canada and it seems like free expedited shipping. Thanks for that code!

[kreisl]

(deleted)

[HKJ]

https://abload.de/img/2000pxemojiu1f623.svg8cprt.png

You obvious like price fixing.

[Driftermickh]

OK, have had the charger over 2 months now.
Use it most every day. This charger has more to
it than I need or use. But, I like it, works great.
I have to say this is a "serious" charger.

Drifter...

[kreisl]

Yep, you are right about scheme, i missed that point.

Now it looks good, thanks!

The BatterySpace.com offering is imo not usable because their LTO battery (lemme call it "BS18650LTO" ;-) seems to bear the positive and negative terminals on the same face side, not on opposite sides. It would not be possible to insert the BS18650LTO in a slot of mc3k charger. Batteryspace.com is herewith excluded as battery supplier.

There is an Alibaba supplier, actually it is a factory, who sells their 18650 LTO model, the TK18650LTO, only in boxes of 100pcs and they don't have any spares or samples can you believe it. Due to wtf cost reasons(?) they really don't sell samples taken out of those boxes, which is a pity. I asked sky, while they are willing to implement LTO support in mc3k firmware, they cannot get any TK18650LTO samples for testing from them, which is why the LTO implementation project remains on hold for the time being. If anyone can donate proper 18650 LTO samples, such as the TK18650LTO model (are there any other proper 18650 on the market?), the project will get going, promised.

No donations.

No promises.



Thanks Drifter for the honest kind words, i'll let sky know!

[scooter3n]

kreisl, i would like to buy the latest build MC3000 with the latest firmware already installed from a US seller. Do you have any recommendations? Also, I have a question: can I download the firmware update, unpack the .rar, which I assume will be a .exe, load it onto a USB drive, put the thumb drive in the MC3000 and invoke the update from the menus? I do not have a Windows box in the house.

[kreisl]

hello scooter3n,
re your second question sounds wild and great but i don't think that this possibility will ever come on a consumer-grade niche charger. i would cheer and applaud to whomever develops such kind of a dreamcharger (Xstar? Enova? Efst? Mah? Littokala? Pspower? Skyr? Jusni?). Tbh i didn't think of this possibility at the time of Design Spec what 4yr ago, my bad, lack of imagination hh. Back den i had other things in mind, the charger was to be generously sized, have nicer resolution/accuracy than a 100US$ iCharger but not take itself overly dry seriously, be fun with powerbanking, pong, languages and games, and stand out in some way, notably so. i had stretched it with pong and powerbanking, and we still have nada but 1 language in the UI a shame. if i had requested your feature at that time, who knows maybe our mc3k as we know it today would have that feature… sorry. maybe a **cker can open up the firmware with another patch and open the usb port for file system interpretation
re your first question, sorry again, i have no insight or knowledge about inventory of US sellers, it's the tru. @ElectroPulse, @HighLight, which firmware version did your Gearbest mc3k come with?


i don't like price fixing on flashlights, and GB is beyond **** and *** with their steep discount coupons , a Lumintop Tool Ti for 25US$? omg!!

[dfacex]

There is an Alibaba supplier...

Here i found another Alibaba supplier with min. 20pcs order
https://www.alibaba.com/product-deta...470658043.html

and

GSL ENERGY GROUP LTD sells proper 18650 cells
http://gsl-energy.com/content/?1207.html

...also researching LTO's i found one person who owns kind of little different type of these cells with super fast 15C charge rate. There on forums he say something about willing to sell those cells, maybe he could send sample?
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/vi...p?f=14&t=27750



Sorry, that's all i was able to help you with that..

[scooter3n]

150+ page thread spanning a couple years made me think that maybe this product might be for me :-) especially after viewing assembly and disassembly videos of early and later iterations. I particularly like the redesign to the spring posts because I have no intention of going inside and trying to reconnect the Springs to the posts in the blind... to put an exclamation point on my shaking head, this morning I watched a Fluke video on how to clean the contacts to their 87V's LED panels in the field if you don't have time to send it in; a great example of elegant engineering.

Wow, only an English ui...

I finally found a recommendation on cpf in another thread for Robert Negely, sales@danaco.net, 916-405-0183, who reports having the latest builds of the MC3000 as well as the most recent firmware, and offers a cpf discount and 30 days against DOA. I will run it in dummy mode for the kids for now, and then as I learn things useful I will teach them.

[tjh]

Hi,

I see SkyRC have released new versions of the MC30000 monitor program for Windows PCs.
Those will small laptop screens will finally rejoice as the 720p version is much smaller and should fit on almost any Windows PC screen.

Thanks, SkyRC!

[Snotgople]

I got a MC3000 recently. Wondering why the place for the sticker on the bottom, isn't recessed like it is, on the pictures on page 119.??

[kreisl]

I got a MC3000 recently. Wondering why the place for the sticker on the bottom, isn't recessed like it is, on the pictures on page 119.??

What does FW Version and HW Version says?

[Snotgople]

What does FW Version and HW Version says?

FW was 1.10, I updated it to 1.18 - HW says 1.3+ Got it from nkon.nl...

[kreisl]

as mentioned earlier, i have no knowledge about vendors' inventories. i can only comment:
- 1.10 FW is from June , HW 1.3+ is 1.4 , so that looks all good uptodate
- when they started the big batch in June, there must have been remaining prior inventory of old bottom case revision which then got used up before the new case halves got phased in during the assembly. a bottom case half with non-recessed label sticker is the older revision but it does not automatically mean that the upper case half is the older revision too.

at this point i will still assume that your upper case half is the updated revision

if i were you, you knew what i would do, now

[Snotgople]

Ok, thanks for answering. I'm not good at guessing, can you tell me what you would do? Take it apart to check the inside??

[kreisl]

I would

[Snotgople]

What should I check specifically, if I take it apart? I guess the screws are hidden under the rubberfeets??

[kreisl]

Six screws.

Six.

Not four. Don't forget.

Yes, you can find some screw under rubberfott?

No need to disassemble completely. Just check carefully if the upper case is the one that you were after?

[Snotgople]

Everything looks fine, the upper case is the good reinforced version with bigger screw holes, and the back of the LCD is green. PCB is printed with 2016-01-13 V. 1.5 - in fact everything is similar to your pics on page 119, except for one thing: the cooling fins are horizontal, not vertical! I'm wondering why..??

[kreisl]

except for one thing: the cooling fins are horizontal, not vertical! I'm wondering why..??

i did not assign a number to my horizontal cooling fins. maybe you can read the passage with the photo again and understand

[cpa]

FW was 1.10, I updated it to 1.18 - HW says 1.3+ Got it from nkon.nl...

Firmware 1.18??... have I missed anything??... or Is it just a typo??