Question for AccuManager20 owners.

[TinderBox (UK)]

In the user manual.

It says that when you insert a battery to be charged.

The green charging indicator will stay on for three seconds while the charger analizes the battery and then start to flash to indicate charging.

My AccuManager20 starts to flash a soon as i insert the battery.

Is this normal.

Is the manual wrong.

I am having a problem with the bays charging at different rates.

thankyou.

 

[Monolith]

Mine blinks as soon as put the batteries in.

 

[Empath]

You're not supposed to put the batteries in while it's plugged into the power. You put the batteries in first, and then plug it in. Then, your leds will be lit for a bit before it starts blinking. Placing the batteries in while its plugged in will allow the batteries to charge, but you lose the "intelligence" gathered at the startup.

 

[Monolith]

I wondered where all my intelligence went....

 

[snoofer]

Sorry Empath.............

Take a look at this http://www.thomas-distributing.com/pdf/AM2020-1.pdf

 

[Don_Redondo]

The blinking right away is normal.

How are you determining that the bays are charging at different rates? Can you provide more information?

One accumanager tip in case you haven’t found it already is that it is sensitive to low voltage – somewhat deeply discharged batteries – won’t charge them – but often starting to charge one of these cells in a dumb charger – 20 minutes or so - will bring it back to where the accumanager will recognize it and finish the job.

FWIW, I leave mine plugged in all the time and it works fine.

 

[TinderBox (UK)]

The blinking right away is normal.

How are you determining that the bays are charging at different rates? Can you provide more information?

One accumanager tip in case you haven’t found it already is that it is sensitive to low voltage – somewhat deeply discharged batteries – won’t charge them – but often starting to charge one of these cells in a dumb charger – 20 minutes or so - will bring it back to where the accumanager will recognize it and finish the job.

FWIW, I leave mine plugged in all the time and it works fine.

hello Don Redondo

I have tried dozens of ni-mh battery`s in this charger.

working from left to right.

bay 4 virtually always finishes first, then bay 3, and then it`s a tossup between bays 1 and 2.

I have tried putting the battery with the lowest voltage in bay 4, but it still usually finishes first.

and the higher the battery capacity, the greater the time descrepency between bay 4 and the others.

I have asked silverfox to test a bran-new AccuManager20 to see if it is OK, before he ships it to me.

regards.

 

[Phlack]

working from left to right.

bay 4 virtually always finishes first, then bay 3, and then it`s a tossup between bays 1 and 2.

I'll have to try that sometime.

-Mike

 

[Monolith]

Anyone installed a power switch so that you don't have to keep plugging and unplugging to reset the electronics?

Hmmm I might get one of those remote lamp controllers to cycle the power with......

 

[TinderBox (UK)]

The question is, should the battery`s be in the charger when it is powered up.

As far as I can tell the manual says to power the charger and then to intall the battery`s.

I know the charger is made in germany. maybe its a bad english transation.

The instructions are also in german, can sombody read them.

regarding the subject of the led being on for three seconds after you insert the batterys, nobody appears to have seen this.

the only time this happens is when the charger is switched on, and I think it is only the chargers doing a self-test, but i could be wrong.

When silverfox receives my new charger mabe things will become clearer.

regards.

 

[Monolith]

1. Cycle power to charger and leave plugged in
2. Insert batteries
3. Stay lit for 3 seconds
4. Blink
5. Solid - remove batteries


I never did #1 so I'll give it a shot after work. Without doing #1, the batteries always just blink when inserted.

 

[nocturnal]

I use an AccuManager10, which to the best of my knowledge uses the very same charging technology (it's just a smaller device for AA/AAA cells only). Both the English and the German operating instructions state you'd normally power up the charger first, and then insert the batteries. Only if a battery seems to be dead due to overdischarge (LED remains off after battery is inserted), you may try to insert the battery first and then power up the charger (or disconnect and reconnect the charger while the battery remains in the slot). This may help to recondition an over-discharged battery, but is not necessary or advised for normal use. FWIW, I haven't had to do that ever with any of my batteries.

The AccuManager 10 instructions explicitly mention that the LEDs stay on for three seconds after the charger is being powered up, not after inserting batteries in an already plugged-in charger. Normal testing of an inserted battery seems to take less than one second on my unit. Right after inserting, the LED does stay on a little longer before it starts blinking regularly, but this takes considerably less than 3 sec.

If you are unsure about the English translation of the AM 20 instructions and you are able to identify the relevant part in the German version, feel free to post it and I may check it. :)

 

[Monolith]

Just checked tonight - the only way I get a 3 second solid led is when the unit is first plugged in, regardless of whether or not there are batteries installed in the charger. The batteries themselves do not trigger the 3 second solid led, only cycling the charger does.

 

[Phlack]

Yup. Only when powercycled. It's during the powercycle that it shoots some more power through that will hopefully "wake up" a very depleted cell.

Personally, I don't think it's really 3 seconds...more like 2.

-Mike

 

[Empath]

Oops! I didn't see your response at first, Snoofer. You're right. You do need to plug it in before you place the batteries in. You do need to unplug it and plug it back in between charges though, in order to initialize it each time.

Thanks for correcting my error.

 

[Sub_Umbra]

The PDF at Thomas is WRONG! I went through this a couple years ago. The thread is somewhere in the archives. There is/was an Austrian with the username Accupower (or something very close to that). He was in the Accupower R&D department and posted on a few threads. I emailed him back then and asked him about that specific PDF on Thomas's site. He read it and got back to me and said it was wrong.

I normally would not post an email but I have communicated with him on numorous occasions and have posted parts of his replies before. He was always more interested in just getting the word out.

Part of my note to him:
> Fri, July 23, 2004 07:38
> Hi Gerhard,
>
> The interesting Candle Power Forums thread, Re: Best universal charger,
> which you posted to a few months ago is back on the subject of the
> Accupower20 again with a new mystery.
>
> THOMAS DISTRIBUTING is distributing a small guide to the Accupower20 on
> PDF:
>
> http://www.batterysupply.com/pdf/AM2020-1.pdf
>
> It contains the following note:
>
> "**(NOTE: Always plug the charger in first BEFORE placing your batteries
> in the charger. The charger must initalize before each charging. It is
> also important to unplug your charger after each battery charging cycle,
> and then plug it back in prior to charging additional batteries.)"
>
> This does not appear in the manual that came with my Accupower20 which I
> bought from THOMAS 2-3 months ago. A couple of us were wondering what it
> was all about, since I never unplug mine and I often remove a cell when it
> has finished charging and I replace it with one that needs charging while
> there are others in the unit still charging. I have never had any problems
> that I am aware of.
>

Here is his response:
> Dear Sub_Umbra,
>
> you sent me a link with a pdf file for AccuManager20. It is not the
> original file, we have on our homepage. Please have a look to:
>
> www.accupower-usa.com and find the pdf.
>
> It does not make sense to unplug the charger after each battery charging
> cycle, it is also not important for normal use, if you put in the cells
> after plugging or before plugging.
> So the charger may always stay on, you put the batteries in, after
> finishing charging you can leave them in the charger until use.
> If you put in a battery and the charging does not start, maybe the
> battery is defective. Now you can try to unplug and again plug but with
> the defective battery in. Maybe the battery works after this. If it
> still will not be charged by the AccuManager20, after two or three
> tries, please do not use the battery, because it is defective.
> The charging time does not depend on the quantity of batteries, that are
> charged:
> For example if you put in three batteries of high quality and one
> battery of bad quality, this bad battery will make the charging time
> lasting longer. But if you use similar cells, the charging time does not
> depend on the quantity of batteries charged simultanuosly by the
> AccuManager.
>
> I hope I could resolve the mystery.
>
> Mit freundlichem Gruss / Best regards
>
> Gerhard
> ACCU POWER Forschungs-, Entwicklungs- und Vertriebsgesellschaft mbH
> www.accupower.at
>

Anyway, the same file is still there. I'm sorry I only just saw this thread this morning.

 

[TinderBox (UK)]

hello Sub_Umbra

what about the part in the manual, about the led staying on for three seconds after you place the battery in the charger and then it starts flashing.

it`s supposed to be some sort of fancy battery analysis.

It is mentioned a couple of times in the manual.

but nobody has seen it happen.:huh2:

it seem to only happens for 2 seconds when you first plug the charger in to the mains.

thankyou.

 

[Sub_Umbra]

hello Sub_Umbra

what about the part in the manual, about the led staying on for three seconds after you place the battery in the charger and then it starts flashing.

it`s supposed to be some sort of fancy battery analysis.

It is mentioned a couple of times in the manual.

but nobody has seen it happen.:huh2:

it seem to only happens for 2 seconds when you first plug the charger in to the mains.

thankyou.

I'd be willing to bet that the manual is wrong on that point, too.

The statement (in the manual) certainly doesn't pass the Duck Test. (If it walks like a duck, flys like a duck, and quacks like a duck -- it's probably a duck.)

• The manuals that came with the units from over two years ago appear to be wrong in this regard.
• The units delivered over two years ago did not operate in the manner discribed in their manual, regarding initialization.
• The manuals that come with the units being shipped today say the same thing. (I'm assuming that at least some of the units discussed in this thread are much newer than mine)
• The units being delivered today do not operate in the manner discribed in their manual, regarding initialization.

In spite of the fact that my older unit fails to lock it's LEDs on for three seconds whenever batteries are inserted as it's manual states, it does perform diagnostic tests on each cell, whenever one is inserted.

I know this because I have one 4AA light that had a habit of reversing polarity of one cell in a set and it trashed a few cells before I switched to alkys only for that light. The charger always detected these cells in spite of the fact that it has never behaved in the manner described in the manual. It should also be noted that I never unplug my AM2020 unless I'm trying to bring back a damaged cell. In Gerhard's email above he explicitly states that in normal operation it makes no difference whether the unit is unplugged first or not. The AM2020 is just not doing the analysis in the manner discribed by the manual. The manual is wrong.

Think about it. The charger must analyze each cell prior to charging to deterine whether it is a NiCad, NiMH or RAM cell. I know that mine does this because I've been charging some of the same NiMH cells that I already had when I bought the charger over two years ago. They probably would be long gone by now if the charger used the wrong charging algorithm on them.

Try this:

1. Take a cell that the AM2020 says is defective and put it into one of the slots. Their should be no blink.
2. Leaving the cell in the AM2020, unplug the power cord for a few seconds and replug. After initialization, if the AM2020 still thinks the cell is defective it won't blink (charge).
3. Repeat step two twice to be more assured that the cell isn't coming back.
4. Pull and mark the bad cell.
5. Begin a new charge cycle on three good cells in three slots.
6. Once into the charge cycle, insert the marked, defective cell into the remaining, unused slot without unplugging the charger to reinitialize.

If the LED for the channel that the marked cell is in refuses to light or blink it means that the AM2020 has performed a cell diagnostic even though the whole unit was not reinitalized. That would mean that the manual is still wrong.

If this thread is about relatively new AM2020s I think that these are manual issues not charger issues. IMO very few companies have their manuals written by people as smart or as competent as those who actually design the devices.

These are old issues. You may want to poke around in the great, old, long thread in the Archives, Re: Best universal charger. It's a great resource but I doubt you'll find much more on the AM2020 except that it's behavior has been consistant for some time.

I tried to email Accupower for something or other a few months ago but I failed to make contact. If anyone does, please post the results here.

 

[TinderBox (UK)]

right, so the manual is wrong wrong and probabley wrong again.

good start.

so the charger just works any which way want to use it.

mabe we should refer accupower to the "plain english campaign" for their accurate manuals.

on another matter how does the charger tell if the battery is an nicad or nimh or ram in a fraction of a second and does it vary the charging rate up to a maximum of 700ma.

regards.

 

[Sub_Umbra]

From the very limited contact I've have with the guys from the charger companies I've noticed that there are many secrets that they all have about the nuts and bolts of how their chargers actually work. It's a pretty competitive business.

...on another matter how does the charger tell if the battery is an nicad or nimh or ram in a fraction of a second...

My inclination would be to make no assumptions about any charger that I couldn't test out -- or at least get results from someone I would be inclined to trust. Mistakes are made in the manuals and there are probably deliberate obfuscations that fall way short of fraud in that they may be meant to confuse the competition rather than cheat the user. I'm not trying to single out Accupower at all. It's a field with lots of secrets. Different charger companies don't even agree on MAJOR issues like whether NiCads EVER need conditioning cycles, for example. (Maha vs Accupower) Theres got to be a tremendous amount of Voodoo in the smaller details.

Back to the question:

Unless I knew what the box was doing right when I stuck in another cell for charging I wouldn't assume that it was done with the diagnostic...just because the manual said that it would be done as soon as the LED stopped blinking.

They might just be saying that for Maha. :D

...and does it vary the charging rate up to a maximum of 700ma.

It would seem to me that it would have to. My two year old AM2020 manual claims the charger "adjusts automatically the current and charging time..." when charging.

Also, many UIs just don't communicate...as well as they should. Take the 'Progress Bar' at the bottom of the Internet Explorer browser window. I don't know if you still can but you used to be able to click on a link and the Bar would move and show that you were making progress loading the page even if you had lost your connection to the WWW! UIs are often there to keep you from getting bored and messing something up, like splash screens when OSs and applications load.