Charging my protected Li-Ion Battery Pack 14.8V 4.0Ah

[dickybeau]

Hi

I'm really new to the custom light business 9and just about anything electrical if truth be told) and have one of these packs to use with a bike light that I built from a kit I bought here.

I bought the pack and have an Imax B6 charger that I thought beforehand might work. Unfortunately the B6 booklet says it cannot be used with protected batteries/cells.

The pack has 8 cells and was bought from ebay. (I would post a link but not sure if this would transgress any rules)

Can I ask for some advice about possible solutions. It's beginning to get darker and want to be prepared with batteries fully charged.

I live in the UK if that makes any difference.

Thanks in advance.

richard

 

[VidPro]

well i am not going to be much help.
because that hobby charger can be used with protected cells, just not the same way, with the exact same things happening.
like , as the protection kicks in on a high voltage, the cell/pack will Properly disconnect and the charger will beep its head off and complain about a disconnection. SO
Then charging or Re-Charging a cell/pack at the lower rate would get it 98% charged, even though it may end the charge complaining about a disconnection.

it would have a few more issues when it tried to balance charge too, because you didnt buy a balance tapped pack :-0

then you have a PACK, packs have protection but rarely use protected CELLS inside the pack itself. they have a pack protection that one curcuit board, protects all the cells.

well let me start out by saying, you cant overprotect, and conflicts that you would have between the 2 will be protection. there would be no safety problem from the pack protection and the proper cutoff protection of the charger.
and
you can wire in a proper full balance connection bypassing the protection, exactally as they would do for a protected pack with a balance connection, and have everything with minimal problems.

i would have already charged the pack with it, then order up a 4p protection wire off of e-bay, and rip the pack open and wire it in. while i was there i would toss in a deans connect too, or just do the cross wiring of the protection with the inputs, which they also sell the adapter for. The cross wiring allows you to charge with ONLY the balance plug (which has all the connections needed) as long as you just use normal charge rates , and not the excessive ones like 10AMPS which that charger wont even do.

the manuel is right, dont tell them the charger doesnt work , because the protection does but as far as it being any safety or operation issue other than it Acting like it doesnt work right. All completly overcomable.

 

[dickybeau]

i would have already charged the pack with it, then order up a 4p protection wire off of e-bay, and rip the pack open and wire it in. while i was there i would toss in a deans connect too, or just do the cross wiring of the protection with the inputs, which they also sell the adapter for. The cross wiring allows you to charge with ONLY the balance plug (which has all the connections needed) as long as you just use normal charge rates , and not the excessive ones like 10AMPS which that charger wont even do.

the manuel is right, dont tell them the charger doesnt work , because the protection does but as far as it being any safety or operation issue other than it Acting like it doesnt work right. All completly overcomable.

Thanks for your response. Already concerned about the pack because I want waterproofing - it rains a heck of a lot in my neck of the woods- so I'm not allergic to ripping it apart BUT... I don't understand what I would need to do to follow your guidance.
How do I attach wires? can't solder presumably? Where do I attach a wire? What are 'Deans' connectors? Cross -wiring?.

To give you a picture...:green::green::green::green::green::green:. I could fill the page I am sooo much a newby. I have managed to assemble the light and fire it up so i can solder after a fashion and I can follow basic instructions.

The rest of your ideas will need some simplification before I can digest.

If I charge it using the charger i have, I can set it at 1A? and Auto?

 

[VidPro]

If I charge it using the charger i have, I can set it at 1A? and Auto?

sure , good start , set it at 1amp and set the battery ammount , which i assume is 4S, i dont use auto on anything ever and i have seen auto be wrong during a discharge, nothing to worry about, it just had to be told what to do.
even if you set the ammount wrong it will check as part of the procedure to see if the voltages it starts charging at are appropriate.


there are many other things in the charger you will want to get familliar with. like max charge Ma quantity, max time ammount, time to check ammount, and max charge voltage VIA the li-ion type. all stuff that will work on default, but you will want to know is there, and how it works.

Examples:
on li-ion the max charge on those style of chargers is 4.1 which is fine, and safe(er) and better for the battery.
In your sitaution with Protection, leaving it on li-ion would be much smarter

on li-poly the max charge is 4.2 which will work on a li-ion , and more fully charge the battery
(but of course is not as designed)

when the Max Ma of charge is set to low, it will shut off pre-maturely , and confuse the user as to why it did not finish the charge, set appropriatly.
when the max time is reached same thing.

the charger also has Max charge and discharge WATTAGES, not to be confused with the Amp numbers you can set higher and lower than that. so if you see it NOT working at the amperage you set it at, then do the watts, and understand that it slowed down because of the max watts it is capable of working at.
Volts x Amps = Watts

for example , if you try and discharge a 4S at 1 amp, it will automatically go to only .4amps for discharge, because that is its max wattage for discharge

it will also appropriatly slow down neer the end of charge, and the numbers you see for the charge rate will display accordingly.


Protection and this type of charger:
the higher the RATE of charge you select, the higher the current will be. The higher the voltage will HAVE TO be to charge the battery. At some point the voltage the protection sees during charging will be higher then the protection levels , and the protection will disconnect the battery. lower rates of charge will use lower current, and the voltage during charge that the protection sees will be lower.

OOPS 4S not 4P duhh.

 

[VidPro]

the balance:

on these chargers you have 2 sets of connections, the MAIN big power connector, for the crasy RC charge rates. they use BIG wires and strong connections for these Mains. See also DEANS plug things on these Big wires (i think those are deans)
and
the array of Balance connections for various quantities of series connected batteries.

even though this particular charger can not do massively high amp charging , they use the same plugs and connections for it as the others.
this becomes important to
"Why you cant charge with JUST the balance connection" now.

the big mains plugs, can have 10-20-50 amps pumped through them, to do crasy fast hard charging, which I dont do ever.
the balance connection is just used at small amps to balance out the voltages of the batteries at low rates.
SO
they concider the 2 connections different , for thier different intents and uses Even if for most of OUR purposes, they just reconnect to the same dang place on the battery. But they dont connect the same at the charger.

now for the pictures

Big BLACK - [======}[======}[======}[======} + Big RED
Simple right
this is the main connections, to the packs, and that is how they will connect stuff with no balance :-(

[======}[======}[======}[======}
| . . . . . .| . . . . . .| . . . . . .| . . . . . .|
Balance plug connections.
the "extra" connection made to get a balance charge.

the balance plug connection, connects up the smaller black and red wires to the battery, plus tapps to the cells in-between
for a 2S pack one extra wire giving you 3
for a 4S pack 5 wire connection. the red and black at the ends, and the 3 center tap wires


[======}[======}[======}[======}
|BLK. . . .| . . . . . .| . . . . . .| . . . . . .|RED

what the balance wire does NOT do, is connect at the CHARGER to the Big RED + and the Big BLACK - mains
And now you understand the reverse explaination of this post.

to cross wire , you just wire the big RED to the small red, and the big BLACK to the small black, and then dont use high AMPS when using that connection.
the charger does not tie the BIG AMPS connection with the small amps connection, because they are used for different things, WE can tie them together because were not going to use excessive Amps, and the balance connection itself is good for 10amps max.

Then you can use the balance connector as the only connector on the pack to do a regular charge and balance.

otherwise, you have to connect BOTH the mains connection, and the balance conections to the batttery (and then the charger) to get it to charge and balance
Big BLACK - [======}[======}[======}[======} + Big RED Mains
. . . . . . . . | . . . . . .| . . . . . .| . . . . . .| . . . . . .| Balance

 

[VidPro]

Ok so if you somehow made it through that last post, which i am now done editing.

you choose to put both the mains connection on your pack AND the balance connection too.
1 X 2wire mains connection to the ends, and 1 X 5wire connection to all the cells.
OR
choose to simply crosswire the connections at the charger, and install just a Balance connection on the battery to do both.

one way to get the MAINS connection, is to choose one of the wires they supply, like say the Glow Plug wire , and hack off the end connect, and solder the wires to the battery, you now have a matching connector , and it costs you nothing. it is already color coded. If your connecting to wires hanging out of the pack already, you just need some heat shrink wrap for the wires.

to connect up the Balance connector is going to be easier than you would think, because on a (properly) protected pack , all those connections already go to the protection curcuit

You just rip the insulation off, stare at the thing for a few hours, fire up your soldering gun with balance connection in hand, and solder the wires in the same consecutive order they are on the connector. with the black on the - and the red on the +.
couldnt be easier.

take this picture from batteryspace of a simple Protection PCB http://www.batteryspace.com/images/view.aspx?productId=2497 nice little pads on there to easily connect your balance connection to.

the tag codes used on protection to figure out the output connection from the battery connections is P+ P- or L+ L- for the output connection.
the connections from the battery to the protection are often called B+ B- B1 B2 B3 or something. for the balance connection, your connecting to these battery points just like the protection does. It (of course) doesnt hurt to look at where each of these wires is going to, or even use a voltmeter to check everything, it is almost always very simple.

 

[VidPro]

The massive parts list, that will break the bank

http://cgi.ebay.com/4s-14-8v-26AWG-...Control_Parts_Accessories&hash=item3cac547cd4
4S balance charge connections easily found on e-bay free shipping even.
Search term for finding these on e-bay "4s balance charger" "4s balance charge"

Deans connections
http://shop.ebay.com/i.html?_nkw=de...charger&_osacat=0&_trksid=p3286.c0.m270.l1311
Cheaper by the dozen

Heat shrink, both wire heat shrink and FULL PACK heat shrink to make it just like new again http://www.batteryspace.com/diypvcshrinksglue.aspx

And when all else fails
http://www.officedepot.com/a/produc...-EC81-DE11-B7F3-0019B9C043EB&mr:referralID=NA
Gaffers tape, vrses duct tape, gaffers much much better.

Now i know your saying, well gee it charges fine without balance, why dont i get lazy and forget the balance.
well you could, you at least have protection, but if you want to have full longevity and full capacity and full charge, and long life, you will use balance.