Charger issues, advice please
 

I have one of the Quad Pro chargers, there are lots of rebranded versions availabe.

The problem I have is this. When charging, the voltage readout on the screen very quickly ( within a few minutes) goes up to max voltage, 8.4v for a 2 cell lipo. When checked with a volt meter the lipo is what you would expect a flat pack to be 7.5 volts ish.

When the charger starts to read 8.4v the charge amps begins to drop, the amps keep dropping till they get to .1 and eventually will finish charging. But this can typically take well over an hour to put 2000mah into a 5a lipo at 1C sometimes over 2 hours on balance charge.

The charger never over charges the lipo, when lipo is charged it is never over 8.35 volts.

Now I am only using a cheap 10amp power supply, but I get the same problem whether I charge 1 or 3 packs.

Any ideas? Anyone had similar problems?

That's how lipo charge works, constant volts, it should get to 8.4 then drop the amps. Re time I'm not sure, what watts is the charger?

So the charger should read 8.4 even though the battery is still flat?

Charger specs say 50w

http://www.elitemodelsonline.co.uk/P...s/9253-/LIPRO-

I would first try a different lipo, if no luck then i would send the charger in for repair, what you have described is not normal and possibly dangerous. You could always use this as an excuse to treat yourself to a new charger:thumbsup:

I have lots of lipos, old and new and all the same.

Charger has been the same since 3 weeks old and I've had it a year. I check the lipos very regularly after they are charged and they are never over 8.35v

Might get it off to mr Bailey for a once over if no-one has any ideas

I got the same as u but the etronix one nd now u say this im guna grt mine out nd check wa tha is doing,but I think im using a hefty power pack,coz thats the ailver case I varry around with the cd player built into it nd I can listen to music nd still charge with no notacble drop but then again iv never really checked lol.but as ov tomoz I will.i no wa I said is prob ovno help mate but I said it n e way lol

Could someone translate this post for me, I cant understand a word of it...

On a slightly more controversial note, can we have a rule on this forum that "textspeak" be banned? When dealing with items as dangerous as chargers, Lipo's and other things with the potential to go boom, someone typing messages like a 6 year old mentally challenged german child can only be a bad thing due to the very real potential for harm to occur, should someone misunderstand a message due to the inability/unwillingness of the perveyor of the advice/information to converse in a grammatically correct, clear and concise manner.

I'm not asking for everyone to have a thesaurus and/or dictionary at the side of them, but surely a level of grammatical correctness demonstrating the opposite of the illiterate drivel posted above isn't too much to ask?

He said he has a similar charger and will check how his works for you.

Ps. While I agree text language shouldn't be used I wouldn't recommend putting stuff as above. The stupid thing is if you can type at a half decent speed then text language is actually no quicker than using proper words. In fact it can be slower.

My sister does it all the time. God knows how she will ever hold down a job when it comes to sending work emails and letters.

I realise that what I've said could be taken offensively, and to be fair, in this case, I couldnt care less. My brain cannot process the drivel that the youth of today call textspeak, and in this case, involving potential damage to health, I feel its right that someone should point out that a lack of grammatical skill could lead to someone getting hurt.

I'm by no means the fastest of typists, I only average about 50 words a minute, but surely it must be massively slower to type that way?

Apologies for the thread hyjack by the way, I do hope your charger issues are solved as quickly as possible, and to your ultimate satisfaction.

Just had similar with a 1s 3.7v LiPo on a Core UDC-50

Charger said voltage high. Ran cell in car for 8 minutes. Recharged and volts went to 4.2v, amps drop, but charged to 2000mah. Another 8m run. Back on charge took in slighty more mah's :confused:

I'll check it later in the day as it's now rested for 36hrs

Checked the cell on another charger to prove volts and my charger and it came back at high volts.

I'm thinking this cell may have over volted due to not using a balance lead as I was charging to 1s 12th cells which would have differing capacities even though the cells are 6000mah. I did stop the charger at 8.4v when I noticed the amps start to drop.

It may be difficult to read, us olds :cry:, but it's a positive offer to help, we can all see the charge is taking at least twice long as putting 2000mAh into our lipo's at 5A, perhaps its the power supply holding it back.

:confused:you can not balance a 1s cell?:confused:

I can :thumbsup:

but that's another topic

back on topic please

If you're only charging 1 pack at a time then it's not the psu. The most I've seen from the many chargers I've tested is 3.5A draw when charging at 5A which drops as the battery voltage increases.

Get the charger off for repair, its clearly not working correctly. If you want to be certain just try connecting it to your car battery, that's not current limited. If you get the same result, it's the charger :cry:

I also saw the symptoms that chequered describes on a udc50 yesterday, at one stage it read 16.3v in the battery :o that's now on its way back to apex!

mines OK as it's fine on the other 1s & 2s batteries I have :thumbsup:

This is the kind of symptom you would get if there's a poor connection to the batteries, the charger sees a higher voltage than there really is across the pack. Check the connections are all good.

If the connections are all good, then yes it sounds faulty.

Chances are, with their being 4 charge circuits in one cheap unit, the voltage monitoring circuit won't be the best, and the component tolerances are on the conservative side and will inflate the voltage a little. Unless there is a way of going in to calibrate the voltage reading Craig I think your stuck with it.

Well I am sorry that I sound like a "6 year old mentally challanged german child" but I wrote that post at a silly time in the morning and as I am having a bad week it means I am bed bound due to ill health,so the only way I can go on oople is to go on my phone and the qwerty key board is not the best on my phone. So its not txt speak its plain and simple mistakes.

So as u say u dont care if I take offence from your post because im dealing with something dangerous,but when the reply translates into lameons terms it basically says "i have one to but a diffrent brand and will check mine when I charge my lipos next" that was all.so I havent given any advice at all.

I do belive you are out of order by saying what you have but you also raise a good point that yes I should have checked my spelling before I posted.but as I belive that you wont apolagise for the insult you threw at me ill just belive in my "6 year old mentally challanged german child" mind that you have.

Bcoz n my wrld I cn do n e ting I want:p

Thnx Jay, c u fday nd try urz :-P