fq06

Any possibility of a firmware update allowing me to balance charge a 2 cell pack over 10a?

I run a 7200mah stick pack in my short course truck that can safely be charged at 2C, manufacturer says even up to 3C is ok... but advertises 2c. Would like my charger to keep up with lipo chemistry.

15a capability maybe???

Turner

Unless I'm missing it you don't say what charger you are using.

JetPlaneFlyer

Guess that would entirely depend if you have a charger capable of 10A or not

If you have a charger that's not capable of 10A then firmware wont make any difference. The amp limit is dictated by hardware.

fq06

My bad.. PL6

Programming will not let you past 10a on 2s.

Charger can get to 40A with a higher cell count.

JetPlaneFlyer

The PL6 (Cellpro Powerlap 6) will charge at up to 40A if you want it to (and assuming you have a decent power supply). 15A wont even get it warmed up, just set it to 15A and charge.

Not sure what the issue is?

fq06

Firmware is limiting me. Added to post above

fq06

I used to use a Hobbyking mega 400 and it changed at 20A all day without a problem. Just not a great charger.

I would like to use the power I paid for

JetPlaneFlyer

It's hard to understand how a 40 Amp charger could be limited to less than 10 Amps by firmware.. Surely everyone would have complained and sent them back if they couldn't even do one quarter of their advertised output?

There are many people here who use and highly recommend the PL6 and I just cant see how that could be if they were fundamentally flawed in this way. For sure my ichargers would all do their full rated amp output without any issues at all, but I've no first hand power lab experience.

maybe a PL6 owner could chime in?.. you might get better input if you put PL6 in the title.

fq06

Been a while since I bought it but when i first got it I had to get on the phone because I couldn't charge a saddle pack at more than 2A. Turned out they limited unbalanced charging to 2A because it wasn't safe.
Spoke with Howard and he told me how to solder up a balance charge lead to their balance harness plug thing (which I wanted to balance charge anyway).
http://www.wattflyer.com/forums/show...0&postcount=19
Now that it reads balanced charge it will go all the way up (sarcasm) to the max 10A charge allowed for 2s

Don't really need more than 10A for the saddle pack, that's a 5200... that's fine at 10A. But I have other stick packs that can take much more than 10A. I think Howard said that they limit that for safety

Hopefully they feel its ok to let us have more than 10A without setting ourselves on fire

kyleservicetech

Questions:
Are you running on a lead acid battery or a power supply?
Are you doing the balance charging?
Do you have the computer USB dongle?

Looks like you might need to pick one up.
First, connect the Cellpro charger to your PC with the USB dongle. I've found that first connect the dongle to the USB port and Cell pro unit, power up the Cellpro unit. THEN, load up the Cellpro software in your computer.

Then, go to the "Library Presets" (Note, it looks like you don't have access to these "Library Presets" without the "Dongle")
Locate the "LiPo Generic High Power" preset in the Library
Using the "Edit" command, copy this preset.
Again, using the "Edit" command, paste that library preset to preset #1, or the preset number of your choice.

At least on my two Cellpro Powerlab 8's, this gives you full access to higher charge currents, up to and exceeding 30 Amps.

FYI, its up to you to make danged certain that you don't accidentally place a charge rate far exceeding the battery Capability.

One thing nice on these Cellpro chargers, you can use the left screen, and type in the name of the battery, and the charge settings. That will show up on the chargers LCD display as you scroll through the various presets.

And, when you've got what you want, go back to the right screen, scroll down to the bottom, and using the "Lock Presets" lock in your setting. Then be sure to do the "Update" command to send the PC settings to your Cellpro charger.

This still allows you to temporarily change the charge rate by the manual keys, but soon as you power down the charger, and power it back up, it returns to your original settings.

Give it a shot, hope it works out. (I don't have a two cell LiPo battery that allows charging at over two amps, so can't actually check it out on my Cellpro Powerlab 8 chargers.)

fq06

I use a 30A 540W PS, same one that pushed my mega 400 to a 20A charge.
Yep, balance.
Yep, dongle and have set up multiple lipo profiles.

No way to get more than 10A under 3s. If anyone that has a PowerLab can tell me where to get it, I would be ecstatic... but I have played with it on the laptop and there's just no way that I can see to get it over 10A on 2s.
Goes from fractions of a amp to 10 amp in 0.1 increments. Then to auto 1C charge then to auto 2C charge... that will not exceed 10a while charging a 7200 pack.

Gotta be the programing. If I put a plane 4s pack in it opens up the amp capabilities and does not restrict me.

Turner

What is the output voltage of your power supply?

Using the online calculator I plugged in 12 volts and according to the calculator the PL6 can put out 36.4 Amps charging two cell LiPo.

Calculator

Turner

I found this on HeliFreak:

http://www.helifreak.com/showthread.php?t=430045

fq06

On the notebook now and trying with it on high power.

I have gone through and set up custom presets... very adjustable, I love this charger and I will love it more if I can unlock the amperage.

kyleservicetech

Yup, you need to use the Dongle to edit/copy the "High Power" preset in the Preset Library, and use the edit/copy to copy that preset to the user presets.

As mentioned above, its up to you to be danged careful not to apply as an example, a 15 Amp charging rate to a 1000 Mah LiPo

fq06

Bingo!!! That was it!!! Coppied to preset 1 and set the perimeters, hooked up a pack and it went right past 10

Thanx for pointing out the painfully obvious that would have bit me if it could

Exactly what I needed thanx!

Another question...
On the balance tab you can choose balance speed, 1x or 16x... more is always better right?
Just wanted to see if you know what that does before I messed with the setting.

fq06

Hmmm... found help button on that setting...

Balance reacts quicker to voltage changes. Required for A123. Dead band should be increased to 10mv as accuracy is reduced.

It seems like it will not balance quicker... it reacts quicker and does not give as accurate of a balance charge.
Pass.

kyleservicetech

OK
Now that you've got the high charge thing working, take a battery pack and try it out, WHILE you've got your computer hooked up to the Cellpro charger.

The Cellpro charger will show the charging in process, including the individual voltages of each cell on the computer screen. I've got one old two cell A123 pack with one bad cell that always starts out with a lower voltage. You can actually watch the Cellpro charger start out, go for a few minutes, bring both cells to the same exact voltage, then finish the charging job with the two cell voltages tracking each other. Very nice.

kyleservicetech

Disagree: That was NOT painfully obvious, at least not to me last year when I was setting up my Powerlab 8's to charge at 30 Amps.

fq06

Yep, I charged a pack as soon as I updated to make sure I got it right. That worked.

I agree, charges better than my cheap HK charger as would be expected.

fq06

Thanx turner and all.

Turner

Is this something that can only be done via connection to a computer. In other words if a PL used cannot connect to a computer are the high power presets unavailable?

fq06

Yeah, you have to copy it from the library and paste it to one of your profiles. Library is not available when you are running it without the laptop. But once its programmed you just choose one of the many profiles that you have programmed. One for each of your packs at desired charge rate named after the pack if you want and a storage profile and a super balance profile and a short charge 4.0v if you want... there's a ton of them in the library.

Only reason you would need to run it with the laptop (once programmed) is if you want to save the charge graphs and keep a history on packs.

JetPlaneFlyer

Good that you managed to unlock the hidden charge rates, I thought some of the CellPro users might have the answer.

Seams that the makers are being rather over protective in making it so difficult to access the chargers advertised capabilities.

kyleservicetech

Agreed:

On the other hand, companies like Cellpro may of had some experience with a customer or two that did try to charge their 1000 Mah LiPo battery at 30 Amps.

And with todays legal system, those same customers would go after the supplier to cover their stupidity.