Eight years on and this video is still useful, I managed to find part number for a blown chip thanks to Dave... BTW, open source firmware is available for this charger as mentioned in posts below...
@EEVblog I just wanted to let you know that this old video of yours is very exciting to me and still relevant today. The modern chargers are probably still the same.
i dont mean to be off topic but does anyone know a method to log back into an instagram account?? I was stupid lost my account password. I appreciate any tips you can give me
@Quentin Jairo I really appreciate your reply. I got to the site through google and im trying it out atm. Takes a while so I will reply here later with my results.
got one of these as well, love it! But it did come with a broken 2S balance plug. After getting in there and resoldering one of the wires myself it has never let me down!
Hi Dave, the DA2:2 (LM2904) at the battery input needs no feedback, it's only used as comparator. When the battery is connected in reverse polarity, the mosfet VT8 stays switched off and the discharge mosfet (constant current load) is protected. The signal I_ERR acts only like an emergency shutdown. In normal operation the voltage level of I_ERR is quite low and can't switch on VT3. Greetings from one of your german viewers.
60 bucks gets you a 20a charge, 20a discharge. Turnigy reaktor 300w. The 20a discharge actually dumps the connected battery back into the power supply.
Got that FDS mosfet damaged due to reverse battery connection, couldn't see the number of the part, remembered Dave has a teardown for this one, revisited video and here I have it FDS6680. Thank you Dave..
I managed to get a great deal on a used JBC station a couple of years back. One of the best hobby purchases I've ever made. It feels a bit silly to say but soldering is just so much more fun with it. You can change the tip and be back to soldering in literally 10 seconds. The pen is thin, light and you get your fingers close to the solder joint (good for those of use with shaky hands). If you get the chance pick one up, it's well worth it.
Mistakes from people who have years of experience just show us newbies in electronics that they happen and not to get discouraged. Although a video on how to recover from common mistakes like this would be cool.
Old video but perfect viewing time for me, about to buy something very similar to this. Love your tear downs, especially the way you explain the circuit diagrams. Thank you Dave, your the ducks nuts down under!
It is good to see that it is not only me who accidentally destroys pcb pads whilst desoldering! Recently, I 've some succes using an clothes iron as pre-heater. Yes, cutting the pins is a good idea too, but that's not always an option.
This is especially useful insight. I'm in the market for a lipo balance charger for my own DIY recycled lipo ebike packs. Seeing a teardown and hearing your own praise and critique is especially reassuring.
Thanks much again Dave. I remembered this teardown after frazzing the 'source' resistor on my B6. This happened because I discharged a battery to 'storage' state and the charger was super hot. I ASSumed that using a big al. heatsink would help, but didn't know that the TO-220's needed the original electrically isolated thermal transfer tape. A warning for modders at least. On hindsight a fan may have been a better option.
Hi Dave, what you identified as the regulation loop and really like, is actually something completely different. The FET and the OPamp on the Battery output are the reverse-battery-protection. Similar to the circuit on the input, only that this one uses the opamp. The I_ERR signal isn't the current feedback. It is only an overcurrent-shutdown. VT4 kills the PWM when the current get's to high. All Regulation is done by the microcontroller adjusting it's pwm according to the adc inputs.
I have this same charger but in the 80w version. It has an XT-60 input connector instead of a coaxial DC connector. Even though it is supposed to be capable of a 2 amp discharge I was never able to get it to discharge above 1 amp.
The only soldering stations which will heat up faster are made by Weller. The feature which really sets these apart, though, is that the tip and heating element are one unit, with a fully integrated glass bead thermocouple which provides ACTUAL tip temperature.
I did the same thing removing the LCD from one of the Hobbyking power meter/analyser units. It didn't have a backlight so I was going to swap in another LCD. Finally got it done only to realise the case wouldn't fit back together... Standard iron tip too so I made a bigger mess than you did :D Nothing some 30awg wire directly to the microcontroller pins can't fix!
Woah never knew this video existed, from all those years back! I have the newer version of this charger and was just googling information for it and this came up, very interesting to see.
It does. This charger will only charge at 50 watts max, so the firmware will automatically drop the current if the power output is too high. For example, when charging a 6-cell LiPo pack with a maximum pack voltage of 25.2 volts and a minimum pack voltage of 18 volts (3.0v is the min. safe discharge voltage per cell), the charge current will be limited to between ~2.7a - 2.0a, depending on the state of charge of the pack, regardless if you set the charge current higher.
We use those JBC stations at work. They are superb!!!! You got your self perfect soldering tool. After spending few years with this JBC tool I do not want to think about Weller or Ersa any more. Unfortunately I cant afford this JBC and at home I use Weller :(
I picked up a Turnigy Accucel 8150 a while back. Very nice, has a lot more power for only a few more bucks. The only thing I hate about these is that they don't have the 110V input option like some others, but for the price will just have to put up with the extra hassle.
I've just brought one of these Accucell 6 Chargers since I'm getting quite a collection of different batteries (Li-Ion, Pb, Li-Po etc) and had nothing to charge them all with. For £20 it's worth the money. It's got quite a few features and it does what it says on the tin. However one thing I wont be buying again are batteries from off the Internet or more specifically, eBay (China Bay). I purchased TWO sealed lead acid batteries from eBay this year. One was a 12V 7aH and the other a 6V 10A and both are crap. The 12V SLA Battery would charge to 13.8V and then crash down to 10.5V as soon as it came off the charger and the 6V SLA battery charges from 6.5V to 7.2V in 23 seconds according to my charger and as soon as the battery comes off the charger, it's back down to 6.5V again. Absolute crap. And the same goes for 18650 batteries... I brought 2 of these 18650 Batteries from China Bay and guess what - they were fakes. I'll stick to getting my batteries from a trusted local Burglar Alarm Suppliers.
Them other footprints near the DC jack are actually for a 12v input. I have a similar charger with the same design and it has an optional 12v supply with alligator clips for 12v lead acid batteries.
That's why I put USB in quotation marks and then said it's really a TTL-level serial signal. :P It's labelled as USB in the menu option. Further, I have a recent one (just bought it a couple months ago) and no modification was required. I know the mod you are talking about, but that's for the older version. The current one Hobbyking sells is already set up internally. You just need the TTL/USB converter and the free software (I can't remember what it's called off the top of my head).
That is the newer PCB, I have one with the old one. On the first discharge it toasted one of the SMD resistors. Also the 3 pin serial data port was not connected I had to add some parts to make it work.
Great teardown! I didn't understand it all, but eventually i'll understand more. I guess the end of charge detection is all in the firmware, even for the lion-cell charging? As others wrote, it would be appreciated if you show how to fix the PCB, even though I realise it might get ugly. I once did a similar thing to my commodore 64, while desolding a ram chip. My fix was worse than ugly!
It would be interesting to see a rough costing on Bom in this product. They must be making bugger all after costs. Thanks Dave for yet another interesting teardown.
This connector is also the "USB" (really a TTL-level serial signal) output for software monitoring. A simple $3 USB-TTL serial adapter from ebay is all it takes, and changing a menu setting from Temp. to USB.
yeah, i had a B6 too. i broke the first one i had after a week of use so i took it apart and fixed it. i enede up breaking it again later :P i was able to find both of the ones i got on ebay for $17 free shipping.
Had this charger for a while, its a goodun. Havent wanted to pull it apart cos its a damn useful jigger to have. The number of random batterys ive charged with it.... thanks dave for givin me a bo peep
Yeah, pretty embarrassing. Normally wouldn't botch it like that. But I can blame the new iron I got a bit overzealous with! While I'm at it, I'll also blame the fact that I was recording at the same time, in a hurry, and probably crap quality PCB material for good measure :->
Also known as a polyswitch as I mentioned. Its is 2.2A trip, 1.1A hold current. You don't use these for temperature cutoff, they are overcurrent protection. It is in series with the balance resistor network.
I ordered the iMax B6 on Ebay, but i got a counterfeit unit then i ordered another one from a different vender. they told me itwas a real one. again a counterfeit one. i am on my 3rd one but this one is the B6 mini and hope its realnone.
Yea, this is old, but I'll still note that one of the best ways to get a real iMax is through HobbyKing. Their clone prices are the same as any eBay seller, but they actually sell both real and cloned units and make it clear which is which. Great place for to get hobby chargers. These Turnigy units are basically a high-quality clone of the B6, as Dave discovers from the schematic, so these are a fine choice as well.
those main battery connectors soldered to the board (but not thru-hole), are NOT doing their job. They break easily after some use and what's worse, they're done that way even for higher-priced chargers, which is a shame.
11 лет назад
Thank you for this! I actually was hacking the firmware of this a while back, but being an electronics-ignorant programmer I never did understand the circtuit at all. This explains a lot though, and it should help me make this into a LED driver. Maybe. You can already drive high-power LEDs with this via the NiMh charging mode but its current-range is not that useful and it flickers. If the entire regulation is microcontroller-regulated that should be fixable with lower gain, again, maybe.
I've been using this charger quite intense .... Now the mystery how the balanced charging work seems solved .. I had been thinking each cell has an isolated DC-DC boost converter as cell charger ... LOL ...
I'm guessing that the Tunigy might have a maximum charge power setting, so limits the charge current based on voltage. i.e. the current drops from the 6A maximum based on the voltage.
Hi Dave! Just the other day I ripped a load of hole plating out of a board by being over zealous and felt rather foolish. Kicking myself and telling myself 'real' engineer wouldn't do that and now I feel much better. It happens to real engineers too.
Really interesting teardown, I've actually been waiting for this one! Just a quick question - is the LCD used just a standard HD44780 based module? When you opened the thing up, I ran to my parts drawer and pulled one out, and they look exactly the same! This thing looks like it's built to a hobby grade, rather than for large scale manufacture - hell, they even use an AVR (never seen one of those in a commercial product like this before, but tons of 'em in hacker DIY projects)!
You should check out the Toshiba Thrive 10.1" some time. One of, if not THE, easiest tablets to service on the market. Even if it's a busted glass/display one off of eBay.
You Certainly did get a bit overzealous with that new iron Dave. Done it myself a few times 'Wick of the thick prick' is my mantra before I unsolder a long sil strip like that these days. Never mind mate just set your time circuits to 10 DEC 2012 and hit the magic 88mph :D
Thanks for the teardown, I understand about 50% of what you talk about, but it's interesting! I have a similar one of these and it no longer reads one of the cells in any of my LiPo batteries. What component would cause that loss of reading, as my charger is now effectively useless for 3s batteries?
iCharger 106B+ (as all the iChargers) is a completely diff design. Smokinging the input side is common if you're running a cheap ac switching supply voltage close to the input margin on the charger, as they typically peak over the rating, and the 106B+ is sensitive to that. Also plugging cheap ac ps into charger live, etc. Google "rc groups icharger" for the thread with the repair info.
I usually get to the magic 300 mark in a few 10's of minutes. Depends on the time of day I upload it! No idea how many people are signed up for the auto email notification though.
Nice charger nice video Maybe an idea to tear down a laptop battery..they are so much more than a pack of li ion cells. The battery managment chips are very interesting devices!
Unbalanced lithium cells result in one cell drawing current from adjacent cells creating heat and we all know what happens when lithium cells get too hot, other reason not to mix'n'match your CR123a cells in electronics and torches/flashlights. On'ya Dave!
i assume your speaking of unrechargable lithium cells. with rechargeable lithium cells unbalenced in parallel they will balance them selves however in series some will drop below 3 volts and get damaged while others are still fine
I love that you know the proper meaning of RC. It's REMOTE control guys! NOT RADIO Control! There are other ways of controlling these models, like infrared for example, which is not radio based, but it is remote.
How do you feel about the HobbyKing company in general? I've gotten mixed reviews from people I've spoken to - usually the good is based on price and the bad is based on their blatant copying of other companies' product and general lack of quality control and customer support, though apparently the QC has improved to some degree. I also found that battery manufacturer ThunderPower specifically says not to charge their batteries past 1C charge rate using Turnigy Chargers.
Nice! I have a similar Mystery charger which I also very much like (the software is really quite impressive). Mine also shipped unlocked, so I got to customize the boot screen. :) Unfortunately, it also shipped with factory _copied_ EEPROM values, including balance calibration. It seems many copies are like this. This lead to people "resistor modding" them to try to correct it, but in reality, there is a service menu which you can get if the EEPROM isn't yet set. Search "iMax B6 service menu".
Jesus it get's worse. How did this thing pass quality control inspection?? Cold joints all around and not enough solder. Very unacceptable for power electronics.
Actually, a lot of their through hole components look improperly soldered. I see PTH pads so the solder should have been flowed through. (and I see you just found it at this point anyway)
I have exactly this one and according to 3 different multimeters the voltage it shows on the display is exactly the same as the multimeters show. And yes you can calibrate it in 0.1V increments or if it was 0.01V (don't have it close to look) so it show right/charge right, so I would say it´s accurate.
Dave, try this unit /watch?v=7xyb1vjugb0 it's not as precise as Hakko, JBC, Weller etc., but it works. IMO it's much better than solder wick. When I got mine, I desoldered several PCI and SDRAM sockets. One 16-pin header would be super easy to desolder.
Excellent TDTue , If you do go ahead with a repair of the traces for the LCD please make a vid of it. I am very interested in seeing how you would do it. Thanks!
I don't think HobbyKing is even a manufacturer, just a distributor. So how could they rip off your (as yet unnamed) friend? If some other company ripped off your (probably non-existent) friend, then you should tell HobbyKing, so they could look into it. But Dave is right - if you're unwilling to name the friend or the product, then you're likely just lying.
just out of interest there's a 5amp version with blue screen and gold lettering works in a complete different way but its apparently the same model I have both and the later is not so good.
The HR30-110 @9:15 in the video is a Polymer PTC thermistor from ShenZhen HuiRui Electronics Material CO.,LTD ... A PTC thermistor like this is usually used to limit current indirectly through I-squared-R heating and its positive temperature coefficient of resistance... could it also be used for over temperature cutoff? Maybe it's just for current limiting. In case of short circuit?
Strange... design with no external eeprom , I believe there are many configration data to be stored. short write-cycle life using internal eeprom, anyway US$23 I'm not complaining.
This is much harder to do than it sounds. There are only two options to do this. For this example I'm talking about a 4 cell battery. You can either charge the batteries with intermittent current(square wave) at a 25% duty cycle with each cell out of phase by 90°, in other words, only one cell is charging at any given time. it just rapidly switches which cell is being charged. The other way is using ac power with 4 transformers charging the cells. Any other way will cause a short circuit on the cells due to the shared grounds of the charging circuits.
Accucell 6 error messages, we are the error for buying Hobbyking Garbage. I Purchased a Accucell 6 and getting error messages. Tried to contect Hobbyking and have been waiting for over a week, no answer!! I think it’s what do you want you knew it was Garbage when you purchased it and now you want us to fix it?? You Purchased it Thank you!! They don’t give shit!! I’m very disappointed!! You get what you pay for. Go ahead and Purchase their Garbage so they can laugh at you to!!
I have the exact same one. Had it on LiPo for the longest time. Just today, I fired it up to do some LiPos but the display now reads LiFe. ??? What happened? Despite the display no longer reading LiPO, is it safe to do those with the LiFe showing?
Hi Dave, would it be possible to turn this thing into a cheap lab power supply with adjustable current / voltage? After all, in a way that is what it is designed for. Would the circuit be good enough to implement some fast short circuit protection? Or just to have a reasonably stable power source? Cheers!
oh you should teardown of a FMA PowerLab6 also you should know amp rating is meaning less for a charger and what really matters is the wattage that silly little charger can only do 50watts where my FMA Power Lab 8 can do 1000+ watts important if your changing large 6cell lipos try changing a 5000mAh 6S pack on that thing lol
Eight years on and this video is still useful, I managed to find part number for a blown chip thanks to Dave...
BTW, open source firmware is available for this charger as mentioned in posts below...
@EEVblog
I just wanted to let you know that this old video of yours is very exciting to me and still relevant today. The modern chargers are probably still the same.
and again for me in 2020!
i dont mean to be off topic but does anyone know a method to log back into an instagram account??
I was stupid lost my account password. I appreciate any tips you can give me
@Rhys Emerson Instablaster =)
@Quentin Jairo I really appreciate your reply. I got to the site through google and im trying it out atm.
Takes a while so I will reply here later with my results.
@Quentin Jairo it did the trick and I actually got access to my account again. Im so happy!
Thanks so much, you saved my ass !
The holes at 11:27 are for the AC powered version which has a 12v power pack inside the case with wires connecting it
got one of these as well, love it! But it did come with a broken 2S balance plug. After getting in there and resoldering one of the wires myself it has never let me down!
great charger, ive had mine 5 years and its still going strong.
Hi Dave, the DA2:2 (LM2904) at the battery input needs no feedback, it's only used as comparator. When the battery is connected in reverse polarity, the mosfet VT8 stays switched off and the discharge mosfet (constant current load) is protected. The signal I_ERR acts only like an emergency shutdown. In normal operation the voltage level of I_ERR is quite low and can't switch on VT3. Greetings from one of your german viewers.
60 bucks gets you a 20a charge, 20a discharge. Turnigy reaktor 300w. The 20a discharge actually dumps the connected battery back into the power supply.
Got that FDS mosfet damaged due to reverse battery connection, couldn't see the number of the part, remembered Dave has a teardown for this one, revisited video and here I have it FDS6680. Thank you Dave..
I managed to get a great deal on a used JBC station a couple of years back. One of the best hobby purchases I've ever made. It feels a bit silly to say but soldering is just so much more fun with it. You can change the tip and be back to soldering in literally 10 seconds. The pen is thin, light and you get your fingers close to the solder joint (good for those of use with shaky hands). If you get the chance pick one up, it's well worth it.
Mistakes from people who have years of experience just show us newbies in electronics that they happen and not to get discouraged. Although a video on how to recover from common mistakes like this would be cool.
Old video but perfect viewing time for me, about to buy something very similar to this.
Love your tear downs, especially the way you explain the circuit diagrams. Thank you Dave, your the ducks nuts down under!
It is good to see that it is not only me who accidentally destroys pcb pads whilst desoldering! Recently, I 've some succes using an clothes iron as pre-heater. Yes, cutting the pins is a good idea too, but that's not always an option.
This is especially useful insight. I'm in the market for a lipo balance charger for my own DIY recycled lipo ebike packs. Seeing a teardown and hearing your own praise and critique is especially reassuring.
Thanks much again Dave. I remembered this teardown after frazzing the 'source' resistor on my B6. This happened because I discharged a battery to 'storage' state and the charger was super hot. I ASSumed that using a big al. heatsink would help, but didn't know that the TO-220's needed the original electrically isolated thermal transfer tape.
A warning for modders at least. On hindsight a fan may have been a better option.
Hi Dave, what you identified as the regulation loop and really like, is actually something completely different. The FET and the OPamp on the Battery output are the reverse-battery-protection. Similar to the circuit on the input, only that this one uses the opamp.
The I_ERR signal isn't the current feedback. It is only an overcurrent-shutdown. VT4 kills the PWM when the current get's to high. All Regulation is done by the microcontroller adjusting it's pwm according to the adc inputs.
Would really like to see more chargers being tested. With the ebike movement it's a growing need for good cheap and fast chargers like this.
I have this same charger but in the 80w version. It has an XT-60 input connector instead of a coaxial DC connector. Even though it is supposed to be capable of a 2 amp discharge I was never able to get it to discharge above 1 amp.
All charger who discharger troug inside resistors is limited by power also, so he can discharge 10W , so if you drain 1A max it's voltage max 10V .
The only soldering stations which will heat up faster are made by Weller. The feature which really sets these apart, though, is that the tip and heating element are one unit, with a fully integrated glass bead thermocouple which provides ACTUAL tip temperature.
I did the same thing removing the LCD from one of the Hobbyking power meter/analyser units. It didn't have a backlight so I was going to swap in another LCD. Finally got it done only to realise the case wouldn't fit back together... Standard iron tip too so I made a bigger mess than you did :D Nothing some 30awg wire directly to the microcontroller pins can't fix!
Woah never knew this video existed, from all those years back! I have the newer version of this charger and was just googling information for it and this came up, very interesting to see.
It does. This charger will only charge at 50 watts max, so the firmware will automatically drop the current if the power output is too high. For example, when charging a 6-cell LiPo pack with a maximum pack voltage of 25.2 volts and a minimum pack voltage of 18 volts (3.0v is the min. safe discharge voltage per cell), the charge current will be limited to between ~2.7a - 2.0a, depending on the state of charge of the pack, regardless if you set the charge current higher.
We use those JBC stations at work. They are superb!!!! You got your self perfect soldering tool. After spending few years with this JBC tool I do not want to think about Weller or Ersa any more. Unfortunately I cant afford this JBC and at home I use Weller :(
Their prices and awesome shopping cart that lists how much weight left for the same postage wins it over for me.
I picked up a Turnigy Accucel 8150 a while back. Very nice, has a lot more power for only a few more bucks. The only thing I hate about these is that they don't have the 110V input option like some others, but for the price will just have to put up with the extra hassle.
I've just brought one of these Accucell 6 Chargers since I'm getting quite a collection of different batteries (Li-Ion, Pb, Li-Po etc) and had nothing to charge them all with. For £20 it's worth the money. It's got quite a few features and it does what it says on the tin. However one thing I wont be buying again are batteries from off the Internet or more specifically, eBay (China Bay). I purchased TWO sealed lead acid batteries from eBay this year. One was a 12V 7aH and the other a 6V 10A and both are crap. The 12V SLA Battery would charge to 13.8V and then crash down to 10.5V as soon as it came off the charger and the 6V SLA battery charges from 6.5V to 7.2V in 23 seconds according to my charger and as soon as the battery comes off the charger, it's back down to 6.5V again. Absolute crap. And the same goes for 18650 batteries... I brought 2 of these 18650 Batteries from China Bay and guess what - they were fakes. I'll stick to getting my batteries from a trusted local Burglar Alarm Suppliers.
Them other footprints near the DC jack are actually for a 12v input. I have a similar charger with the same design and it has an optional 12v supply with alligator clips for 12v lead acid batteries.
I got lost on that schematic... It's clever, but it's confusing... After seeing how it looks inside i decided to get one! Thanks DAVE!
That's why I put USB in quotation marks and then said it's really a TTL-level serial signal. :P It's labelled as USB in the menu option. Further, I have a recent one (just bought it a couple months ago) and no modification was required. I know the mod you are talking about, but that's for the older version. The current one Hobbyking sells is already set up internally. You just need the TTL/USB converter and the free software (I can't remember what it's called off the top of my head).
You are just alway spot on. Thanks for sharing.
This one suppose to check internal resistance compare to others brand in the same price range.
That is the newer PCB, I have one with the old one.
On the first discharge it toasted one of the SMD resistors.
Also the 3 pin serial data port was not connected I had to add some parts to make it work.
Great teardown! I didn't understand it all, but eventually i'll understand more. I guess the end of charge detection is all in the firmware, even for the lion-cell charging? As others wrote, it would be appreciated if you show how to fix the PCB, even though I realise it might get ugly. I once did a similar thing to my commodore 64, while desolding a ram chip. My fix was worse than ugly!
*drool* oh man do I want that soldering iron! I'm amazed by the warm-up time on that thing.
It would be interesting to see a rough costing on Bom in this product. They must be making bugger all after costs. Thanks Dave for yet another interesting teardown.
This connector is also the "USB" (really a TTL-level serial signal) output for software monitoring. A simple $3 USB-TTL serial adapter from ebay is all it takes, and changing a menu setting from Temp. to USB.
Wow. I have IMAX B6 Charger/Ballancer and inside it very similar to your Turnigy Accucel 6 ))
yeah, i had a B6 too. i broke the first one i had after a week of use so i took it apart and fixed it. i enede up breaking it again later :P i was able to find both of the ones i got on ebay for $17 free shipping.
Had this charger for a while, its a goodun. Havent wanted to pull it apart cos its a damn useful jigger to have. The number of random batterys ive charged with it.... thanks dave for givin me a bo peep
Yeah, pretty embarrassing. Normally wouldn't botch it like that. But I can blame the new iron I got a bit overzealous with! While I'm at it, I'll also blame the fact that I was recording at the same time, in a hurry, and probably crap quality PCB material for good measure :->
Also known as a polyswitch as I mentioned. Its is 2.2A trip, 1.1A hold current. You don't use these for temperature cutoff, they are overcurrent protection. It is in series with the balance resistor network.
I ordered the iMax B6 on Ebay, but i got a counterfeit unit then i ordered another one from a different vender. they told me itwas a real one. again a counterfeit one. i am on my 3rd one but this one is the B6 mini and hope its realnone.
Yea, this is old, but I'll still note that one of the best ways to get a real iMax is through HobbyKing. Their clone prices are the same as any eBay seller, but they actually sell both real and cloned units and make it clear which is which. Great place for to get hobby chargers. These Turnigy units are basically a high-quality clone of the B6, as Dave discovers from the schematic, so these are a fine choice as well.
Hi Dave,
You should use a proper desoldering station for what you've tried to achieved...
It's funny how you have to disassemble it to remove the LCD protector :P
those main battery connectors soldered to the board (but not thru-hole), are NOT doing their job. They break easily after some use and what's worse, they're done that way even for higher-priced chargers, which is a shame.
Thank you for this! I actually was hacking the firmware of this a while back, but being an electronics-ignorant programmer I never did understand the circtuit at all. This explains a lot though, and it should help me make this into a LED driver. Maybe. You can already drive high-power LEDs with this via the NiMh charging mode but its current-range is not that useful and it flickers. If the entire regulation is microcontroller-regulated that should be fixable with lower gain, again, maybe.
I am an rc and electronic hobbyst as you can tell i am very glad with this video XD
So, I'd expect to see a followup video of Dave repairing the LCD connector in near future
i took one of these apart a while ago. a little dodgy but much better than i expected
I've been using this charger quite intense .... Now the mystery how the balanced charging work seems solved ..
I had been thinking each cell has an isolated DC-DC boost converter as cell charger ... LOL ...
I'm guessing that the Tunigy might have a maximum charge power setting, so limits the charge current based on voltage. i.e. the current drops from the 6A maximum based on the voltage.
Hi Dave! Just the other day I ripped a load of hole plating out of a board by being over zealous and felt rather foolish. Kicking myself and telling myself 'real' engineer wouldn't do that and now I feel much better. It happens to real engineers too.
That's an impressive iron with an awfully Weller-ish looking tip. Look forward to seeing the review.
Really interesting teardown, I've actually been waiting for this one! Just a quick question - is the LCD used just a standard HD44780 based module? When you opened the thing up, I ran to my parts drawer and pulled one out, and they look exactly the same!
This thing looks like it's built to a hobby grade, rather than for large scale manufacture - hell, they even use an AVR (never seen one of those in a commercial product like this before, but tons of 'em in hacker DIY projects)!
I literally just ripped one of these (But the ECO6-10) version apart 5 minutes ago to check it out, wish I had've checked RUclips first! :D
Dave, great teardown. Did you know this thing has a calibration mode? Google "turnigy accucel 6 calibration".
Just wondering, how would you repair those lcd pads?
You should check out the Toshiba Thrive 10.1" some time. One of, if not THE, easiest tablets to service on the market. Even if it's a busted glass/display one off of eBay.
You Certainly did get a bit overzealous with that new iron Dave.
Done it myself a few times
'Wick of the thick prick' is my mantra before I unsolder a long sil strip like that these days.
Never mind mate just set your time circuits to 10 DEC 2012 and hit the magic 88mph :D
Thanks for the teardown, I understand about 50% of what you talk about, but it's interesting! I have a similar one of these and it no longer reads one of the cells in any of my LiPo batteries. What component would cause that loss of reading, as my charger is now effectively useless for 3s batteries?
Great teardown Dave, can I ask that you do more RC electronics then I can feed both my habits at once, RC and Electronics vids :) keep 'em coming
iCharger 106B+ (as all the iChargers) is a completely diff design. Smokinging the input side is common if you're running a cheap ac switching supply voltage close to the input margin on the charger, as they typically peak over the rating, and the 106B+ is sensitive to that. Also plugging cheap ac ps into charger live, etc. Google "rc groups icharger" for the thread with the repair info.
I usually get to the magic 300 mark in a few 10's of minutes. Depends on the time of day I upload it! No idea how many people are signed up for the auto email notification though.
I do use a computer PSU for home-charging without problems, but when it smoked it was when connecting to at car battery.
Nice charger nice video
Maybe an idea to tear down a laptop battery..they are so much more than a pack of li ion cells.
The battery managment chips are very interesting devices!
Unbalanced lithium cells result in one cell drawing current from adjacent cells creating heat and we all know what happens when lithium cells get too hot, other reason not to mix'n'match your CR123a cells in electronics and torches/flashlights.
On'ya Dave!
i assume your speaking of unrechargable lithium cells. with rechargeable lithium cells unbalenced in parallel they will balance them selves however in series some will drop below 3 volts and get damaged while others are still fine
No I'm speaking of Li-Ion cells in series, I never use mismatched cells and always charge them independently...
I love that you know the proper meaning of RC.
It's REMOTE control guys! NOT RADIO Control!
There are other ways of controlling these models, like infrared for example, which is not radio based, but it is remote.
How do you feel about the HobbyKing company in general? I've gotten mixed reviews from people I've spoken to - usually the good is based on price and the bad is based on their blatant copying of other companies' product and general lack of quality control and customer support, though apparently the QC has improved to some degree. I also found that battery manufacturer ThunderPower specifically says not to charge their batteries past 1C charge rate using Turnigy Chargers.
Great Job Dave! I just love watching your videos. Keep up the good work mate!
Nice! I have a similar Mystery charger which I also very much like (the software is really quite impressive). Mine also shipped unlocked, so I got to customize the boot screen. :) Unfortunately, it also shipped with factory _copied_ EEPROM values, including balance calibration. It seems many copies are like this. This lead to people "resistor modding" them to try to correct it, but in reality, there is a service menu which you can get if the EEPROM isn't yet set. Search "iMax B6 service menu".
Finally a review of a product I have!
Thank you very much!
WOW absolutely horrendous soldering on those through-hole parts.
Jesus it get's worse. How did this thing pass quality control inspection?? Cold joints all around and not enough solder. Very unacceptable for power electronics.
mikeissweet Yeah, usually Dave calls rubbish anything that is not top quality... but recommends this instead!?
I think the polyswitch is laid down against the array of SMT resistors to act as an overtemperature cutoff.
Now you can do a video on how you repair the LCD pcb pads ! cool.
Actually, a lot of their through hole components look improperly soldered. I see PTH pads so the solder should have been flowed through. (and I see you just found it at this point anyway)
Too bad you didn't go into the most interesting part, actually how accurate this one is and the possibilities to calibrate it.
I have exactly this one and according to 3 different multimeters the voltage it shows on the display is exactly the same as the multimeters show. And yes you can calibrate it in 0.1V increments or if it was 0.01V (don't have it close to look) so it show right/charge right, so I would say it´s accurate.
HobbyKing would be buying it for maybe $12-$14 As always, the final retailer makes the most profit.
No vacuum desoldering tool? Why not get a Aoyue 474 or clone from eBay and do a review of it as well? Wouldn't mind seeing that.
Soldapult. I don;t care how many gimmicks they throw our way, the old fashioned manual de-soldering pump still does the best job.
Ha! I think that's the first time I've heard Dave say "it's the bomb". Love his witty slang.
Dave, try this unit /watch?v=7xyb1vjugb0 it's not as precise as Hakko, JBC, Weller etc., but it works. IMO it's much better than solder wick. When I got mine, I desoldered several PCI and SDRAM sockets. One 16-pin header would be super easy to desolder.
Its nice to know even the pros fuck up sometimes
Excellent TDTue , If you do go ahead with a repair of the traces for the LCD please make a vid of it. I am very interested in seeing how you would do it. Thanks!
I don't think HobbyKing is even a manufacturer, just a distributor. So how could they rip off your (as yet unnamed) friend? If some other company ripped off your (probably non-existent) friend, then you should tell HobbyKing, so they could look into it. But Dave is right - if you're unwilling to name the friend or the product, then you're likely just lying.
minor issue but those connectors are for 2-6 cell balancing not 1-5. cell batteries do not need to be balanced for obvious reasons.
just out of interest there's a 5amp version with blue screen and gold lettering works in a complete different way but its apparently the same model I have both and the later is not so good.
I clicked within about 15 seconds of getting the email. Nothing else to do at the time so why not watch straight away :)
In the Netherlands for sale as Voltcraft Multilader B5 sold bij Conrad.
The pro Ersa stations are very similar. Metcals are still superior though
i wanna see a teardown on the JBC soldering station, I'm guessing it's a souped up SMPS inside!!
The HR30-110 @9:15 in the video is a Polymer PTC thermistor from ShenZhen HuiRui Electronics Material CO.,LTD ... A PTC thermistor like this is usually used to limit current indirectly through I-squared-R heating and its positive temperature coefficient of resistance... could it also be used for over temperature cutoff? Maybe it's just for current limiting. In case of short circuit?
Strange... design with no external eeprom , I believe there are many configration data to be stored. short write-cycle life using internal eeprom, anyway US$23 I'm not complaining.
Would be nice to see how to fix fallen off traces after such an accident :)
It Still bothers me that balance charging isn't actually balance charging. Each port should just be an output instead of a load.
This is much harder to do than it sounds. There are only two options to do this. For this example I'm talking about a 4 cell battery. You can either charge the batteries with intermittent current(square wave) at a 25% duty cycle with each cell out of phase by 90°, in other words, only one cell is charging at any given time. it just rapidly switches which cell is being charged. The other way is using ac power with 4 transformers charging the cells. Any other way will cause a short circuit on the cells due to the shared grounds of the charging circuits.
Accucell 6 error messages, we are the error for buying Hobbyking Garbage. I Purchased a Accucell 6 and getting error messages. Tried to contect Hobbyking and have been waiting for over a week, no answer!! I think it’s what do you want you knew it was Garbage when you purchased it and now you want us to fix it?? You Purchased it Thank you!! They don’t give shit!! I’m very disappointed!! You get what you pay for. Go ahead and Purchase their Garbage so they can laugh at you to!!
I have the exact same one. Had it on LiPo for the longest time. Just today, I fired it up to do some LiPos but the display now reads LiFe. ??? What happened? Despite the display no longer reading LiPO, is it safe to do those with the LiFe showing?
The iMAX B6 is the OEM one ;)
Did you clean off the silicone TIM and reapply it dave?
That TO-220 on the right looks like it doesn't have one pin soldered in.
Hi Dave, would it be possible to turn this thing into a cheap lab power supply with adjustable current / voltage? After all, in a way that is what it is designed for. Would the circuit be good enough to implement some fast short circuit protection? Or just to have a reasonably stable power source? Cheers!
oh you should teardown of a FMA PowerLab6
also you should know amp rating is meaning less for a charger and what really matters is the wattage
that silly little charger can only do 50watts
where my FMA Power Lab 8 can do 1000+ watts
important if your changing large 6cell lipos
try changing a 5000mAh 6S pack on that thing lol
Thanks, Now i can fix my old B6 Charger.. you did explain what is wrong whit it .. and its a easy fix :)
The LEDon the LCD died for me sadly, great charger though!