Playing with: Lithium LiPo LiFe Battery Checkers
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- Опубликовано: 17 окт 2024
- Built a small test rig to check out a few different LiPo voltage checkers.
1-8S Lipo/Li-ion/Fe Battery Voltage 2IN1 Tester Low Voltage Buzzer Alarm FO pic. nv9flKK57B www.ebay.com/it...
Be sure to always give your li-po batteries plenty of time to cool down between charging and discharging (and between discharging and charging), especially if charging or discharging at a high rate...
Bad things can happen to lipos if you surprise them too much, especially the ones with "fire" in the brand name :P
The Capacity Controller can also balance lifepo4 cells by draining the top voltage down to the lowest to keep them balanced. I believe you hold down Type
I just found your video today. Very detailed. Thank you.
I have purchased the same capacity controller It came without any cable and I am blind now. Please help me to get up and walk.
I want to use this for my 4X 3.2 v lifepo4 batteries. How do I get a cable and how do I connect my lifepo4 batteries and capacity controller
Thanks a lot for your time for coming to help me 😊
Hi Julian. Enjoyed your video on this battery checker. Did you end up using it with your bike battery? If so, it would be useful to see how you did that.
Thanks to you Julian a now have an addiction to buying cheap Chinese electronics. Thanks for all the great vids I've learned a lot from them!!
theworkenman You're welcome
Can you charge a lifepo4 battery with a regular life battery or do you need a special charger just for lifepo4 ?
I was waiting for you to change the mode to LiIon from LiPo
Can i ask a question about 50w LEDs? my driver outputs 50.1 volts at 1.7amps for driving a 50w LED. This does not make sense to me, would this be right?
also do you know how I could make this LED and driver dimmable so I could run the LEDs at 50% or 75% power?
Chiwanese LEDs are based theoretical wattage. My 48W flood lights use 27W of power during use. They derate the things to give them longer lifetimes, so I've heard. So, Peter, your LEDs are likely already running at half power.
Just a heads up, Julian, check what voltage your 4 way charger "thinks" 4.2 is mine thinks 4.3 is 4.2 and really over stresses my cells.
you lifepo4 cells are flat at 2v?..maybe 2.5v....your checker alarm voltage only goes down to 2.7..im doing a bike too..looking for alarm bothe top and bottom voltage.lifepo4
@pietkaify yes it's that guy who was using it for his DIY LED camera lighting isn't it?
I believe if you hold the first function key down until two beeps on the controller it does go into a balance mode
These videos are great! You have terrific style. Lots of stuff to learn here. Thank you!
is your capacity controller V2? I bought one supposedly when you hold down the left button it goes to balance... it cycles through the cells but not according to the Chinese instructions.... I cant find a vid of anyone balancing mode... mine seem to just unbalance more than anything else...
Mine balances just fine. Long press Type button and it cycles through each cell and lowers the high cells to meet the level of the lowest cell, used it many times and it works perfectly.
I have tested 18650 in a more crude way, using my torch and waiting till it goes dim, the only thing i have found out, if you pull enough current that your 18650 get warm, you also have less Ah capacity, so a torch will run longer overall if you run it in shorted periods rather than 1 longer run where it gets warm, i have noticed a 20 percent difference due to that
Very helpful, thanks. Could you please tell us what is the best charger to buy. Example : icharger, IMAX, etc. thanks.
I used one of those red LED checkers the one that you have tested with the button to set the low voltage threshold on a 4s3c A123 LiFePO4 cells so about 12V 3Ah that was connected to a cordless drill while I was working on building my house. The alarm future was useless in this case since it will have triggered under load even if set at 2.7V with battery fully charged. The load was quite large and noisy a brushed DC motor.
So I used just a jumper so that I could check the voltage levels from time to time.
Also the unit if I remember correctly uses current just from the first two cells and if left on for hours it will create imbalance on that small 3Ah pack.
***** The Headway cells have an initial internal resistance of less than 6mΩ. So for a current of 10A (bike has a 250W motor running at about 25V) there should only be a voltage drop of 60mV per cell. I'm hoping that the brushless motor won't cause too many problems. Dacian, I have a question: For maximum service life, what would you recommend I set the alarm voltage to?
Julian Ilett You will need to experiment with the bike that 250W may be just average max power but peak may be much higher than that and the alarm may react to that especially if you are accelerating or climbing a hill. Internal resistance will also increase at lower SOC.You many see 100 to 200mV drop measured by that alarm and in that case probably 2.8V will be a good setting for those cells since after the alarm when you stop using the bike the low cell voltage may be around 3V and that is no problem for LiFePO4. You will probably charging the cells back in a few hours after that so no problem with life.Also in normal operation I will not expect you to get to that low voltage alarm level since you will probably want to get home without using your own energy :)I expect 7 to 10 year out of those cells driving every day to maybe 30 or 40% DOD.
***** Cheers Dacian
what do you think I can use to charge a 4S 50ah battery pack with solar? Thanks
Awesome video! That buzzer was loud. i was worried that you would cut your self!
Keep up the awesome vids.
Hi Julian,
I recognize those three battery holders. They are so snug, that you end up damaging your batteries to pry them out of them. I now have a piece of tape around my cells, all the way around and half an inch on itself sticking out, so there is a handle to pull the cell out of the holder.
deslomeslager Yes, getting the cells out is difficult - the tape idea is excellent ツ
Julian Ilett Or just cut the sides half off.
Eratas1
Exactly did the same :) But in 3x18650 box version.
i have that 8C Lipo guard for my Quadcopter (a must in RC flying), and it works quite well :)
Wanted to tell you about the button to set the threshold all the time, but i managed to hold myself back until you discovered it yourself :)
I have always questioned the calibration of these checkers, and usually have a couple around to get a good reference.
Have you ever seen one that works on a single cell?
Perhaps I can modify one of my charger doctors...
Ninilium The LED checker with the 2 buzzers is working on a single cell, although the buzzers have gone very quiet
How about changing the tester to LiIon instead of LiPo????
Great video as always, Julian! I will like to see you thoughts on the accuracy of these meters... they can be pretty much hit and miss in my experience - not one single meter will agree, but one or two will if you go to one decimal place, but even that is rare. They are still sufficiently good enough to tell you if the battery is flat, charged, or is going flat. They just vary quite a bit... don't think they bother calibrating them during manufacture :(
btw, that stray bar on the 'capacity controller' is the first segment of a bar graph that runs along the bottom of the display - shows capacity based on the percentage.
Peter Feerick Yes, I'm very suspicious of cheap things having 3 decimal places of accuracy! One day I'll buy an expensive multimeter so I can check the accuracy, but for the time being I'll just remain suspicious. I worked out what the stray block was eventually - cheers. I didn't realise at first that the LiPo LiFe Li-Ion selection had to be made manually. Quite interested in what the current draw is on the LCD checker and whether it could be left connected permanently.
I won't expect the current draw to be great, but it is probably on either one or two cells only... so it would make things go out of balance after a while. Although if your load is a car bulb, I suspect it won't really matter in the grand scheme of things :) I bought a cheap ($50-60) extech 330, which claims 0.5% accuracy, so used it as a reference for all the other meters... so at least I know how much they were out for later reference! I bought it particularly as it doesn't need switching of sockets when changing to mA mode - only for the 10A mode, plus the batteries are AAA - so more likely to have at hand (or eneloops!), and both the batteries are located in a battery compartment on the back - don't have to disassemble the whole meter to get at the fuse if it goes!
I have the 8S checker with the buzzer, there is a small button on the board next to the horns that allows you to change the voltage per cell at which the alarm goes off.
Edit: Looks like you found it ;)
Richard Lloyd has a video on 18650B 3.6V Rechargeable Lithium batteries from Olight. I'd like to convert the LED plant lamp in the bedroom which only turns on via timer mode to rechargeable. Right now it's using 3 C size batteries and they cost to much when they go dead every couple of weeks.
what kind of capacity do the ultra fire really have? I figure their claimed capacity is missing a decimal point. 9999mah claimed. but more like .9999 mah! if I could get some 1-1.2 ah cells that would last a few thousand cycles. I'd settle for under a dollar cells. with low capacity. the 3+ah Panasonic and similar are not cheap. and I need a 29.4v 2000ah not mah . bank. on the cheap. for my off grid home. but I will have to work my way up to that! I have a 200ah lead acid bank now. I want to eventually add to it. and use it for backup for the lithium. since lithium can be cycled more. I'm going to try for using onlyv30-40% of the lead capacity. and 60% of the liion. what are your thoughts on lifepo4 cells? the voltage doesn't really align with 7s liion. I guess a 9s LiFePo4 only charged to 29.4 would be OK. but capacity is lost. with 21-22v cut off. that's not a lot of capacity. but 8s cut off at 21-22v is a bit above 2v per cell for LIFePo4, so its about 4volts either way on the whole pack. so I guess LiFePo4 isn't the best for 24v systems. if the volt range of the inverter was a bit different. like 18-34v would be awesome! I'm stuck with 21-30v . so I guess its liion. sorry for rambling I have been plagued be battery decisions for days. its a lot of money. and I have to buy the best deal. and get the right thing. and it has to work. living off grid can be a Hassel! I guess that's the price of freedom! I need a good cheap way of checking capacity . so I can build reliable packs. checking the capacity of 100's or thousands of cells can be a job! thanks for all the great videos .
Hope you're wearing suitable eye protection when charging these batteries of dubious origin?
djkelectrical Of course ;)
Hey Julian,
Are you going to go bakc to your solar charger project this year? I have limited interest in battery checkers of all sorts...
Maybe a 4min speed review would be nice.
Cheers
Yves Baggi Yes, I'll be returning to both the MPPT and PWM Arduino controllers once it's warm enough to sit outside in the garden. Also, I'm planning to open-source the PWM5 code this summer.
Thanks, interesting, I'll be watching you... Anyway I can help?
Yves Baggi Yes - if you own a cloud dispersal machine ;)
Julian Ilett - the Soviet Union had some of those, they were rather expensive though...
hi, how did you connrcted those three cells? are all negatives together?
All are in series. See black of first is connected to red of second (on strip board)
Can the low battery alarm change on the unit?
Why Li-ion battery is recognized as Lipo at 9.08min?
Yes I have one but how do you check a nimh batteries
Could anyone tell me where to get a connector lead to test a NiMH battery as this is never covered.
There's a chap who has removed the buzzers and connected a relay into the PCB so that it shuts off the power at the low end! a simple way off saving your batteries!
pietkaify That's a neat idea. I think the low voltage alarm will be fine for the bike - I just need to make sure it can be heard.
pietkaify ban
in the last checker what is pin10 for?
Isn't a Li-Ion that's at 2.9V with no load damaged already?
superdau Probably. Quite handy for these tests as I wanted the cells to discharge quickly ツ
Buzzers on the board drove me mad so i rammed a load of blu-tack into it :-)
steve64464 The kind of practical solution I like
that capacity controller . is it one that balances the cells also?
as far as i know it doesn't. it just flicks between the cell voltages. i know cause i have seen voltage go to 4.3 and 4.4
I'm new to all this and wanted to clarify a point you made in the vid. You state you were caught out buying "fake" 18650s like everyone new to them, sooooo, how do you know you're getting the genuine article and not a fake?
Like your clips, straightforward and to the point. I even subscribed.
Cheers.
James Lamb i've read several places that any of the 18650's labeled with "fire" are likely to be bogus cells. Trustfire, ultrafire, etc. Supposedly they are recycled cells with new labels. So I might be wrong but I take it to mean that none of them are any good. Others may disagree. I've been trying the OEM laptop cells on eBay (Lenovo, Dell, HP) because they seem to have been decent at least when original. My last batch comes in around $0.40 per cell for 180 cells so even if only one in 4 are any good, that's way cheaper than anything I've seen as new. Testing that many cells to build a pack with predictable capacity remains a big challenge, at least for me.
Tim Byers
Thanks Tim, I ended up going for genuine Panasonic 3400mAh NCR18650Bs, incredibly expensive from a local (Oz) seller. I'm fairly confident they'll do the trick but I've yet to test them thoroughly. Cheers.
@6:26 ...instead of reversing black wire you can reverse the battery contacts .And further better by pass strip PCB and connect connector wire to the battery pack directly.
If you buy a Venom Lipo battery charger it does everything you showed with out having to building a light bulb discharger!
Where do you get the charger from at 12.20?
Aidan Brown It's the ThruNite MCC-4
Just what im looking for Thanks Julian.
I must have the new version V2. Mine has the balance resistors on the top under the display.
Do you have a follow up vid ?
Welcome to the RC hobby color coding!
The link I sent you gave me more detail on what this thing can actually do how to upgrade the film where and all that stuff and I wanted you to upgrade I wanted you to check and see if it was all true I like what you showed and if it's true this is a pretty good deal
"Ce" is the two first characters of "cell".
Ya it seem like all those are backwards i have some with all the colors and black is the most positive and then one where it has one red one and the rest are black and the one red one is negative
Watching this again because RUclips offered it up and I clicked but I always depin and arrange the pins correctly
Спасибо.
Get a pre-made battery protection and balancing board for the pack. Hopefully not the rc kind.
erlendse Hmm, the advice from several other people is not to use the BMS boards - particularly with LiFePo4 cells. They use (apparently) the wrong voltage detection chip which has the undervolt setpoint set too low for LiFePo4, particularly if you want a long service life. I'm quite liking the LED checker with the 2 buzzers and adjustable undervolt setting.
Julian Ilett you will just have to see what you can find.. I guess. Even it shouldn't be the bms that usually cut off the load.
i just noticed the other pads for the higher pins for the balance is under the lcd i think i would also have black as first negitive and the red as the highest voltage positive when you use the capacity controler when you scroll through the cell they was a mark moving at top of screen camre could not pic it up to well that might indicate what cell is been checked lol maybe i should watch the hole vid befor commenting haha
David Simpson More circuitry under the LCD - cheers, I didn't think to look there.
lol
Just had what we used to call a pregnant thought! Wonder if a fellow could take a couple of those little OLED displays, mount them like those video glasses you see on ebay for one to 8 hundred bucks, perhaps a lens or two and have your own video glasses? Shouldn't be that tough to come up with a way to feed video to one, then to two, perhaps I am dreaming but those full color oleds you found in the pulse deal would come to mind. Perhaps take the video signal off your iphone or some such deal the way the ones a fellow buys from China....
Just a thought, I have been drooling about those glasses since I first saw an add for them but have never bit the bullet and bought one for fear they would be just toys and nothing that would work for the long term. I usually watch recorded old Brit-com's on my Nook Tablet every night for a couple of hours, some glasses that simulate big screen would be ideal and the wife wouldn't have to put up with the light from my tablet any more.
Jerry Ericsson Nice thought. The OLEDs are pretty low resolution though (128x64 typically) so watching movies would be a bit grim.
Julian Ilett Thanks, just a thought, after mulling it over, I was sorry for even posting it here and getting off topic.
the cell number is up at the top of the screen
The checker is available with balance function. Hyperion EOS Sentry V2 Battery Checker/Balancer. see here www.brchobbies.co.uk/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=228&products_id=1138
Great video , Thanks
RedHotPheasant Aha - thanks for confirming that. Now I just have to find a cheap one direct from China.
I just bought some of these 8s testers and they all exhibit the same problem. Not sure if it's the testers that are faulty or if it's the way I'm using them, but here is a video demonstrating the problem:
vimeo.com/184303379
Incidentally, I discovered the fault with the monitoring of cell7 on several other bits of 7 cell kit, and set up the 8 cell arrangement for more rigorous testing and demonstration purposes. I also have one of the "controller" testers shown in Julian's video, and this does NOT show any fault when monitoring cell7.
Or nicd