Tp 1010 with 210v Balancer to charge evo 2150 3s packs?

[ghettotige]

Hi bought the TP1010 and 210v combo to charge my evo 2150 packs but I need confirmation I am setting things up correctly.
After flying a trex se for 9 mins I hook up the charger and balancer set the charger for fastcharge, 3s, at 1c but it takes about 140mins to put 1850 back into the pack. I was told by flight power that you can charge at 2.5c so I have tried setting the charger to 2c and it takes about an hour.
I was under the impression it should take 60mins for this combo to charge a 2150 at 1c therefore 2c should only take 30mins. Am I missing something?
It might be something simple like when the screen shows charge rate a 1c this is per cell so I should adjust it to read 3c to charge each cell at a 1c rating therefore to charge a 3cell pack at 2.5c I need to set the charge rate to 7.5c, of course I do not want to try this until someone confirms or corrects my thinking.
Do not want to end up with a mini mushroom cloud in the house!!
Thanks for your help wicked site.

[jrohland]

I do not mean to offend so please do not take offense.

Always set the cell count to the number of cells in the pack. 3 in this case.

I am assuming some--perhaps not you--have trouble with the C to amp conversion. Since the 1010 charger allows the setting of charge current (amps), the conversion has to be made.

It is simple to do so here goes:
2150 mah pack is 2.15 amps. To charge at 1C set the 1010 to 2.15. A fully discharged pack (the number of cells does not matter) should charge in about 1 hour.

Since EVO says you can charge at 2.5C, set your amps to 5.37(2.15x2.5=5.37). At that rate, a fully discharged pack should take about 24 minutes to charge.

If it is taking much longer, something is wrong. Look for resistance in the pack connections (are they getting hot?). Perhaps your source (input) power device is not able to provide enough current. If your power pack is only putting out 1 amp, you will not charge at a rate greater than 1 amp. Of course, you will probably burn out the power pack if you constantly over draw power from it.

Also, the 210 (and most other) balancer sinks current at about .5 amps. If you have 3 lights blinking on the balancer while charging, it is constantly pulling .5 amps from the pack.

I always use the full charge profile. But, that only controls the cutoff voltage. Mine max the voltage out at 12.60 (for a 3 cell). I consistently put about 1950 mah into my 2100 packs. That is an 11 minute flight on a 400 sized electric (HeliMax).

jrohland

[ghettotige]

So with your suggestion the 1010 screen will read like this,
for a 1C charge rate

LipoCharge [M:3]
3 Cell/s C=2.15

For a 2.5 Charge rate

LipoCharge [M:3]
3 Cell/s C=5.37


I had it set to

LipoCharge [M:3]
3 Cell/s C=1

To me you see, that looks like you are telling the charger to charge 3 cells at a rate of 1C which as we all know is the recomended saftey rate.
Why do they not make this more detailed? Thank god I have guys like you to turn too much appreciated.

[Teej]

Erp...if you've already read this, I'm editing it. My bad.

It said "C=1.0A" - "current = 1 Amp".


Note that the "M:3" refers to a charging memory. That 3 could be any number(0-9).

The system remembers what parameters you set up in a given memory so you can select it faster.

You might set M:0 to be 3 cell/s A=2.15 for a 1C charge, and M:1 to be 3 cell/s A=5.37....then when you scroll through the menus, those #s will be there when you hit M:0 or M:1 and you don't need to change it.

M:3 could be charging 10 cell/s A=5.0...there's no correlation between memory # and pack that you don't choose to make.

T

[jrohland]

This C business is causing some confusion for a few folks new to electrics.

The C rating on a LiPo cell (and by extension, a pack of LiPos) is Current-Over-Time. To make it even more fun, there are C ratings for power out of the cell and C ratings for power back into the cell.

The C setting on the 1010 charger is the maximum Current-in-Amps the charger will deliver to the pack. It will deliver that maximum amps to the cell until it is charged. *This is simplified because the charger will drop the current as the cell nears full charge.

As I said above, the battery C rating is current over a time period. That is, how many amps you can safely draw from the cell and, how long the cell can deliver those amps.

The cell has an MAH number. That is the total amount of power the cell can hold. It is expressed as Amp-Hours x 1000. That number is always referenced to 1 hour.

So how do you figure out what C actually means?

If you have a 2100 MAH cell:
The cell can deliver 1.05 amps for 2 hours (.5C).
The cell can deliver 2.1 amps for 1 hour (1C).
The cell can deliver 4.2 amps for 30 minutes (2C).
The cell can deliver 6.3 amps for 15 minutes (3C).
And so on.

But what does 15C mean?

That refers to the maximum number of amps you can safely draw from the cell, period! So, if the cell is 2100MAH by 15C, you can draw 2.1x15 amps from that cell or, 31.5 amps. But, the cell only has enough capacity to deliver that 31.5 amps for 4 minutes (60 minutes / 15C).

Finally, what does safely mean?

Generally, LiPos cells are safe until the voltage goes too high or too low. As you pull current out of the cell, the voltage drops. When the voltage hits a minimum safe point, the cell can spontaneously ignite. And the same is true of charging. As you put current into the cell, the voltage goes up.

However, we are talking about amps. Asking the cell to deliver more amps than it's C rating specifies causes the cell to heat up. When the heat gets above a certain number of degrees, the cell chemistry begins to degrade. This will cause the cells life to shorten.

If your packs are hot when you finish a flight, you may need to reduce the current draw of your motor (smaller pinion gear for example) and/or, use packs with a higher C rating. While it may not be dangerous to over-draw amps from the cell (as long as the voltage does not drop below the safe point), doing so will shorten the cell's life.

Have fun, be safe,
jrohland

[Teej]

No disagreements with anything you said, JR, just a further simplification:

"MAH" = "milliamp hours".

A capacity of 2100mah means the pack can deliver 2100 milliamps (2.1 amps) for a period of one hour. Thus, _on that pack_ 2.1 amps is "1C" no matter how many cells you have in series.

a pack that's 3s1p 2100 can deliver ~ 11.1 volts at 2.1 amps for 1 hour. Or, at 10C, 21 amps for 6 minutes.

What some haven't quite grasped on the charging side is that the amps pulled from your 12v source (car battery, computer PS), etc is not (usually) the same as the amps you're putting into the pack.

On a 3s pack it'll be pretty close. On a 6s pack you're drawing ~ twice the amps out of your source as you're putting into the pack. Figure "volts times amps" or VA out is hte same as VA in - on my 10s pack, 42v * 5 amp = 210 VA - in order to pull that from a 12v source, 210/12 = 17.5 amps.

[ghettotige]

Thanks for that guys,
clear as mud,....... just kidding!!
Makes alot of sense wish they had made this as clear with the battery or charger instructions. Iguess they feel every body already knows this stuff.
Its one of those things that once you know you know.
Somebody should let the dealers know. I spoke to a few about this and they did not have a clue?

[Kesh]

Hey Guys, this is good information for new comers on charging 101's....I'd suggest this to be a sticky.

I bought the TP1010 and TP210v and I'm also new to electric...but I'm reading a lot to understand all this stuff.

Still learning....any help in areas like this would be much appreciated!

Thanks guys! :noteworthy