New V-Balncer Broken Already?

[Winder]

I just purchased a V- Balncer and 2 FP 2170's. I balance Chared each battery one time through the balncer as per the included instructions. I then dischared each battery to aprox. 50% capacity(3.7 volts per cell) withouth the V balancer. When I go to charge either of the backs, through the balancer, it imediately beeps and displays any error message saying the out put voltage is to high and to set the proper number of cell etc. However, it charges the batteries fine wiith out the balncer in the loop. It seems to still balnce cells on its own too.

Anyone have any Idea what is wrong cause Im baffled.

[DebianDog]

Could have a cell way out of balance?


If the V Balancer is working right you should be able to connect it, no charger, and cycle though each cell (one click though each cell) and see the charge (25% 50% 75% 100% per light list).

Lights on the left percentage - Lights on the right Cell #

[Winder]

The problem/error message is there with both new packs, and it worked fine at first. It will cycle through the cells and show the percent, as well as balance the cells with out the charger connected.

[Winder]

OK when discharging through the V-Balncer at .1Amps it reads a voltage of 7.5 even thought its fully charged. and when trying to charge a cell it does not matter what I set the charge to it stops imeditaly reading an out put spike of 23 volts!

The reading through the balncer without a charge or discharge applied seems to be a few tenths of a volt lower too. The discrepancy seems to be about .4 volts.

Any recomendatios other than a return

[DebianDog]

.4 volts is a REAL imbalanced pack you need to drain/balance it ASAP!!! No charger with a balancer would charge a pack with it off that that.

Call Flightpower at 9:00 tomorrow morning 828-658-2400

[Winder]

Sorry if I wasnt clear but that was the reading that my charger, a DuraTrax Ice, was showing. This is however with a fully charged pack. The .4 is the diffrence when the charge is in the loop. if I pluged the pack, either one of them directly into the charger it would read 12.56 this is with no load. When the charger is in line it goes down a little aprox .4 volts. When a load is applied through the charger, with the balncer in the loop, the voltage reading goes way out by several volts in a .01A discharge(7.5volts is the charger outh put reading) and with a 1C charge applied through the balncer it spikes to 23 instantly and reads an error message.

Mind you if I charge or discharge with out the balncer all seems to be well. and If I connect just the balnce lead to the balncer, no charge or dicharge, the battery scale works properly and will ocasionly balnce a cell for one or two minutes.

Im just going to call them in the morning. I was hoping there was some kind of rest or calibration I could do to the balancer cause it works properly with acurate readings untill I try to charge or discharge through it then it skews the voltage reading that the charger sees.

I still find all this quite pecuilar because it worked flawlessly for the inital charge of each battery.

Thanks for your time, Im looking foward to the IRCHA 07 torrent.

[Finless]

2 things...

1) You are putting the balancer in LINK mode yes? e.g. your holding down the button until the top arrow lights turn on? If you do not put it in link mode then your charger will complain! I forget to do this myself from time to time.

2) Check that the fuse is not blown.

Bob

[Winder]

If its not in link mode the charger will not even atempt to begin a charge, or see the battery per se, and

I have pulled the fuse already to. It cant be the batteries because the sympthoms persist with diffrent

packs. It is the charger or the balncer and the charger function correctly by its self, so although I could

be wrong, I belive the balncer to be faulty.


Im going to have someone mail it back to Fligjt Power while Im at work tomorrow. I spoke with a person

named Dave this afternoon who said they generaly either work correctly right out of the box or don't, so I

seem to be in an odd scenerio. I seem to have exhausted all the troubble shooting options at my imediate

disposal.


I will let you know how it works out in the end.


Kevin



My new FP 2170 25C cells should be OK if I put a few flights on them without balncing right?