WBFAir
05-22-2008, 10:48 AM
Hello all
Last night I went to charge my LightingPower Tx Lipo with my CellPro4 and experienced some strange problems.
Just to note, I have two CellPro4's both set up to run off of a 35Amp Pyle 12V Power Supply.
Also just to note the specs on the LightingPower packs are as follows:
· 2650 mAh
· 3S1P
· 11.1V
· 4C
The link to the manufactures page for the pack is here: http://www.lightningpower.com/LP_B0106_p/lp-b0106.htm
The sequence went like this, I went out to fly a few packs on my TRex last night and before I left I checked my TX and my battery level read 10.9V. It had been working fine but as per the manufactures recommendations that state "We recommend charging the battery when it drops to 10 volts" I decided to pull it and use the second of the two packs I have of these that was fully charged and charge it when I return.
I returned and first used my two CellPro4's to charge up my 4 FlightPower 2500's at 1C which all went fine, I then replaced the adapter with the one for the LightingPower pack left the charger set to Auto 1C (1C is what is recommended by them) and started charging the pack.
I noticed that when the charger finished analyzing the pack it read it had a 7% fuel remaining reading which I felt was low but again, my Tx read 10.9 and LightingPower stated to charge at 10V so I really didn't think much of it, nor did I decided to check what the CellPro read for voltage.
Well after about 15 minutes I keep hearing the charger beep so I went to check on it and I saw it really hadn't charged much but I figured, maybe as it was so low it was going to take a bit to get up to speed so I left it. Then after about another 10 minutes I herd it go into some kind of alarm and found it read it had a #13 Alarm which in the instructions reads that this is and overvoltage shutdown and to reset it, so I checked my power supply but it was fine so I turned everything off and started it all up again but after another 20 minutes of the same thing, the #13 happened again so I begin to really monitor what was going on.
Upon watching the pack start, the CellPro4 would go through a detect sequence where it starts charging it from .00 amps to .10 very slowly then after .10 it starts building it up more quickly but every time it would get to about .70 amps it would beep and shut off and start all over again from .00
So then I tried it on both chargers and use another adapter node I had but it kept happening, I finally let it run for a bit and then after eight times of this cycling it went into the alarm again and I saw that first it read a # 23 alarm which means it tried a detect eight times without finishing a single charge, then after about 10 seconds it switched to the # 13 so I guess that is what had been happening before I just never caught it.
Anyway by this time and after several attempts and tests of this it had now had about a 22% charge so I left it alone for the night and tried again this morning but the same thing kept happening.
So what I did was I finally took the charger out of the auto 1C mode and started charging it at .50 and it finally kept taking a charge.
I let it charge till it got to about 60% and then tried upping it progressively in the manual modes till I got up 2.00 amps and it kept taking it fine, then I swapped it over to the auto 1C mode and it went up to 2.7 amps and seem to be holding.
So I left it at that and thought everything was fine but then after about 10 minutes, at around 85%, it did that cycle off thing again, wouldn't get past .70 for a restart so I switched it back to .50 amps and it continued charging and it finishing up, including it going through the last step of a balance charge just fine.
After this I ran two of my FlightPower 2500 packs down in the back yard, put them both on the chargers at the same time on the auto 1C and they have gone through all the detect sequencing, charging at 1C and final balance charge just fine so I really don't believe this was an issue with the chargers.
Now just to note, the LightingPower pack never showed any signs of puffing, I probably would say that I have charged it about two times since I got it without a problem and every time I checked from the beginning to end with this issue I never saw any signs of any imbalance of more then .01 volts.
I would suspect I have a bad pack and that I should contact them about it, I don't know what kind of warranty these things may have as I can't find any info about that on their website so I don't know if I can get a new pack but as it is so new and as it seems to me that I haven't done anything wrong by their standards and recommendations.. and cost me $50.00 bucks for a TX battery, I really think I should.
I just wanted to check though with any others that would know more then me before I contacted them to see if I did anything wrong.
Thanks all
Last night I went to charge my LightingPower Tx Lipo with my CellPro4 and experienced some strange problems.
Just to note, I have two CellPro4's both set up to run off of a 35Amp Pyle 12V Power Supply.
Also just to note the specs on the LightingPower packs are as follows:
· 2650 mAh
· 3S1P
· 11.1V
· 4C
The link to the manufactures page for the pack is here: http://www.lightningpower.com/LP_B0106_p/lp-b0106.htm
The sequence went like this, I went out to fly a few packs on my TRex last night and before I left I checked my TX and my battery level read 10.9V. It had been working fine but as per the manufactures recommendations that state "We recommend charging the battery when it drops to 10 volts" I decided to pull it and use the second of the two packs I have of these that was fully charged and charge it when I return.
I returned and first used my two CellPro4's to charge up my 4 FlightPower 2500's at 1C which all went fine, I then replaced the adapter with the one for the LightingPower pack left the charger set to Auto 1C (1C is what is recommended by them) and started charging the pack.
I noticed that when the charger finished analyzing the pack it read it had a 7% fuel remaining reading which I felt was low but again, my Tx read 10.9 and LightingPower stated to charge at 10V so I really didn't think much of it, nor did I decided to check what the CellPro read for voltage.
Well after about 15 minutes I keep hearing the charger beep so I went to check on it and I saw it really hadn't charged much but I figured, maybe as it was so low it was going to take a bit to get up to speed so I left it. Then after about another 10 minutes I herd it go into some kind of alarm and found it read it had a #13 Alarm which in the instructions reads that this is and overvoltage shutdown and to reset it, so I checked my power supply but it was fine so I turned everything off and started it all up again but after another 20 minutes of the same thing, the #13 happened again so I begin to really monitor what was going on.
Upon watching the pack start, the CellPro4 would go through a detect sequence where it starts charging it from .00 amps to .10 very slowly then after .10 it starts building it up more quickly but every time it would get to about .70 amps it would beep and shut off and start all over again from .00
So then I tried it on both chargers and use another adapter node I had but it kept happening, I finally let it run for a bit and then after eight times of this cycling it went into the alarm again and I saw that first it read a # 23 alarm which means it tried a detect eight times without finishing a single charge, then after about 10 seconds it switched to the # 13 so I guess that is what had been happening before I just never caught it.
Anyway by this time and after several attempts and tests of this it had now had about a 22% charge so I left it alone for the night and tried again this morning but the same thing kept happening.
So what I did was I finally took the charger out of the auto 1C mode and started charging it at .50 and it finally kept taking a charge.
I let it charge till it got to about 60% and then tried upping it progressively in the manual modes till I got up 2.00 amps and it kept taking it fine, then I swapped it over to the auto 1C mode and it went up to 2.7 amps and seem to be holding.
So I left it at that and thought everything was fine but then after about 10 minutes, at around 85%, it did that cycle off thing again, wouldn't get past .70 for a restart so I switched it back to .50 amps and it continued charging and it finishing up, including it going through the last step of a balance charge just fine.
After this I ran two of my FlightPower 2500 packs down in the back yard, put them both on the chargers at the same time on the auto 1C and they have gone through all the detect sequencing, charging at 1C and final balance charge just fine so I really don't believe this was an issue with the chargers.
Now just to note, the LightingPower pack never showed any signs of puffing, I probably would say that I have charged it about two times since I got it without a problem and every time I checked from the beginning to end with this issue I never saw any signs of any imbalance of more then .01 volts.
I would suspect I have a bad pack and that I should contact them about it, I don't know what kind of warranty these things may have as I can't find any info about that on their website so I don't know if I can get a new pack but as it is so new and as it seems to me that I haven't done anything wrong by their standards and recommendations.. and cost me $50.00 bucks for a TX battery, I really think I should.
I just wanted to check though with any others that would know more then me before I contacted them to see if I did anything wrong.
Thanks all