Portable charging station - The Build Starts

[pctomlin]

I am in the process of putting together a portable charging station for my batteries. It will consist of a 20" tool box from HD similar to the Kobalt that Tommie has from Lowes. I will have an ICharger 306B on 24V and a Turnigy Accucel 8150 on 12V for charging up the batteries.
I have come across a great deal on two server power supplies that will give me 24V with 1800 watts (72 amps) of charging capability when hooked up in series. The really nice thing about these PSUs is that the DC side is already floating so no need to isolate the DC ground of one of the PSUs to make them work in series. Do you think this is a little bit of an overkill output wise. With everything that the two chargers can throw at them I will still have almost twice the spare capacity of the max output. Maybe install some additional binding posts for additional chargers to share at the flying field? What do you guys think, am I crazy? Maybe pay more and get 550W or 575W PSUs instead of the 900s?

[DominicD]

Where do you plan to get power from ?

[pctomlin]

We have electricity at the flying field and I have a generator. AC input is 12 amps max at 110V input per PSU.

[freewheel510]

Excess capacity is fine. Everything runs cooler, the PSs will last forever. It may be a bit heavier than needed, but so what? You'll be ready for future needs.

It would be great to make banana sockets available so that your friends can plug their chargers in to your PS's.

This setup should be great, Paul!

[pctomlin]

Well I now own these, the key pieces to my portable charging station have been purchased. Two Dell Poweredge 6650 server power supplies. The blue handles got to go. They look big in the picture but they are each 12" long 6" wide and 2 3/4" tall and weigh in at 8 lbs.





I have a Husky 20" treadplate toolbox from HD that they are going to be installed into. I wanted to use the Kobalt from Lowes but the tray mount would have got in the way. I plan on doing an install similar to this in the toolbox. When I have them physically in hand I plan on double checking the Kobalt toolbox just to be sure they won't fit under to tool tray bracket. The chargers and binding posts will all be mounted to an aluminum plate that will sit above the power supplies in place of the tool tray.

[backburner1955]

Post some more pics Paul. Looks great so far.

[pctomlin]

I will post pictures of the build as I go. I hope to have all the key pieces here to do the build of the power part by next weekend. Only big thing left to purchase is a 306B which I hope to have on order by the middle of the month.

[Slyster]

Those are nice looking power supplies!

[velocity90]

Heres mine. I have enough room for my transmittor, lipos and extras. Its a t-rex 500 case in which I made wood.

The 2 powersupplies are Meanwell 24v-750w and they never get hot or even warm. The best you can get.

All wires are loose so you can see how its connected. The 2 powersupplies have there own power on switch because outside I use a Honda 7 generator.

[pctomlin]

That's a good charging set up you have their Velocity. For me, I wanted something smaller than what you have to house your equipment. I also want to keep my batteries and transmitter seperate from my charging equipment. May have another trip back to HD coming. They have a nice size aluminum case that would be perfect for batteries and a transmitter.

It would be great to make banana sockets available so that your friends can plug their chargers in to your PS's.

I decided to make my charging box with dual 24V and dual 12V charging points. A set for my charging equipment and a set to share. Here are the binding posts that I will be using. They can be used with 4mm banana plugs, bare wire or split connectors. These are pretty heavy duty, they can accept up to 8 awg wire in the binding post.

[velocity90]

I find with everything I take to the field, the size is perfect for me. (chargers, lipos for all my helis, sunglasses, 3d masters 2010 cap , transmitter, vbar panel+ esc prog card, some tools)

If you only want the charger you can wait for the new ElyQ charger case. Not official but can give you some inside pictures(thanks to B. de Groot):

http://www.plaatjesupload.nl/bekijk/...289230-140.jpg
http://www.plaatjesupload.nl/bekijk/...289320-490.jpg
http://www.plaatjesupload.nl/bekijk/...289415-640.jpg

24v - 40a - 1000watts

[pctomlin]

That's a pretty sweet looking set up that they have going. Is it something that is being built for retail?

[velocity90]

Originally Posted by pctomlin

That's a pretty sweet looking set up that they have going. Is it something that is being built for retail?

Yes, elyq is going to sell them. Thats a proto type.

[pctomlin]

Is there any dimensions for the box?

[velocity90]

If you are in a hurry, I could ask. Keep an eye out on the elyq website.

[pctomlin]

No, it is not that important. I will keep an eye on the ElyQ website. If you spot it before I do let me know.

[pctomlin]

Got the power supplies today and just got done testing them. One of them is good and the other one is bad. Sure am glad I decided to purchase them local. If they don't have another one, I can return the bad one and get my money back and then buy another one off Ebay. I charged a 3S battery from storage to charged on the good one, it worked great and they will fit the Husky tool box that I have perfect. Still haven't received any of the small parts that I ordered. When I do I can at least start some of the wiring.

[lazor 22]

Sounds cool

[pctomlin]

The power supply that I ordered to replace the bad one from the original purchase showed up Friday. I am still waiting on the 4mm bullet connectors to come to complete the parts needed to do the wiring from the PSUs to the binding posts.

I just got done modifying the PSU cases so they will lay flat against each other. I needed to remove the handles/hinge pins and the stop pins from each side of the cases. It took stripping the cases totally so I would not get any metal shavings into the electronics. Here is the finished mod to the cases, not much to look at but makes the fit much cleaner.









Both PSUs have been function tested after doing the mod and still work perfectly. Working on making a cutting template for the tool box end to fit the stacked power supplies. Once finished the fan end of the power supplies will be mounted into the tool box.

[pctomlin]

I just finished the rough wiring for the PSUs. Soldering the 10awg wires to the spade lugs on the power supplies as fun. Once I figured out that the tip on my 140 watt soldering iron was bad and replaced it things went much smoother. Here are some pictures of the completed work.







The next big project is to finish drawing the cutting template for the PSU faces on my computer, make a cutting template and lay out the cut lines on the end of the toolbox and then install the PSUs inside the toolbox. The final step will be to make a tray for the chargers to sit on and then install the binding posts and wire them up to the PSUs.