I got the EV Grin big time today. Got my Hyperion 1420i Net 3 within minutes of 4 - 6s Turnigy 5000maH. Still trying to figure out what all the chimes are for. Got one ride in before dark. About 3 miles. Trying to breakin packs lightly. Surprized out of 24 cells only one was .02V lower after charging.

Welcome to the club! I hope you have a beefy power supply for that charger.

how are you taking care of your lipo? Do you keep them in the house? That's what I'm worried about. I have a safe that is fireproof and about 2 inches thick, do you think I could store LIPO in there while I'm gone from the house and it would prevent any kind of fire?

Just got them today so i'm an Instant Expert. From what I've researched the main problem is when charging. Especially the first three times.The Hperion 1420i is pretty advanced and watches for overvoltage which is the main cause of fire. A full charge is 4.2 V/cell.I charged them to 90% capacity or around 4.13V. Another problem is over discharge. I Plan to stay above 30% until I get a Low voltage cutoff system that is ordered but not shipped. Some very serious people seem to think this charger solves the overcharge problems by allowing charges to slightly lower voltage. I have 10AH/12s and have ordered another 10aH/12s I don't know if I'll buy another LVC depend on how much trouble it'll be.

These are fun batteries. They might be a little more trouble to recharge but, they go like hell.

If you use something like a Cycle Analyst or a hobby wattmeter, you can measure the capacity consumed in use and go by that to determine capacity remaining (tantamount to knowing the DOD for healthy cells). With the CA, you can also set an overall voltage cutoff.

If you connect that Hyperion to your computer, it is easier to control. You can also learn more about the health of your battery pack and how is changing with time. And combined with measuring capacity in use these tools greatly reduce the need for individual cell group LVCs.

rscamp:

I'm ready to order a Large Screen Cycle Analyst as soon as Grin restocks. Did you download software to connect? Is there a forum or tutorial on all the features available?

Jethro.

The software is available here:

https://media.hyperion.hk/dn/pc/pcsoft.htm

Threads like this have the latest info on products/updates:

https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=960657

I missed this post when it went up Thanks! I got some reading to do.

Yep, you've got it. Problems start occuring when cells reach 4.30V/cell. 4.15V/cell is a safe setpoint, that's what we've been using for thousands of cycles with no issues at all. Charging in a metal, or other fireproof box is always a good idea, however.

Discharging to 80% DOD is a safe bet for maximum life expectancy of the cells. Also, when discharging to 80% cells will almost always remain self-balanced, meaning there's a rare need for balancing. Problems occur when cells are very far out of balance and reverse their polarity, 80% DOD gives plenty of headroom to avoid this. For 12s packs, 42.0V is a good general LVC for ESC's that typically cuts off discharge around 80% DOD.

Have fun!

Tommy

Hi Jethro,
Do you have a 24 volt power supply for your Hyperion or a 12 volt? I'm curious how many watts it can handle on 12 volts.
Thanks, Ed

I only tried one 6s 5000mAh turnigy on 12V. No problem at 10amps but that's only like 240 watts. If I get a chance I'll check it out. I've been running 2 12V tractor batteries since then.

Very nice! You should be able to charge all your lipos on the tractor batteries.

My Icharger 1010B+ went into smoke release mode this weekend so I'm thinking of getting a second charger to use while they repair my charger. I have to send it to China!

I couldn't live without my e-bike (especially with our wonderfully high gas prices) so I'm charging my lipo batteries with an mig welder. I have to act like a human BMS and baby sit the whole process with two volt meters and my amp meter. I'm a little worried I will get distracted and let them over charge so I told the wife to keep checking on me and turn the welder off if I wander away or something but, it works hella-good! That welder pushes 20 amps into my six 5s 5000mah battery packs and charges them all in 30 to 45 minutes!

Did I tell you that the gas station next to my work charges $4.35 a gallon for regular? And that's in a run down, old industrial area in Oakland, not a posh neighborhood in San Francisco! It is next to the freeway so it's usually on the high side anyway.

i just got 2 sp-500-24 Meanwells. Charging batteries to charge batteries was just too time consuming. Gasoline here is $3.89. I'll try the 12V charge on two LIPO's and see how much power it runs before I reinstall the batteries in the tractor.

I just finished testing the SP-500-24 I also tested running the Hyperion off of one 12V battery.

First the bad news. Running the 1420i off of one battery gave me 5.6 amps into a 12S pack. I left the config set for 10 amps which two 12V batteries had no problem supplying.

On to the good news. I hooked up one MeanWell SP-500-24 to a standard 120V outlet. It was set at 25.3 volts so I didn't trim it up or down. I started it at 8 amps into a 12S pack. No voltage sag. I then stopped the charge and went to 9 amps. It finished putting a little over 3aH into the first pack. Some heat coming off the PS cooling fan but pretty acceptable. The next Pack I went all the way to the Max for the turnigy 20C... 10 amps. About 4minutes into the charge I got a supply voltage error just when the charger was ramping up the amps from a voltage test pause. Apparently the Meanwell can't compensate for the quick ramp-up when running 490 watts output from the charger with a 120V input. The specs said at 120V it was rated at 425 watts So if you want to max out and run 10 amps into a 12S pack 220V input is required. I didn't test to see if it would do this as all my packs are charged now. I finished the second pack at 9 amps which is what I probably should run anyhow.

Both supplies looked almost new. I expected to have to clean them but they were ready to go right out of the box. I'll test the other supply soon but unless there's a problem I probably won't post about it.

I think this was a good value.

Glad to hear that about the power supplies! Looks like we are the only ones that have bought from that lot so far! (3 sold).

When you say you have multiple 12S packs, are you meaning two blocks of 4 5000mAh turnigys? I'm still wrapping my head around the lingo.

Corkscrew. You're everywhere!

Ha! Seems that I'm not the only one either.

I got my battery wiring figured out now, btw.

That looks a lot better...

That looks good for discharging and bulk charging. For balance charging It requires disassembly and reconfiguring. That's what GGoodrums solution is about. By the way it's not assembled just parts and directions. ( I understood this.) To use the Hyperion 1420i @12s I tie each top row brick to each bottom row. I now have (will have next week) 4-44.4V 5Ah batteries.

Not bad! Your 12 volt battery would have to put out about 20 amps to maintain 5.6 amps to your lipo batteries. If your charger is putting out 10 amps, the two lead 12 volt batteries would have to supply about 35 amps (I'm assuming there are in parallel).

That would work for me. I'm used to charging a 10s string at 3 amps and that drew 8 to 9 amps from my 12 volt battery. I would probably keep the draw below 15 amps anyway since that's what my two solar panels put out on an average sunny day. Cool!

Jethro. You can balance charge the 12s4p with the 1420i without reconfiguring - just tie the balance leads of the parallel groups together into two connections to the 'high' and 'low' balance ports. This is what I am doing with my 12s2p pack.

I am aware that it's a "Kit" and not fully assembled. Luckily for me I have brothers with access to BSU's engineering labs. So I just ordered the 12S plug + 2x6S LVC kit from Gary.

I also just put in an order for the 1420i from RC Flight Store out of Canada Eh.

Do you leave the balance cables connected during discharge? If so this sounds like a good compromise between what I figured on doing( charging 5Ah at a time) and bulk charging. Maybe even better as all the cells would balance to the same voltage. Interesting to say the least.

Yes. Parallel cell groups will always be balanced. Two caveats though:

1. Before connecting the pack power and balance leads in parallel, ensure that the overall voltages and cell voltages match closely. If they don't, there will be a high current on connection that could melt a solder joint or fuse the pins on a connector

2. Monitor the health of the pack as it ages. With the balance leads wired in parallel, a weak cell will pull down it's parallelled siblings which will manifest as a lower voltage in that group at lower DOD.

For both 1. and 2., you have an excellent tool in the 1420i to measure and monitor this - particularly with the computer interface.