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e-Electric Batteries & Chargers > Cellpro 4S experiences?
 
 
pgoelz
Senior Heliman
Location: Rochester MI

Anyone else having trouble with the Cellpro reaching anywhere near 1C charge current on your packs?

I have two Cellpros and they both seem to settle on about 0.5C charge current (give or take a bit) on my 3S 2100 mAH packs. I have three brands of these packs and they all tend to produce about the same charge current. FMA has refused to answer my several questions about what the charger is measuring when it sets the charge current so I can only guess what the problem might be. All the packs are near new and fly fine.

Both chargers are firmware version 3.00 and were warranty replacements for two cellpros (firmware 3.01 I think) that would not reliably detect the cells in my packs. I thought it interesting at the time that they downgraded the firmware.....

I have Emailed FMA to see what they say but I thought I'd get the collective experiences of the RunRyder crowd too.

Paul

Paul Goelz
Rochester MI USA
http://www.pgoelz.com
05-18-2008 01:57 PM
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BladeStrike
Senior Heliman
Location: Shelby Twp, MI

Paul;

I have 2 cellpros and they all charge my 3S lipos at 1C, What charge current did you select to charge your 2100 lipos?
05-18-2008 08:21 PM
 
 
pgoelz
Senior Heliman
Location: Rochester MI

I used the automatic function, set for 1C. The best I have ever seen it do was maybe 0.75C and usually it is more like 0.5C.

Paul

Paul Goelz
Rochester MI USA
http://www.pgoelz.com
05-18-2008 10:45 PM
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BladeStrike
Senior Heliman
Location: Shelby Twp, MI

Paul

On my cellpro before connecting the lipo I use the mode button to set the charge rate to the mah closest to the lipos capacity
05-19-2008 01:42 AM
 
 
romaink
Heliman
Location: Columbia, SC USA

Paul,

With a charge rate of 0.5A the CellPro might be in the safety charge mode.One cell might be too far out of balance so it tries to balance them up at a low rate.

You also need to check the balancer taps on your batteries. If the female connector on the tap is of too large a diameter the it doesn't make a good connection with the male connector on the CellPro. A loose conection leads to problems with the "brain" of the CellPro. A problem I have with a loose connection is: take for example a 4 cell battery with a voltage difference of 2V per cell. With a loose connector the CellPro will read Cell 1=2v,Cell 2=2v,Cell 3=4v. This usually gives me an ERROR 28 but I suppose it could go into the safety charge mode.

You might need to remove the wire connectors from the plastic tap case and crimp the female connectors to make them narrower. Too narrow and you won't be able to plug the tap into the CellPro.

Also make sure that one or more of the wires on the tap has not backed out of the plastic tap case.

Romain
05-22-2008 02:17 AM
 
 
pgoelz
Senior Heliman
Location: Rochester MI

Unfortunately, none of those suggestions are the problem. I'm not in safety mode and it is reliably detecting all cells at the correct voltages.

I am in communication with FMA and one suggestion was to simply select 2C or even 3C. They state that with the Cellpro, any 20C pack can safely be charged at up to 3C so setting the rate higher will result in a more appropriate charge current and supposedly will not hurt the pack even if it suddenly decides to go to the selected charge rate.

I'm still trying to figure out what is really going on.

Paul

Paul Goelz
Rochester MI USA
http://www.pgoelz.com
05-22-2008 03:02 AM
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AV8TOR
Veteran
Location: Central Ohio

Set it to the 2C Auto mode or set the exact charge rate in the manual mode
05-29-2008 05:32 PM
 
 
beeflyer2
Key Veteran
Location: Woodstock, GA

I agree with the suggestions to just set the current you want and go. The automatic settings have never been very accurate for me either.
05-29-2008 05:41 PM
 
 
fenderstrat
Elite Veteran
Location: Aston,Pa

how old are the packs you are charging.??...if they have lots of cycles on them..the charger may be reading the ACTUAL capacity and adjusting its charge per that

PerformancePlusRC field rep
TT Mini Titan
HBK2
Futaba FASST
05-30-2008 01:49 PM
 
 
pgoelz
Senior Heliman
Location: Rochester MI

The packs are pretty new, and charge to their rated capacity. They do not seem to have any discharge issues.

For a while I was using the manually set charge current. That worked fine although I had to make sure I reset it when I changed packs. However, I bought the chargers because they were automatic and it bugs me that the automatic part doesn't work very well in my case.

I have started using the 2C setting and that seems to produce a charge current very close to 1C, so I guess that is an acceptable workaround.

I am convinced it is possible to make the automatic charge work a lot better but it would be a modification to the firmware and I'm not set up to do that right now. So I'll just keep them set for 2C.

Paul

Paul Goelz
Rochester MI USA
http://www.pgoelz.com
05-31-2008 12:33 AM
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e-Electric Batteries & Chargers > Cellpro 4S experiences?
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