Astro Blinky

This message from Jeff Waltz <jw_max@yahoo.com> brought to you by EFLIGHT!

I just purchased a Blinky online and was surprised to not find any battery
connectors or any indication of how to connect it to my charger. Maybe it's
obvious if you have an Astro Flight charger and Apogee or Thunder Power
batteries, but I don't. I have an Apache 2500 charger and PolyQuest batteries.
I don't see anything in the rather poor instructions (there should be no
ambiguity when dealing with Lithium batteries) about how or where to connect
the charger. What am I missing? I also don't know where to get a compatible
connector for PQ batteries. It looks like the holes at the end of the circuit
board could be used in stead of the pins, but the instructions say nothing
about them. Can they be used as an alternative? If so I can attach a PQ
adapter from Aircraft World.

TIA,
Jeff

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This message from "Charlie Hodge" <cshodge@adelphia.net> brought to you by EFLIGHT!

You need to re-wire your batteries, or at least add some leads from each
cell to a one-tenth inch spacing female connector with one more pin than you
have cells (four pins for 3s cells). Be careful, I reverse wired one cell
and ruined the pack when I plugged it into the Blinky. I found some Molex
connectors at my local electronics store that fit the bill. I took my Blinky
with me when I went shopping to be sure I got the right stuff.

This is not for the faint of heart nor the inexperienced. You need soldering
skills and a general understanding of electronics to do it properly.

I was bummed when I got my blinky because of the same lack of documentation
you mentioned. But on thinking about it later, I gave E-Bob the benefit of
the doubt, just because he understood that you really need to know your
stuff to get it right. Although the doc is skimpy, all you need to know is
in the doc, but you have to make a leap of understanding to acquire the
connectors, dismantle your batteries, have the wire and solder equipment
(and the skills), and the patience to make it happen.

Good luck...

Charlie

>>>.................
This message from Jeff Waltz <jw_max@yahoo.com> brought to you by EFLIGHT!

I just purchased a Blinky online and was surprised to not find any battery
connectors or any indication of how to connect it to my charger. Maybe it's
obvious if you have an Astro Flight charger and Apogee or Thunder Power
batteries, but I don't. I have an Apache 2500 charger and PolyQuest
batteries.
I don't see anything in the rather poor instructions (there should be no
ambiguity when dealing with Lithium batteries) about how or where to connect
the charger. What am I missing? I also don't know where to get a
compatible
connector for PQ batteries. It looks like the holes at the end of the
circuit
board could be used in stead of the pins, but the instructions say nothing
about them. Can they be used as an alternative? If so I can attach a PQ
adapter from Aircraft World.

TIA,
Jeff




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This message from "Gord" <gordclifford@sympatico.ca> brought to you by EFLIGHT!

It doesn't connect to the charger. It connects to the batt. balancer
connector on your batt. It will fit right onto an apogee batt as the pin
spacing and dia. is the same. Otherwise you'll have to get adapters to go
from one make to the other. I'm sure there are other batts that will fit up
to it. On the Blinky the most negative side of the batt connects to the most
negative side of the blinky. It will ballance the batt whether the charger
is connected to the batt or not. In other words, plug the batt. into the
charger as you normally would, then plug in the Blinky, then turn on your
charger. Hope this is understandable. Not to good at explaining things
sometimes.

-------Original Message-------

From: Jeff Waltz
Date: 06/07/06 10:37:11
To: eflight
Subject: [EFLT] Astro Blinky

This message from Jeff Waltz <jw_max@yahoo.com> brought to you by EFLIGHT!

I just purchased a Blinky online and was surprised to not find any battery
connectors or any indication of how to connect it to my charger. Maybe it's
obvious if you have an Astro Flight charger and Apogee or Thunder Power
batteries, but I don't. I have an Apache 2500 charger and PolyQuest
batteries.
I don't see anything in the rather poor instructions (there should be no
ambiguity when dealing with Lithium batteries) about how or where to connect
the charger. What am I missing? I also don't know where to get a
compatible
connector for PQ batteries. It looks like the holes at the end of the
circuit
board could be used in stead of the pins, but the instructions say nothing
about them. Can they be used as an alternative? If so I can attach a PQ
adapter from Aircraft World.

TIA,
Jeff

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This message from Rick Page <rick-page@shaw.ca> brought to you by EFLIGHT!

>I have an Apache 2500 charger and PolyQuest batteries.
Polyquest batteries are wired differently than the Blinky expects. The
Hyperion balancer is wired for the Polyquest packs. If you want to use the
Blinky and Polyquest, you'll need to wire an adapter as Charles shows at the
bottom of this lengthy post.
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showp...0&postcount=29
The Blinky works directly with Apogee and Thunder Power wiring.

Rick.



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This message from "Shell Shrader" <Shell@shellware.com> brought to you by EFLIGHT!

Here's a brief How-To type thread I started over at RR that touches on reconfiguring TP and PolyQuest packs to work with the Blinky:

http://www.runryder.com/helicopter/t214758p1/


________________________________

From: owner-eflight@ezonemag.com on behalf of Charlie Hodge
Sent: Wed 6/7/2006 1:29 PM
To: eflight@ezonemag.com
Subject: RE: [EFLT] Astro Blinky



This message from "Charlie Hodge" <cshodge@adelphia.net> brought to you by EFLIGHT!

You need to re-wire your batteries, or at least add some leads from each
cell to a one-tenth inch spacing female connector with one more pin than you
have cells (four pins for 3s cells). Be careful, I reverse wired one cell
and ruined the pack when I plugged it into the Blinky. I found some Molex
connectors at my local electronics store that fit the bill. I took my Blinky
with me when I went shopping to be sure I got the right stuff.

This is not for the faint of heart nor the inexperienced. You need soldering
skills and a general understanding of electronics to do it properly.

I was bummed when I got my blinky because of the same lack of documentation
you mentioned. But on thinking about it later, I gave E-Bob the benefit of
the doubt, just because he understood that you really need to know your
stuff to get it right. Although the doc is skimpy, all you need to know is
in the doc, but you have to make a leap of understanding to acquire the
connectors, dismantle your batteries, have the wire and solder equipment
(and the skills), and the patience to make it happen.

Good luck...

Charlie

>>>.................
This message from Jeff Waltz <jw_max@yahoo.com> brought to you by EFLIGHT!

I just purchased a Blinky online and was surprised to not find any battery
connectors or any indication of how to connect it to my charger. Maybe it's
obvious if you have an Astro Flight charger and Apogee or Thunder Power
batteries, but I don't. I have an Apache 2500 charger and PolyQuest
batteries.
I don't see anything in the rather poor instructions (there should be no
ambiguity when dealing with Lithium batteries) about how or where to connect
the charger. What am I missing? I also don't know where to get a
compatible
connector for PQ batteries. It looks like the holes at the end of the
circuit
board could be used in stead of the pins, but the instructions say nothing
about them. Can they be used as an alternative? If so I can attach a PQ
adapter from Aircraft World.

TIA,
Jeff




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This message from B12Boy@aol.com brought to you by EFLIGHT!

Blinky also works direcly with common sense rc batts.


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This message from Doug Ingraham <dpi@rapidnet.com> brought to you by EFLIGHT!

> This message from Jeff Waltz <jw_max@yahoo.com> brought to you by EFLIGHT!
>
> I just purchased a Blinky online and was surprised to not find any battery
> connectors or any indication of how to connect it to my charger. Maybe it's
> obvious if you have an Astro Flight charger and Apogee or Thunder Power
> batteries, but I don't. I have an Apache 2500 charger and PolyQuest
> batteries.

The blinky does not connect to the charger. It connects to the battery
pack in order to monitor the voltage of each cell in the pack and to
provide a minor amount of discharge (~130ma) to the individual cells when
some are higher voltage than others.

The normal method of connection is to the the battery tap connector that
is provided in most of the battery packs these days. If you plug it in
wrong nothing bad will happen, it simply wont do anything. Astro makes
adaptors for Thunder Power and Cell Pro packs. It works directly with the
others common ones as far as I know.


Doug Ingraham
Rapid City, SD USA



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This message from "Ed Chmielewski" <edchmiel@mindspring.com> brought to you by EFLIGHT!

To get my Hyperion Litestorm 3S 2100 pack to work with the Blinky, all that
was needed was to move the 3 most positive (+) wires on the pack Molex
connector one position over, as there is an empty slot next to the most
negative (-) that needs be filled to satisy Ms. Blinky.

It's my understanding that Hyperion, Polyquest and E-Tec use the same
protocol and this will work for all. No need for the assembly of an adapter
plug.

Ed in JXN



----- Original Message -----
From: "Rick Page" <rick-page@shaw.ca>
To: <eflight@ezonemag.com>
Sent: Wednesday, June 07, 2006 3:20 PM
Subject: RE: [EFLT] Astro Blinky


> This message from Rick Page <rick-page@shaw.ca> brought to you by EFLIGHT!
>
>>I have an Apache 2500 charger and PolyQuest batteries.
> Polyquest batteries are wired differently than the Blinky expects. The
> Hyperion balancer is wired for the Polyquest packs. If you want to use the
> Blinky and Polyquest, you'll need to wire an adapter as Charles shows at
> the
> bottom of this lengthy post.
> http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showp...0&postcount=29
> The Blinky works directly with Apogee and Thunder Power wiring.
>
> Rick.
>
>
>
> *** Any complaints or problems? Send an email to monitor@ezonemag.com
> *** For help with list commands go to
> http://www.ezonemag.com/pages/mailhelp.htm
> *** For the list rules go to http://www.ezonemag.com/pages/mailrule.htm


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[Dale Case]

Ed, you are correct. One of the most impostant things to note from the rather sparse documentation that get supplied with the Blinky is that there can be no gaps in the wires of the tap connector. I assume from your post that the Hyperion pack has a gap between the farther-most black wire and the other two. The Blinky cannot work with gaps. You are correct in moving the other two black and, of course, red wires to eliminate the gap. The other method that will work is to just move the one black wire to fill the gap. No adapters are necessary with the PQ packs if you just move the one wire or, as you did, move the other three to close the gap.

If people don't understand this when they first get the Blinky and try to balance a 3 cell pack with a gap in the tap's connector, they will further imbalance the pack, right? This is what I did until I saw the light.

Boy, I wish this information was easier to find and access!

Dale Case