Only comment on EOS INSIGHT so far (I have not hooked it up to a charger yet) is that it would be nice to be able to tile the two channels so that both graphs could be up at the same time. Seems like a nifty program - I especially like the auto find feature when looking for which port the charger is connected to.

-Hilgert

Originally Posted by TheBum

OK, first a little rant: In order to run in emulation, a paid copy of Windows is required. After somebody has shelled out $270-$300 on a charger, the last thing they want to do is shell out another $100 or more to put Windows on their machines

I'm a PC guy, and did not know that. Rant understood.

See PM for more, thanks.

D

Originally Posted by hilgert

It should not be too hard - the output from the charger is very easy to decipher. I did it awhile back and imported it into Excel (they make that for the Mac you know...) and graphed it from there.

-Hilgert

Details of the serial data record formats for many devices, including the EOS chargers, can be found in the metadata files that come with LogView.

Originally Posted by TheBum

OK, first a little rant: In order to run in emulation, a paid copy of Windows is required. After somebody has shelled out $270-$300 on a charger, the last thing they want to do is shell out another $100 or more to put Windows on their machines, especially when a lot of people bought Macs so they wouldn't have to deal with Windows. End of rant.

No offense but Mac has always been a second thought, there are some 1.1 Billion personal computers in the world and more than 80% of them run Windows. If a person were creating a product that needed an OS behind it, they'd be foolish not to opt for Windows support. Adding support for Mac will no doubt increase operating costs so to counter your "rant", I don't want to pay for someone to develop software for the 15%...

Jack

Amen brother, amen.

I hope we won't start seeing any postings going on about Macs and PCs. There's plenty of that elsewhere guys. Boring :-)


Now the good news for Mac owners (and yes of course you will need a copy of Windows until some nice clever person writes a native OSX application).

I've just run EOS INSIGHT on my Macbook Pro under both Bootcamp and VMWare Fusion using Vista and it works perfectly! Even better the exported data file imports into Mac Excel 2008 without a problem.

Yeh!! Mac owners now at last have a powerful tool to analyze charging behavior with the Duo and Net.

If you want to try it here's what I did.

1) In Windows (either using Bootcamp or in VMWare - I haven't had a chance to try it in Parallels but suspect it will work fine) download the Silicon Labs driver for the Hyperion USB cable from Hyperion's support site at

http://media.hyperion.hk/dn/pc/prgusb-drv.htm

2) Install it normally

3) Download and Install EOS INSIGHT similarly

4) Plug in the charger and tell the software to find it.

How hard is that?

Just drag the exported CSV data file to your Mac desktop and import it into Mac Excel for further analysis and graphing.

Big thanks to Alan for writing this and adding the export data function. :-)

Sorry, should have mentioned I used XP as well and it also works fine.

Oh, I'm not saying it won't work. In fact, I've even flashed the firmware with XP running in Parallels.

Dave
It would be great if u made the next duo with 400 to 450 watts of power, 8s lipoly, A123 cells and 20amp charge capability on each side.

That would fore fill all my needs and I would never have to buy a charger again as 400 to 450 watts of power would be great for charging both large lipoly and large A123 packs at fast rates.

Marcus

450W/2 = 225W per port which would only charge 8S A123 at 8A. If you want to really take advantage of the fast charge capacity of A123 cells then you need to ask for 1000W = 500W/port which will charge 8S A123 at 18A

Of course such a charger would need up to 1200W DC input power and to keep currents manageable that would mean say 24V @50A. Now the DC supply would draw up to 1500W from the AC wall socket - which is OK in geographies with 220/240V@10A (2400W) as the standard but challenging for you folk with 110/120V@15A (1600W) circuits !

Secret spy pix - new high-power DUO ULTIMO...Dave's beta test unit. Will charge 30s lipo at 1000A...

Successfully updated both Duo's to Firmware Version 1.9!

Now just have to find some 50000mAh Lipos to test them out on....


Although looking forward to having the data view being independent of channel select and the lithium IR values being more realistic.

Originally Posted by kgfly

Of course such a charger would need up to 1200W DC input power and to keep currents manageable that would mean say 24V @50A. Now the DC supply would draw up to 1500W from the AC wall socket - which is OK in geographies with 220/240V@10A (2400W) as the standard but challenging for you folk with 110/120V@15A (1600W) circuits !

Yep, and it is really quite difficult to pack more into a DUO charger than we have and still keep the price in reason. The nice thing about the current DUO is the very high relative performance for the price...

As for a 1500W AC-only single-port solution, we're working on it with targets of 40A and 15S lipo. Who knows when it'll be done, but we are moving forward...

D

Originally Posted by hilgert

Secret spy pix - new high-power DUO ULTIMO...Dave's beta test unit. Will charge 30s lipo at 1000A...

C'mon Hilgert everyone knows that's just a cutaway of a flux capacitor. An 80's model at that. Nice try though.

Originally Posted by NipponDave

Yep, and it is really quite difficult to pack more into a DUO charger than we have and still keep the price in reason. The nice thing about the current DUO is the very high relative performance for the price...

As for a 1500W AC-only single-port solution, we're working on it with targets of 40A and 15S lipo. Who knows when it'll be done, but we are moving forward...

D

Dave,

That's nice but the issue now there is a disconnect between LiPo technology and chargers. Neu just released new packs that can be charged @ 5C, I'll now need more than 25A just for fast charging my 6S LiPo's. I brought this up before but it's time someone considers current technology and designs a charger with ample power, this back-and-forth with battery and charger limits each leapfrogging the other is getting costly. Forget the cost for a second, what are the other issues with designing a dual port 1,000 watt floating charger?

Jack