I have two 1420is, both of them gave me problems, both of them were exchanged once, both of them have the latest firmware. Both of them haven't been used very much as I just don't trust their accuracy, I use either my Cellpro10S or my BC168 chargers.

One of the 1420i seems to be working properly, the other just doesn't want to charge anything bigger than 4S. I get this ''output battery connect error'' or if I force the charge to start by pushing the buttons quickly before the error appears, I get this ''bad balance connection'' error. By initiating the charge quickly before any error appear, I can see the channel #5 on port A has a false reading of the voltage of the cell. I check the cell with my Fluke and I can see that the charger is reading a voltage that is at least 1V too low.
All the pins and wires of my balance boards have been cleaned and checked for continuity, all the pins on the charger have been cleaned, the balance plugs of my batteries are all cleaned and are all fine.

Any battery 4S or lower can be charged, anything 5S and more can't be charged because I always get the same errors. And now this in Caps because I really am fed up with this products, DO I HAVE TO RETURN THIS CHARGER AGAIN? Or is there a fix for these errors? I searched for an hour in here and although I can find many having similar problems, I haven't found much for a solution.

Thank you for any help on this, I really wish this charger would work like it's supposed to.

Ray

Sounds like a bad solder joint in the 5S balance lead circuit.

Are you talking about the balance board? Because I checked the 4 I have and they all check out fine.

Thanks

If not the balance board then internal to the charger. Or the wire(s) connecting the two.

Unless you want to diagnose it yourself then returning it might be your best option.

Crap! I was hoping that there would be a solution for this. I know it's not the balance boards because I took them out of the equation, I tried to charge several 6S batteries by connecting directly to the charger balance port. I still get the same errors

I would think that a bad joint in the charger or balance boards would result in no voltage reading for that cell or erratic reading. I get a constant reading of cell #5 on port A that is 1V lower than the real voltage of that cell. This seems to trigger the error of ''bad balance connection''.

Originally Posted by mistercrash

Crap! I was hoping that there would be a solution for this. I know it's not the balance boards because I took them out of the equation, I tried to charge several 6S batteries by connecting directly to the charger balance port. I still get the same errors

I would think that a bad joint in the charger or balance boards would result in no voltage reading for that cell or erratic reading. I get a constant reading of cell #5 on port A that is 1V lower than the real voltage of that cell. This seems to trigger the error of ''bad balance connection''.

Sorry, I missed the "1 volt too low" part

Still could be a bad solder joint. Did it work correctly at one point, or did it suddenly develop this fault?
If it always did it then there could be a wrong resistor in there somewhere

There might also be a hidden calibration menu that could help.

I bought the charger back in November 2012. I didn't use it right away, I can't remember when I first used it but I don't remember it ever working properly. So I can say that it never worked correctly. I just sent an email to the supplier I bought the charger from, I'll see what they decide to do. It costs me $20 to ship this charger back if I have to, this really ticks me off.

Thanks
Ray

i get that same error sometimes and in my case it is because of the bad connection of my fake deans connector from battery to charger output. I have also experienced the balance error and that was due to broken balance lead on one of the battery cells. Based on what you have said i would try charging the battery first without the balancer. If you get the output battery connection error then you have to verify that there is a good connection between the the charger and the battery. I dont know what connectors you are using but as i said above my fake deans are physically plugged together but there is no connection. If you can verify that your connection is good then i believe the charger is faulty.

Welcome to the club I have two chargers that have the connection error problem amongst others. It's not the balance board or the harness, been there done that. The latest update was supposed to fix the problem but it did not. In fact my problems are worse than ever. The memory gets scrambled up. The latest example was a .8A charge started at 2.2A charge. Lucky I noticed in time before I had a big problem on my hands. Another example during storage I had a pack that was balanced to .002V. When I put it on a storage charge after about two minutes the voltage gap alarm sounded, The pack was going horribly out of balance. One cell was up to 4.45V and charging another cell was being dragged down to 2.2V and discharging I watched for a few seconds as I could not believe what I was seeing. I terminated the charge and checked the pack. The cells were back to normal within .004 V of each other. The chargers have been flakey since new but I figured it was a software issue that would be resolved with an update. Well the update came and went and they are worse than ever. I have 35 different packs to care for and with these chargers it has made that task a an unpleasant one. I also use the Hyperion Emeter suit and the Atlas servo programming software. Problem is only one application can be run at a time. Running two Hyperion software at the same time locks up the PC or the program. I really like the products and when working correctly the product is great. I am looking forward to when they get the software squared away. The PC I have dedicated to RC is just over a year old and works perfect as well as the other RC apps I have on it. So I don't think it something on my end.
https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/show....php?t=1834628 This is the thread I started about my charger woe's and the fellow responding is the software writer. Maybe he can help you.

I'm reviving this thread because I took out my 1420i out of the drawer where it's been sitting for about two years to see if I could use it for something. I turn it on with a 24V power supply and try to charge numerous lipos with it and all I get is this error message "output voltage too high". I tried the same on a 12V power supply but still get the same message. What I'm thinking about it right now is that it's a piece of junk and I know why they were selling it so cheap. I had it in my hand and was looking at the drawer where it was sitting and the garbage can back and forth. It went back into the drawer for now but if there's no fix for this useless thing, it will go in the garbage whenever I need the room in that drawer. End of rant and thanks for reading.

I found out why my 1420i was displaying "OUTPUT VOLTAGE TOO HIGH" and would not charge 2S lipos or NiMH batteries. I remember one day, I had my charger plugged into its power supply which was plugged into the same wall outlet as a small drill press next to the charger. I remember the main power leads of the charger touching the metal table of the drill press and made a spark. I didn't think much of it at the time except for putting the charger in a different spot but that is when the error message started. When the charger shorted on the metal table, it blew a MOSFET. From then the charger would display the error message anytime I wanted to charge a battery that had less voltage than the power supply (12V). I found which MOSFET shorted and changed it to a new IRF4905 and now the charger will charge anything I throw at it. Problem resolved.