Hi All
if Only the manufacturer's made a charger that you could plug 10 Battery packs into and hit One Button and over night they would charge one after the other.. like a cascade effect..
well i wanted one SO Bad i made one..
Cascade Charger
this is not a commercial venture but free info that you can use as you wish
i hope this will be of some use
Cadetman

That's a great idea ,I did the same thing many years ago with a stepping relay and a timer however I only used it for Ni Cads charging at C/10.
I am afraid that such a device will encourage even more users to charge batteries unattended which is a bad idea in general and especially LI Polys.
I guess as long as you have a fire proof bunker away from the house it would be great.

Charles

Charles
i am very impressed on your evaluation of the circuit diagram and reading the words in under 10 mins !!
thanks for your view's
hopefully it wont discourage others from looking at it
Cadetman

Charles
in All honesty do you really sit and watch your battery packs charging??
i trust the charger to do the clever stuff and cut off when it needs to
and regarding lipoly.. dont use them..
not untill the Manufacturer's put the safety features back in that were removed so R/c flyers could Draw Lots of AMPS !
Cadetman

Originally Posted by cadetman

Charles
in All honesty do you really sit and watch your battery packs charging??
i trust the charger to do the clever stuff and cut off when it needs to
and regarding lipoly.. dont use them..
not untill the Manufacturer's put the safety features back in that were removed so R/c flyers could Draw Lots of AMPS !
Cadetman

No I did not do a detailed study of you circuits however I did look at them which was more than was necessary for me to know that charging batteries unattended is a bad idea.
NiCad and Ni MH cells also blow up from time to time especially when being fast charged. I will not even leave a factory supplied wall charger connected while I am out of the house or a sleep. I am never more than 12 steps away from my charging station while I am charging any type of batteries and there is two smoke detectors in the room both types, for smoldering and flaming fires, as well as a 120 F temp. alarm . This has been my policy for the past 13 years after I had a Ni Cad pack explode and catch a 12 volt deep cycle marine battery on fire in my shop while I came in to get a cup of coffee. If I had been a few minutes longer I would have lost all of my models,radio equipment ,and my shop.
I do use Li Pos have for almost 9 months now some where close to 1000 cycles now. No problems at all.


Charles

Thanks for sharing the ckt ... have a GWS charger lying around, might tinker with your ckt time permitting. GWS charger requires a disconnect of the battery for ~5 seconds to re-start a charge (an no button required to start charging); if I read you right, at the end-of-charge, a second 555 timers ckt (or 556 then) set to disconnect the primary output of the charger for a couple of seconds before cascading to the next one? Only had a chance to skim thru the ckt and text.

Looks like one will be more or less limited to charging one capacity of packs (on a charger such as GWS).

fwiw ... yes, when quick charging any I stay in the same room 95% of the time; I would not charge LiPo unattended as Charles mentioned. As for LiPo packs with current protection on the ouput, last thing I'd want is for a pack to cut off ALL power to my power system in an R/C plane!

Charles
OHh My God..
i had NO Idea of what i have done !!
Tommorow i will inform Every Customer that "The Company" has installed a FIRE BOMB in there Factory and/or office in the form of a Fire Alarm System, Security System, emergency lighting and Halon Gas System that runs on Nicads and/or Nimh cells or Even LEAD ( the most toxic Substance Known to Man) and ACID (That Will BURN You to DEATH !!)
and that they need to employ someone to watch over the battery pack to ensure it doesnt set the place on Fire or BLOW them UP!
Give me a Break !!
the concept is to SLOWLY Charge the batteries one at a time using an intelligent charger..
Not Blast The Bum off them at the field !!
Dear God Man.. are you sure you wanna be handeling something you concider to be DYNAMITE !!
i am very suprised you likened my posting to your idea of a clock and a step relay
Clocks Tick.. Relays pull in when the contacts of the clock close...
its as intelligent as a BRICK !
yes a relay could jam but the charger would detect a battery at peak charge and shut it off.
AND i did say it was an evaluation project and any input would be helpful !
i PRESUME THIS IS YOUR INPUT
Thank God you were not around when the Wright Brothers were tinkering in the Workshop !!
i can Just here You Now.. "What !! Your Gonna Fly this using a Lawnmower Engine!.. NOOO WAY !!"...
"Orval.. Wiber.. dont be So Silly.. Stick to the day Job and make them bicycles"..
most likely your negative remarks will stop anyone even looking
Thanks for All your Input
before you go to bed make sure you syphon off the Gasoline out of the car and Bury it Way WAY down the Garden
Turn off the fridge.. the Freezer The TV the VCR, Satalite unplug everything Dont Forget the Heating or the Aircon depending on where you live !
disconnect the Door Bell ! and UnPlug the Phone Too
and seperate at the cells from the TX as they may Burst into Flames
Ohh God.. turn off your mobile phone too.. its Li-Ion Powered so dont charge it unless there is a 1 mile fallout Zone !
unplug the PC as it may re-start without you pushing the ON button !
and finally make sure you switch off the bedroom light
Good Night.. Sleep Well
Cadetman

Interesting idea cadetman.....but there's no need to be quite so defensive (and insulting) when someone points out good reasons why he wouldn't want such a device .

For myself, I rarely have the need to charge a whole set of batteries of identical type, and capacity and that's all I'd ever use that type of circuit for. Is it perhaps intended for glow fliers to charge several identical 4-cell receiver batteries ? It's certainly not going to be of much use to the majority of electric fliers who have cells of all sorts of types and sizes. Unless there's something in there I missed which can cleverly reset the charger parameters ? It's very dependent on a charger which can automatically compensate for some differences which some can and other cannot.

BTW your "words" seem dangerously misleading when they imply that you might connect a number of different types of battery in one "cascade"...."Nicad, NiMh, Lipo, Li-ion, Lead Acid as long as your charger can select the correct setting for the respective battery pack/cell count". AFAIK there is no charger on the market that can do that automatically. They all require the USER to select at least the battery type and often maximum current. Now I'm sure you intended to say that the charger has to be set up manually and the set of batteries have to be at least of the same basic type. I suggest you could do with a prominent warning to that effect. There are plenty of people around who do not fully understand their chargers and could get in real trouble if they connect e.g. a 10 cell 3300mAh NiMH battery, set the charger for that and then connect a Lead-acid battery followed by a 600mAh NiCd.

It may also be worth mentioning that soldering things inside the charger will almost certainly void the warranty (obvious to many of us I'm sure but probably not to everyone).

Steve

Interesting idea, especially for those that charge a lot of packs, and also might be more appreciated in the DIY forum here on RC Groups