Originally Posted by everydayflyer

Charged a 4S 3300 LiPoly and IR 1 / 3 / 3 / 3 so IMO still not right.

Agree, and same as yours, with V309a my 1st cell is always lower?

Hilde

Junsi
& All regular contributors,

I have not actively been writing here at all, but have been following this thread every now and then. I have to say that you guys are doing excellent job by letting the community see your progress, listening to people's comments and to provide answers and product upgrades and improvements based on what is being discussed.

Bright, clever and better than anybody else as far as I have seen. This is the way to provide excellent products and also hopefully be able to make business with it.

I have been thinking of buying one of your chargers, but have not got that far just yet...

Therefore I do not have first hand experience with iChargers. I will nevertheless drop in my 2 (Euro) Cents of suggestions and the resolutions....


Temporary modification to charge settings

everydayflyer:
Add ability to change charge rate during the charge but does not become a permenate charge( does not become permenate unless saved to a memory slot).

Junsi:
Some of end users has suggested us to modify it, and we will take it into consideration.

Mikko:
I second Charles's wish to provide means to do changes during a charge session and not making them permanent. I also propose showing a small indication on the screen about modified settings being effective.


IR measurement during charge

everydayflyer:
Be able to read cell IRs during the charge. Cell IRs change with state of charge and with temperature changes.

Junsi:
We thought it will be better, but we do not have a clear idea about how to realize it till now.

Mikko:
What about (and now - excuse for possible misunderstandings, because I do not have first hand experience with these chargers) providing a separate menu that can be used during the charge time for:

• Selecting which data is showed on the display. (Selecting on-the-fly-IR measurements would add IR measurements to the charger's duty cycle.)
• Modifying charge settings - like current or number of charge/discharge cycles, etc.
• Modifying basically all setting that are relevant for the current, on-going charge.
• etc.

The list above certainly calls for a second and a third thought....

Oh, and if there was an IR display during charge, I would wish to have the data also logged.


Global vs. chemistry specific vs. charge run specific settings

everydayflyer:
Global setting for C or F , Safety Time Out , Max. Capacity Cut Off , Beep On Time, Termination Voltages with ability to over ride Global setting on a per Memory bases.

Junsi:
Our engineer thought it will be better to save these individually, which will be more flexible.

Mikko:
My take here would be a suggestion to carefully analyze which settings are tied to which context. For instance, Celcius vs. Farenheit as temperature scales are tied to the user's culture or environment. I would definately make such settings global. If a user is used to think Celcius when talking about temperature, that is unlikely to change on battery pack basis. Max Capacity cut-off is tied to a certain battery pack. It can also be global, if the user happens to have only very similar batteries to charge. Termination Voltage is to most extent a battery chemistry based parameter.

Actually this and the previous item (about IR measurement --> on the fly configuration) do go hand in hand here: both features do call for analyzing which parameters make sense at which situation.


Added later: The challenge is not what is possible to do technically but how to do it so that the user is in control of how the device is performing. User getting lost or confused in menus is a bad thing.


Displaying the selected memory

everydayflyer:
Change so that when a Memory is Loaded and you make changes to it and save it it is automaticly saved to same location by default ,(with abaiklty to change isf so desired).
IMO it is way to easy to make a change and store it over another Memory position. Default is 00 which I over wrote several times by mistake and even now that I know better I sometimes forget which memory I am making changes to.
How about requiring two steps to save to a Memory Slot already being used?

During a Charge or Discharge show Memory # being used.

Junsi:
As for these, we want to hear more voice from our users. Your opinions are highly appreciated here.


Mikko:
I tend to support Charles's viewpoint here. I would also like to keep a "default" mode separate from "Loaded from memory" mode. The point being that for the packs the user charges regularly she would just need to recall the memory settings. For any other pack, there would be a "defalut mode", where no special tweaks are made, ie. the Global settings only apply.

Please also consider the possibility of giving names to memory positions. Names can be so much more informative than just memory numbers - especially if the user is not using the charger every day.


C-D / D-C cycling - end state selection

One other wish from me would be to be able to select the end state for cycling charge. No matter if it was c-d or d-c cycle, I would like to set which state would the battery be left into: full, empty, storage. The default of course is that in c-d the charger would leave the battery empty and in d-c the battery is left full. In some cases however, I have missed the possibility to do a c-d cycle and a charge right after. Automating that would be helpful. Also having packs on on the shelve during winter, I would like to be able do a couple of cycles and leave them into storage state.


(oops,
Sorry for a LONG, looonngg posting. Congrats for those who made it all the way..)

-mikko

Please also consider the possibility of giving names to memory positions. Names can be so much more informative than just memory numbers - especially if the user is not using the charger every day.

-mikko

In fact mem positions can be named problem you have to name them same as with Cell phone ,Scrolling one letter,number.symble at a time and not even the battery type is pre filled in for you.

ie If you want Memory #1 to be a LiPoly balance charge of a 4S at 5 amps. then you must

Chose Lithum chemistry then LiPoly ,next set 4S then 5A ,next save to Mem #1 .
If you want Mem #1 to show the Type and charge data you have to enter say

LiPo-4S-5A ( ten characters) to find scrolling for that one Memory position.
You must also go to Setting and select C or F, when to balance,etc. and save these settings to the Mem position also.


I have many chargers and most you would go to LiPoly menu,set number of cell ,chatrge rate and save to a Memory position.
other choices such as C / F, max. capacity,time out etc. are Global but can be chaned per each meory if you so desire.
Most chargers do not clear all users present memoried during the install of an update .

The 208B is a very powerful charger with a lot of very advanced feactures and places more operating choices in the user;s hand than most any other charger. The one major draw back I find is that it is not users frienly programing and naming memories to save.

I think it is much easier to just have a cheat sheet (lable) on the charger's case and write memory setting on it.


clarification:

Once you set and save a Memory position then Load said Memory it does show battery Type charge rate etc.
problem is it does not show this imformation when you are scrolling through(selecting) a memory # unless you enter such imformatiom before saving it.

Confused? charger know battery type and settings but does not fill in that info ,user must do it or when you go to Load Memory 1 you have a blank screen until after you load it. Yes I am getting forgetful but I need to see that I am about to load a LiPoly 4S 5A charge rate not an unknown.
Charles

Question:

After a charging setup has been saved to a Memory # ,what if you could just scroll through these without having to go to Load Settings finding the right one(difficuklt if they were not titled) and loading it. If you could just Scroll through them (with setting displayed) find the one you want then press enter it would eliminate the need to add discriptions to the
Save Settings 00-09
memory0 -9
Locations.

Charles

Interesting concept Charles, how would you propose a user "scroll through them?" Some combination of keys held together?

- David

Perhaps add another Main (start) block as in page # 7 or 24.

Scroll (Select) Saved Charging Setups or whatever seems like a good description.

My point is the charger already knows battery chemistry, cell count ,charge rate,Balancing Option, termination voltage,etc. for each saved memory ,why should the user have to name them for identification purposes.


Surely in the 15 months or so these chargers have been out others have found naming Memories somewhat of a PITA.

Thoughts:

Smart chargers are wonderful as long as their operation / programing does not make the task of using them work.

My ideal Li charger would most likely have a Button (switch) to select battery type, one to select charge rate and one to select special options settings an increase and a decrease plus a start and a stop.. , Start would be Green and Stop would be Red.

Push Battery Type then scroll with inc / dec ,press charge rate then scroll with inc / dec. etc. It would be so simple that memory locations would not matter.

I am sure those who have used these chargers and only these chargers for some time find them very user friendly. My problem (issue) is that I use many different chargers and trying to remember which combination of buttons to push and which button takes you where is like trying to remember your way out of a maze like in the movie the Shinning. I do not want to navigate a maze I just want to charge some batteries.

Charles

Hello everyone,

Thank you for your participation to discuss the dealing way of several issues.

Originally Posted by everydayflyer

When a update Revision is made available provide imformation listing changes.

The latest 208B Rev. does what?

Is there a Rev. history file that is maintained somewhere? Can prevreious Rev. be reinstalled and if so are they available on-line?

The released upgrading file yesterday is only a beta version. When the official version comes out, there will be a detail Rev. history file.

Originally Posted by everydayflyer

Does installing Rev. clear / erase present memory setting?

We are regret if bringing you troubles. We will improve it in the next version, when the users do not want to clear/erase, it will switch the clearance to OFF.

Originally Posted by everydayflyer

Cell Pro 10 you do not set cell count at all. You set battery Type ,LiFe,LiIon,LiPo and you set charge rate. When you connect the balancing lead and power lead and press Start it reads the balancing leads ans sets cell count automaticly. There is no way to get it wrong uinless you connect a 3S balancing llead to a 4S LiPoly in which case it give you a voltage eroor as the total voltage from the balancing leads does not match the battery voltage reading from the power leads.

When balance charging, you can set cell count from 1-8s. Now after improvement, you can set cell count automatically.

Originally Posted by Hilde

Agree, and same as yours, with V309a my 1st cell is always lower?
Hilde

Our engineer will do some modification in the next version. I will inform you when new upgrading file comes out.

Originally Posted by saarisalo

C-D / D-C cycling - end state selection

One other wish from me would be to be able to select the end state for cycling charge. No matter if it was c-d or d-c cycle, I would like to set which state would the battery be left into: full, empty, storage. The default of course is that in c-d the charger would leave the battery empty and in d-c the battery is left full. In some cases however, I have missed the possibility to do a c-d cycle and a charge right after. Automating that would be helpful. Also having packs on on the shelve during winter, I would like to be able do a couple of cycles and leave them into storage state.

Thanks mikko for your input. We have read your post carefully, and want to collect more idea from others on end state selection.

Regards,
Junsi

We have read your post carefully, and want to collect more idea from others on end state selection.

Yes, I think this is indeed a good thing.
How about this: One can choose what to start with, what to end with, and how many charges should be performed. For example:
Start: Charge
End: Discharge
Charges: 2

Then the charger would charge->discharge->charge->discharge.

Or:

Start: Charge
End: charge
Charges: 3

Then the charger would charge->discharge->charge->discharge->charge.

But, while thinking about this, please to keep my suggestion in mind:

Nixx fitness program.
The forming charge already has made it easier to care about our packs.
But to be totally sure that a pack is healthy, one needs at least one discharge cycle to check the capacity. If one wants to fly again afterwards, one needs to charge again.
This whole process could be automated.
I suggest the following algorithm:

a) enter pack capacity and cell count as in forming charge mode.
b) the charger makes a forming charge.
c) The charger makes a discharge according to the programmed discharge parameters.
d) The charger charges according to the programmed charge parameters.
e) If the discharged capacity is less than 90% of the capacity entered in (a), (c) and (d) are repeated until the capacity increase between the individual discharges is less then 5% of the capacity entered in (a).

This way, when I have a pack lying around, and I want to fly next day, all I need to do is to activate the Nixx fitness program.
The pack will automatically be formed, discharged to check the capacity, and cycled, should the initial capcity not be sufficient. At the end, there is always the charge (d), so that I will always have a fully charged pack the next day, no matter what.
These are all steps that would normally require a lot of human interaction.

Originally Posted by everydayflyer
Does installing Rev. clear / erase present memory setting?

We are regret if bringing you troubles. We will improve it in the next version, when the users do not want to clear/erase, it will switch the clearance to OFF.

I do not understand. Why would anyone want all of their Settings erased by a firmware update? There is already a means to reset to factory defaults.

Most manufactures warn you that installing this Rev. will clear all presets or that a total reset to factory defaults will be necessary.

When balance charging, you can set cell count from 1-8s. Now after improvement, you can set cell count automatically.

V 309A (one posted yesterday .

When I connect a 3S ,4S or 5S Li battery it does not change cell count to match the actual number of cells.

Perhaps there is a misunderstanding here.



Cell IRs. personally I do not care about the accuracy of this in the iCharger, I merely posted my findings . It seems that with higher IR cells that it fairly accurate and with lower IR ones not so great. Some cells right but not others..I find it strange that last cell IR was wrong and after Rev. first cell IR is now wrong.


Charles

What is actually the physical precision in IR measurement? To me values like 3 and 4 start to sound something where more granularity would be needed. what about changing the reading from milli Ohms to micro Ohms when running down from, say 100 mOhm reading. (also 10s or 100s of micro Ohms would help.) For log files the units should rather stay the same throughout a log file, at least.

The difference from 3 to 4 is a 33%, which is coarse by any scale.

Of course if the physical measurement precision is already reached, more digits in the reading does not really help.

-mikko

(For me, showing the IR measurement is more on Nice-to-know category than on a list of a charger's Must-have features. But hey! I am a curious engineer and what's better than precise numbers and all possible data about your batteries!)

(

For me, showing the IR measurement is more on Nice-to-know category than on a list of a charger's Must-have features. But hey! I am a curious engineer and what's better than precise numbers and all possible data about your batteries!)

I agree up to a point however accurate IRs make it much easier to grade LiPolys and to quickly see which are true high C capable ones and which are merely grossly overrated.

I can determine the same by doing high C discharges on my test equipment but that also waste cycles which could have been flights. Some feel that IRs are important enough to be will to pay more than a token amount to have an accurate means of obtaining them. See post here Note that test a single cell only and only at one state of charge. IMO having extremely accurate IR readings provided as part of the charge cycle is fairly valuable. As I mentioned ,to me this feacture on the iCharger is of little improtance as I already have my standard device for such reading.

FYI : IRs of a Hyp. VX G3 2200 as measured by a CP10


Charge # 2 4.1 / 3.6 / 4.2
Charge # 50 3.5 / 2.9 / 3.2

Charge # 105 in progress on 208B and I will post results latter. I may also discharge it and charge on CP 10 to have comparison IRs.

208B Ver 3.09A charge completed
IRs 2 / 4 / 3

Discharged and charged on Cell Pro 10

At mid point of charge IRs 4.4 / 4.2 / 4.4

At end of charge IRs 4.1 / 3.7 / 3.9

Checked IR again on 208B 2 / 4 / 3

Charles

Originally Posted by everydayflyer

(

FYI : IRs of a Hyp. VX G3 2200 as measured by a CP10


Charge # 2 4.1 / 3.6 / 4.2
Charge # 50 3.5 / 2.9 / 3.2


Charles

From the above, I get the impression that IR may reduce as the number of charges increases, is that correct? or does the Charge# above mean something else?

Bulent

From the above, I get the impression that IR may reduce as the number of charges increases, is that correct?

Correct . I have preached taking it easy on new batteries for years now. Manufactures do not cycle / form new cells any more for the most part. I have posted many CBA graphs which clearly showed that quality LiPoly cells do in fact improve if not abused to early in life.

Not all LiPoly cells are created equally regardless of what some may believe. The new Hyperion G3 series along with the ThunderPower ProLite V2,Pro power 30 and ProPower 40 are the only ones I have seen that exhibit this level of improvement however.


Charles

That is an interesting fact, thanks for sharing. How should new batteries be formed or cycled then?

I have new Li Ions and nanophosphates (just in, not charged at home yet) to which I want to give the first charges. Probably 1C charging at first is in order, but how should I cycle them to get them in form?

Bulent

I have the 1010B charger and Love it. I have several battery packs that I have been charging in parallel two at one time. Now I am using the same two batterys in series for flying a T-rex 500. Do I need to start charging them in series as a 22.2v pack? I have 8 2200mah 20c zippys that IM using. Since I have been charging them in parallel do I need to stay that way or is it ok to charge in series? I will still be using them as 3s 2200mah packs as well.