we all need a good instructional vid just like this showing what to do when/if something goes bad. from a pack puffings up to what you should have near your charger to hell put it out. I've looked before and nobody has done a "what you should do" or " what you should have " style video, just loads of packs setting on fire and shakey camera footage of people's panic. great series guys! the top gear of quads!!
I'd make a point to plug in the paraboard into the charger first, before plugging the batteries into it. That way there's no chance of the exposed banana plugs shorting.
A Hitec 4X is an awesome charger with built in AC 200 watts under $200. Avoid all the complex voltage matching for parallel charging packs in series, and get a couple high quality computer controlled multi-chargers and you can balance charge multiple packs at the same time. Two $200 4X chargers are more logical and safer than one charger trying to parallel charge cells built in series. Li-pol cell internal resistance variances are far too risky when parallel charging cell packs in series.
PARALLEL CHARGING TIP: Before charging , connect your packs to the parallel board and allow them to sit for a bit. This will equalize the cells overall, making them close to equal state of charge before charging. The lower state cells will draw current from the higher state cells until they are equal. This way you do not end up with a pack that has undercharged. You still do not want to do this with packs at a significantly different state of charge, as high currents can flow from one pack to the other.
pid settings would be a really helpful video. im quite new to race quads and mine is set up fairly tame but would like some ideas to make it more aggresive for flips and rolls. thanks guys
How big a difference you can do depends on how hard you want to charge the lower cell. At 0.2V difference per cell, two 4S with per cell ir of 8mohm and a 10mohm par board will give: 0.8V/(74mohm) = 11A = a bit over 8C (for 1300). it's also not a current you want to push through the balance leads...
"Lower voltages here, higher voltages there (5:20) - Brilliant. I use a 306b and find myself having to do two separate charging sessions to take care of batteries were are at different charging states. Clever.
There's also no need to charge at 1C as implied by Steele, you can charge at less and parallel charging will still have the benefit that you set it all up once and when it's done you take the batteries and go fly. You don't need a charger that puts out many amps.
Thanks for the great video, parallel charging is such a benefit and contrary to some people's beliefs it does balance cells too. You should look at the 'Bump Controller' from Revolectrix. RFID tags on batteries and it handles all the math for charging singularly or parallel and keeps track of cycles, IR etc to help detect bad packs. After using it I am sold, and at the risk of sounding like a evangelist, it is the future of charging.
Aaaaaaaaand THIS is how you run a UA-cam channel the RIGHT way! I know for a fact these guys read their comments because they also comment on the videos. Also, they ACTUALLY LISTEN to their fan base! Stuff like this is why this channel and Flitetest are successful, in my opinion. Great job guys! Keep up the great work and videos! Tip of the hat to Chad Kapper. Seems like whatever he touches becomes UA-cam gold!
The iCharger 406Duo can actually handle input voltages from 10 to 30 VDC, so there is no need to worry about setting the power supply to exactly 12VDC as shown in the video.
+FPVQuadRacer yes I know this, if you even took a second to look at my channel, perhaps you would see I have the ability to tune. I'm only curious as to other people's methods, specifically these guys. Hence my question. It might reveal some things and insights others may over look. Insight into others methods is always good. Thanks for your thought out response, but ultimately it was unhelpful.
Gents FMA Direct Powerlabs charge in parallel and every cell gets monitored and balanced. Hence the same cell count packs at various states of charge are ok together... just takes more time for full balance. Just another option. Great info...Thanks.
If you are not in a rush to charge (read overnight) use a RadioLink CB86 Plus. chargers 8 batteries on the balance leads. Can be different cell voltage without having to check. Less time fluffing about with packs is more time to get other stuff ready for the next flight.
One major thing that was left out is letting your batteries equalize after you plug them but before you charge them. In my experience even with your cells .2 volts apart it takes a good 5 or 10 minutes for the higher volt pack to "charge" or equalize the lower voltage pack.
i agree with steel. when i'm charging at 1c the voltage only raises slightly from resting. so at .2v per cell, 4s pack, you cold have up to 0.8v of charge between batteries. i think that would charge a good quality low resistance lipo really fast.
Do not mess with lipo's! Use the storage mode wisely and let the lipo's cool down before recharging it on 1c max. And if you mark them, a notebook, thermometer and a stopwatch can be handy. Just for understanding what your battery does in different circumstances.
One other point I didn't see mentioned about parallel charging, DO NOT plug packs into the paraboard before plugging the banana ends into your charger. The bananas are hot with a pack attached to the paraboard.
I say use the 406Duo and pair up four Joshua Bardwell V2 balance boards in parallel, two on each channel to do 40 batteries at once using a XT60 splitter and ProgressiveRC balance lead splitters. That's what I'm doing and I'm able to charge a TON of batteries. Obviously, check your batteries before charging them. I put mine from lowest voltage packs to highest charged packs to let them balance themselves out, then let them sit for a few minutes. After a few minutes I run them at around 1C to 1.5C depending on the situation. I run 1300 4s and 850 4s packs. Those boards work great!
Perfect timing... I'm fairly new to these Lipo batteries and have never charged my batteries in parallel but I'm reading and watching to learn how. So, here's how my first attempt went. Tell me if this was bad, wrong, or alright... I was a bit nervous so I connect my six 3s's to my board (board not connected to a charger) My first thought is that I really need to baby sit this... so thinking ahead I didn't have time that night I waited until the morning... remember the batteries are still connected to the parallel board. In the morning just before connecting to the charger, I wanted to check the volts of each just to make sure they were within voltage range of each other for a safe charge. When I pulled the 6 batteries off the board and check their volts they were all equal. I guess by connecting them to the board the ones that were low came up and the ones that were just a bit high went down. Was that a bad thing to leave the 6 battery's connected to the board over night?
Man you guys are awesome, you inspired me to spend $1900 on some amazing equipment and now I am absolutely loving it. Keep doing what you're doing cause you're doing it RIGHT
Thanks a lot for the video guys! Put my order in for a 1200W supply and icharger 406Duo. Glad I watched this and Steele's video on charging gear. Almost went with a pos SkyRc B6AC V2. Found out that won't do exactly what I want. Rather buy for what I want and need instead of buying a second time later.
At best, connect your cells with the lowest voltage first. This way, when you're plugging in the higher voltage packs, these take the high discharge (up to 10 A for a few seconds at Joshua Bardwell) and the charge is spread between the already connected packs. The battery can easily withstand a 10 A discharge, but you don't want to give it a 10A charge by plugging in the lowest pack last. (Likely it won't hurt the pack, but better be sure)
Thanks for a good show guys! I like my iCharger 406 alot and wanted to say that it accept an DC input voltage of 10 all the way to 30 V. I parallel-charge my car-lipos, it feels like a good way. Better to charge two batteries at 1C for one hour than charge them at 2C for 2 x 30 minutes if charged separately at the same total time.
Yeah my Hyperion charger comes up with weird errors at 12 volts that disappear at 14 volts. So a pure 12 volts isn't written in stone. A car battery is actually around 14 volts so if that were true you couldn't charge your batteries from a car.
+Kurtis Towery Hi! I do not really understand what you are trying to say, but I have tried 12v on my 406 with no problems, and I was only talking about what DC input the iCharger 406 can handle, no other models or brands, thanks :)
Awesome video guys (you made my lunch break!), keep them coming. Still waiting (patiently) for a Mr. Steele LOS PID tuning video, or maybe a series of videos on how each Rotor Riot Pilot tunes their PIDs Thanks again for both comedy and information (I could watch you guys all day)
I think I speak for alot of people when I say that a video addressing PID:s and what too look for especially in fpv racing and freestyle would be very appreciated! Nice video by the way :)
This video just put me off parallel charging.. Too much chance of messing up and I smoke weed occasionally so I will mess it up. I'll stick to using my 4x100w charger.
+thomas de koster i don't think so ... he said he was going through 2 thirds of them in one session... by the time he was done he didn't have a quad to fly:))
+Reuben Horner Most of the time I'm travelling or sometimes walking a long way to get to the location so on field charging is not an option. Plus it's extra things to carry with you so I don't do it.
One item that needs to be covered is ESC settings there are loads of videos on flashing the firmware but none on motor response timing and damping for quad setups and what you do find are opposite of settings of each other. Would be nice to know how you set yours up and why
+meangenecsc None of us use BLHeli. Myself and steele personally hate BHeli and really don't ever want to touch it again. I don't understand why you nned to have to change all those features when there are better esc's out there that adjust those features automatically for you.
The iCharger range of chargers are brilliant and very accurate at balancing, something that is worth paying extra for. Buy cheap, more often than not buy twice! The IR and ability to cycle new packs to break them in is nice too :-) I use a 406 and often parallel charge multiple 6S heli packs using it. One thing to note is that when you start pulling higher amps, it may be worth increasing your input/PSU voltage. The higher the input voltage the more efficient/less amps the charger will draw, so 24-25V is probably worth considering. Quad packs are quite small though so 12V may be enough :-) I use 2x HP 600W server PSU's linked for 24-25V. I also use an old iCharger 206b... still a good charger (20A output) and handy for hooking up to the running car to charge! :-) When linking server PSU's, you need to be careful with grounding of the PSU's... plenty of forum posts available about modding various different server PSU models too! :-)
+stualoo P.S. great job on the videos! I am relatively new to FPV racing quads and loving it as a rest from 3D helis :-) One thing I want to know a bit more about is PID tuning and getting the quad on rails :-)
I've been really enjoying your videos -- many thanks. I would be really interested in seeing a future video going over an idle up switch for the Taranis / Kiss FC that Chad has talked about on a couple of occasions. Thanks again, and looking forward to seeing more videos!
+Stephen Gibb I'm fine with a couple of days but this is all personal preference. The longer you leave a battery charged the worse it is for it long term.
I personally do think total pack voltage is irrelevant... match the cells fairly closely, but even that's really not something we need to worry about with the new batches of Graphene high C charge batteries. I'd love some actual testing, Grab a full pack and a discharged pack and throw them together... I'd be curious to know if it does warm up.
Some great tips there . Stabbing bad batteries seems to be a very effective way of discharging them quickly. Good technique too. B-) lighten up Steele. Have a little fun.
Can you guys do a video about PID tuning to get the best performance out of your quad? Could you also try to explain it as simply as possible so a newbie like me can understand. Love your show, Owen
Man i love my 406 duo, probably more than i should but hey. This charger will work fine on 12vdc but to get the best of it you need an input voltage of 25vdc. you notice a difference in balancing time with this voltage too. I charge 10x 6s 5000mah packs at 1C in 40 mins with this little fella. POWER!.
Thank you for all the safety tips. I don't want to burn up any of my LiPo's, or worse, burn down my house. I now realize that if you don't have a way to measure battery voltage, you shouldn't be parallel charging.
Great video on parallel charging. One question when making the connections. Which leads should be connected first, the main leads or the balance leads? I would think it would be the main leads since these thicker gauge wires should theoretically be able to handle voltage equalization better than the thinner gauge balance wires, but this is conjecture on my part.
I have bad experience with parallel charging. I charged 2s battery and forgot to pull out wires from distribution bord, then connect 3s battery. I got fire in 1 minute. It was terrible. DO NOT CHARGE battery with different count of cells. But now I now I can charge 6 batteries in parallel mode and all is fine.
I have a question, how bad is it in batteries if you store them out in an unheated building in the winter. I'm in NC so the coldest temp we would ever see is like 0 degrees F.
Sky rc 1400w 30a duo 2 channels of 30 amps and 1400watts (700watts per channel) does everything the I charger does for half the price, been using it for a year now best charger I've had, and you can plug it into your px and go even deeper
I have 1 maybe 2 questions. Steele was talking about cell voltage something along the lines of if you have a 15v cell and a 17v cell. The lower voltage cell will take more abuse. So here's my question/s is Steele talking about the cells in the battery pack or is he calling the battery pack the cell? If the first is what he is talking about, then how do we measure each cells voltage?
+FinalGlideAus oh awesome, i might have missed a part in the video. Apparently now i have some old PSUs that i otherwise would not have ever used. good video, thanks
+Michael Schmidt They're great batteries and definitely worth the wait. I pre-order mine, and they are good about getting them out more quickly than you would expect.
+Michael Schmidt They just ran out of them the other day I'd have to think. They had them in stock a few weeks back when I was thinking about getting some 4S packs. I'm guessing more people learned about them recently. I learned about them just a few months ago from a helpful review done by RC Devotee. Running some of their 3S packs and they seem great. Especially like the price for what you get in comparison to some other brands. Have a few Graphenes too, but I'm too new at all of this to say which is better.
Can you please show us how you hooked up the 12 volt output on the HP DPS-1200FB power supply? I got one, thinking they would have some kind of obvious place to plug into. It doesn't. Thank you.
Hey guys thanks for all the videos I'm new to quads and I'm having a blast! I was wondering though how/where can I get my hands on some Rotor Riot stickers?
+joost xboxsweg - I see... What about the case where all the cells are above the minimum, but there is a significant difference between the volts on each? Is there any specific amount of voltage difference that would prompt you to balance charge the pack?
We are currently providing customised Lithium Battery packs in India , We recently had an enquiry about providing two battery packs of same voltage but of different capacity for a bike , SO i wanted to know the can we provide that ? If yes then how shall the batteries be connected to each other to give the power and also how can we ensure safety
I believe that Mr Steele is incorrect. It does not charge 1 cell more than another.. It charges them all, and than only discharges the cells that are higher. This is why it takes longer to balance charge because the charger will keep charging, and than discharging to keep everything balanced.
The link you provided for the instructions how to modify the power supply goes into using two of them to do 24V do you need to do that for the charger that you were using?
+Jonathan Wolff Only if you want to use the full power of the charger. with one PSU you have 50a available. Two PSU's give 100a but that is not really needed if only charging smaller size packs
How about a video about a charger where we don't have to find and modify our own custom power supply... Most people just need a charger they can plug in the wall and works well. So this might be the "BEST" solution but it's definitely by far not the simplest or most convenient... Something like the hitec X4 plugs into the wall and charges 4 batteries at a time. Very convenient and costs under $200 (power supply included) Other than that great videos :-)
I would love to see an episode on learning expert mode (no self level) I'm currently flying in sport mode which still utilizes auto level but I want to take the next step and start learning how to fly without it, bit I don't k ow where to start....love the show , keep the episodes coming!
At minute 1:26 you say we have to charge our batteries at least 1C. I know it will take more time to charge the batteries but Is it dangerous to charge at LESS than 1C? Thanks.
Documentales Tv not at all, it is probably safer, so if you have the time you could always charge at half c. It probably isn't worth it though as it won't add a noticeable amount of cycles to the pack.
How do you guys run your packs in? And also cycle charging I know it's not when your riding your bike home for the shop what is it and what's it purpose? Keep em coming guys:)
I am new and have spent all my money on the quad and goggles, is there a cheaper charging option so i can get up and start flying until i can afford a better charger. thank!
Good to know. I was under the impression that I had to be within .01/cel when parallel charging... so for a 4 cell lipo I would be looking for a .04 variance. I don't know where I heard it, but now that I know it's .2/pack... I'll be charging a lot more batteries together. =D
+Mikey “JellyLegs” Richard I don't believe there is a hard and fast rule there. The further out the cells are the harder it will be on your packs so try to get them as close as possible
+FinalGlideAus Ohms law is a pretty hard and fast rule... V=IR. When you plug the second pack into the board the current will flow from the higher voltage pack to the lower voltage pack. Internal resistance of each pack is ~25mOhms so call it 50mOhms for the two packs (the IR is essentially in series for two packs in parallel). What current will flow? 1. 0.1V/Pack: I=0.1/0.05=2A (about 2C for a 1000mAh pack) 2. 0.2V/Pack: 4A 3. 0.1V/Cell (4S) = 0.4V/Pack: 8A 4. 0.2V/Cell (4S) = 0.8V/Pack: 16A So for a brief moment in time, Chad is charging the lower voltage pack at 16C (or possibly higher with multiple packs), while Steele is charging it at 4C. Personally I group them into 0.1V ranges. If there are some that are slightly out, charge the lower packs partially until they're within 0.1 of the higher packs and then stop the charge, add the higher packs and restart (you can now adjust the Amps to cater for the additional packs you've added to bring your charge rate back up to 1C)
can you show us how to tuning PID
Make a PID tuning video, BUT, make it the best there is! It can't be shorter then an hour.
Yes also we need a pid setup
+bauke-jan fenestra I agree a PID video would be great but an hour is just way too long
+bauke-jan feenstra I am guessing it involves some form of magic
I fear this topic. I am horrible with math. Do you know what P. I. D. stands for???? :(
proportional-integral-derivative
Big one - how do you tune PIDs and choose rates & expos?
we all need a good instructional vid just like this showing what to do when/if something goes bad. from a pack puffings up to what you should have near your charger to hell put it out. I've looked before and nobody has done a "what you should do" or " what you should have " style video, just loads of packs setting on fire and shakey camera footage of people's panic. great series guys! the top gear of quads!!
I'd make a point to plug in the paraboard into the charger first, before plugging the batteries into it. That way there's no chance of the exposed banana plugs shorting.
Guys, can you do the diffetential of Freestyle PID and Race PID?
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A Hitec 4X is an awesome charger with built in AC 200 watts under $200. Avoid all the complex voltage matching for parallel charging packs in series, and get a couple high quality computer controlled multi-chargers and you can balance charge multiple packs at the same time. Two $200 4X chargers are more logical and safer than one charger trying to parallel charge cells built in series. Li-pol cell internal resistance variances are far too risky when parallel charging cell packs in series.
MIA Micro-FLIGHT this is a good point, or you could buy that charger and parallel charger multiple batteries from every 4 ports haha.
PARALLEL CHARGING TIP: Before charging , connect your packs to the parallel board and allow them to sit for a bit. This will equalize the cells overall, making them close to equal state of charge before charging. The lower state cells will draw current from the higher state cells until they are equal. This way you do not end up with a pack that has undercharged. You still do not want to do this with packs at a significantly different state of charge, as high currents can flow from one pack to the other.
+ArionRaine Ohm's law!
How long is "allow them to sit for a bit"? 10 seconds? 1 minute? 2 minutes?
John Hamel I wait a minute
Thats an interesting point, I tell everyone NOT to charge this way just because of a possible partially unbalanced cell in the chain.
Thank you someone who knows what they're talking about
pid settings would be a really helpful video. im quite new to race quads and mine is set up fairly tame but would like some ideas to make it more aggresive for flips and rolls. thanks guys
Lol, I said diode. I meant resistor :)
What connectors are you using to plug the icharger into the power supply? Just got the same setup.
+Bennett Tomlinson I just used the cable that came with the iCharger and soldered the lead to the back of the PSU
+FinalGlideAus Got it. Many thanks.
FinalGlideAus
What kind of diode does it use and where can I find one?
How big a difference you can do depends on how hard you want to charge the lower cell. At 0.2V difference per cell, two 4S with per cell ir of 8mohm and a 10mohm par board will give:
0.8V/(74mohm) = 11A = a bit over 8C (for 1300).
it's also not a current you want to push through the balance leads...
if you have batts with different voltages can you do a group discharge and then recharge all on balance charge?
"Lower voltages here, higher voltages there (5:20) - Brilliant. I use a 306b and find myself having to do two separate charging sessions to take care of batteries were are at different charging states. Clever.
input voltage range for that charger is 10 - 30vdc. There is no need at all for the power supply to put out exactly 12vdc!
There's also no need to charge at 1C as implied by Steele, you can charge at less and parallel charging will still have the benefit that you set it all up once and when it's done you take the batteries and go fly. You don't need a charger that puts out many amps.
Thanks for the great video, parallel charging is such a benefit and contrary to some people's beliefs it does balance cells too. You should look at the 'Bump Controller' from Revolectrix. RFID tags on batteries and it handles all the math for charging singularly or parallel and keeps track of cycles, IR etc to help detect bad packs. After using it I am sold, and at the risk of sounding like a evangelist, it is the future of charging.
Aaaaaaaaand THIS is how you run a UA-cam channel the RIGHT way! I know for a fact these guys read their comments because they also comment on the videos. Also, they ACTUALLY LISTEN to their fan base! Stuff like this is why this channel and Flitetest are successful, in my opinion. Great job guys! Keep up the great work and videos! Tip of the hat to Chad Kapper. Seems like whatever he touches becomes UA-cam gold!
+Raycefan Thanks mate, we are trying our hardest. After all we can only succeed because of you guys.
The iCharger 406Duo can actually handle input voltages from 10 to 30 VDC, so there is no need to worry about setting the power supply to exactly 12VDC as shown in the video.
How you guys individually go about tuning PIDS would be nice to know.
+FPVQuadRacer yes I know this, if you even took a second to look at my channel, perhaps you would see I have the ability to tune. I'm only curious as to other people's methods, specifically these guys. Hence my question. It might reveal some things and insights others may over look. Insight into others methods is always good. Thanks for your thought out response, but ultimately it was unhelpful.
Jaren Morris dude I. Reading your comment and they just put out a video 3 guys tune the same quad......apparently you had to wait 3 years
Gents FMA Direct Powerlabs charge in parallel and every cell gets monitored and balanced. Hence the same cell count packs at various states of charge are ok together... just takes more time for full balance. Just another option. Great info...Thanks.
If you are not in a rush to charge (read overnight) use a RadioLink CB86 Plus. chargers 8 batteries on the balance leads. Can be different cell voltage without having to check. Less time fluffing about with packs is more time to get other stuff ready for the next flight.
Great video guys. Any chance of a PID tuning video?
Awesome. I've been charging parallel a while and had no idea of the 0.2voltage thing. Glad I do now...
One major thing that was left out is letting your batteries equalize after you plug them but before you charge them. In my experience even with your cells .2 volts apart it takes a good 5 or 10 minutes for the higher volt pack to "charge" or equalize the lower voltage pack.
i agree with steel. when i'm charging at 1c the voltage only raises slightly from resting. so at .2v per cell, 4s pack, you cold have up to 0.8v of charge between batteries. i think that would charge a good quality low resistance lipo really fast.
Do not mess with lipo's! Use the storage mode wisely and let the lipo's cool down before recharging it on 1c max. And if you mark them, a notebook, thermometer and a stopwatch can be handy. Just for understanding what your battery does in different circumstances.
One other point I didn't see mentioned about parallel charging, DO NOT plug packs into the paraboard before plugging the banana ends into your charger. The bananas are hot with a pack attached to the paraboard.
+drewracer321 Also, plug in XT60 before balance lead.
Hey thanks very much for what you guys do, this really helps put some context and perspective to what we are all reading on forums.
I say use the 406Duo and pair up four Joshua Bardwell V2 balance boards in parallel, two on each channel to do 40 batteries at once using a XT60 splitter and ProgressiveRC balance lead splitters. That's what I'm doing and I'm able to charge a TON of batteries. Obviously, check your batteries before charging them. I put mine from lowest voltage packs to highest charged packs to let them balance themselves out, then let them sit for a few minutes.
After a few minutes I run them at around 1C to 1.5C depending on the situation. I run 1300 4s and 850 4s packs. Those boards work great!
There's David Windestal. I miss your presence on Flite Test.
Perfect timing... I'm fairly new to these Lipo batteries and have never charged my batteries in parallel but I'm reading and watching to learn how. So, here's how my first attempt went. Tell me if this was bad, wrong, or alright... I was a bit nervous so I connect my six 3s's to my board (board not connected to a charger) My first thought is that I really need to baby sit this... so thinking ahead I didn't have time that night I waited until the morning... remember the batteries are still connected to the parallel board. In the morning just before connecting to the charger, I wanted to check the volts of each just to make sure they were within voltage range of each other for a safe charge. When I pulled the 6 batteries off the board and check their volts they were all equal. I guess by connecting them to the board the ones that were low came up and the ones that were just a bit high went down.
Was that a bad thing to leave the 6 battery's connected to the board over night?
Man you guys are awesome, you inspired me to spend $1900 on some amazing equipment and now I am absolutely loving it. Keep doing what you're doing cause you're doing it RIGHT
Thanks a lot for the video guys! Put my order in for a 1200W supply and icharger 406Duo. Glad I watched this and Steele's video on charging gear. Almost went with a pos SkyRc B6AC V2. Found out that won't do exactly what I want. Rather buy for what I want and need instead of buying a second time later.
You guys do a killer job together!! Please keep up the great work/videos.
At best, connect your cells with the lowest voltage first. This way, when you're plugging in the higher voltage packs, these take the high discharge (up to 10 A for a few seconds at Joshua Bardwell) and the charge is spread between the already connected packs.
The battery can easily withstand a 10 A discharge, but you don't want to give it a 10A charge by plugging in the lowest pack last. (Likely it won't hurt the pack, but better be sure)
Hey that's me! Ciao Mamma!!!
please do a video on tuning PID's
+Alex Polakis Yes please.. Especially on the new KISS FC
Thanks for a good show guys! I like my iCharger 406 alot and wanted to say that it accept an DC input voltage of 10 all the way to 30 V. I parallel-charge my car-lipos, it feels like a good way. Better to charge two batteries at 1C for one hour than charge them at 2C for 2 x 30 minutes if charged separately at the same total time.
Yeah my Hyperion charger comes up with weird errors at 12 volts that disappear at 14 volts. So a pure 12 volts isn't written in stone. A car battery is actually around 14 volts so if that were true you couldn't charge your batteries from a car.
+Kurtis Towery Hi! I do not really understand what you are trying to say, but I have tried 12v on my 406 with no problems, and I was only talking about what DC input the iCharger 406 can handle, no other models or brands, thanks :)
I'm just saying you don't particularly have to have strictly 12 volts.
Yepp thats the same thing I am saying (10-30V is ok for my charger) :)
Awesome video guys (you made my lunch break!), keep them coming.
Still waiting (patiently) for a Mr. Steele LOS PID tuning video, or maybe a series of videos on how each Rotor Riot Pilot tunes their PIDs
Thanks again for both comedy and information (I could watch you guys all day)
I think I speak for alot of people when I say that a video addressing PID:s and what too look for especially in fpv racing and freestyle would be very appreciated! Nice video by the way :)
Thanks for posting this very insightful video guys!
Great episode guys !
This was a handy coincident as I just bought a parallel charger. nice work guys
Love the look and editing!
This video just put me off parallel charging.. Too much chance of messing up and I smoke weed occasionally so I will mess it up. I'll stick to using my 4x100w charger.
love this reply
Second, I also love this reply. Parallel charging seems so dangerous with barely a benefit.
When you guys go flying, how many batteries do you bring?
+thomas de koster i don't think so ... he said he was going through 2 thirds of them in one session... by the time he was done he didn't have a quad to fly:))
+vissago 24 packs is what I take to a big flying afternoon.
+FinalGlideAus Do you field charge or just bring the explosives and once they are done that's it
+Reuben Horner Most of the time I'm travelling or sometimes walking a long way to get to the location so on field charging is not an option. Plus it's extra things to carry with you so I don't do it.
FinalGlideAus Ah i see. Cause i don't have such a stack of batteries and i usually drive to wherever i usually charge while flying
Thats a nice explanation, thank you. I was toying with the idea of asking for that and also how do you guys travel (drive and fly) with your LiPos?
One item that needs to be covered is ESC settings there are loads of videos on flashing the firmware but none on motor response timing and damping for quad setups and what you do find are opposite of settings of each other. Would be nice to know how you set yours up and why
+meangenecsc None of us use BLHeli. Myself and steele personally hate BHeli and really don't ever want to touch it again. I don't understand why you nned to have to change all those features when there are better esc's out there that adjust those features automatically for you.
The iCharger range of chargers are brilliant and very accurate at balancing, something that is worth paying extra for. Buy cheap, more often than not buy twice! The IR and ability to cycle new packs to break them in is nice too :-) I use a 406 and often parallel charge multiple 6S heli packs using it. One thing to note is that when you start pulling higher amps, it may be worth increasing your input/PSU voltage. The higher the input voltage the more efficient/less amps the charger will draw, so 24-25V is probably worth considering. Quad packs are quite small though so 12V may be enough :-) I use 2x HP 600W server PSU's linked for 24-25V. I also use an old iCharger 206b... still a good charger (20A output) and handy for hooking up to the running car to charge! :-) When linking server PSU's, you need to be careful with grounding of the PSU's... plenty of forum posts available about modding various different server PSU models too! :-)
+stualoo P.S. great job on the videos! I am relatively new to FPV racing quads and loving it as a rest from 3D helis :-) One thing I want to know a bit more about is PID tuning and getting the quad on rails :-)
I've been really enjoying your videos -- many thanks. I would be really interested in seeing a future video going over an idle up switch for the Taranis / Kiss FC that Chad has talked about on a couple of occasions. Thanks again, and looking forward to seeing more videos!
How far ahead of time do you guys mind charging your packs would you ever store charged packs overnight or are you charge then fly kind of guys?
+Stephen Gibb I'm fine with a couple of days but this is all personal preference. The longer you leave a battery charged the worse it is for it long term.
I personally do think total pack voltage is irrelevant... match the cells fairly closely, but even that's really not something we need to worry about with the new batches of Graphene high C charge batteries. I'd love some actual testing, Grab a full pack and a discharged pack and throw them together... I'd be curious to know if it does warm up.
Some great tips there .
Stabbing bad batteries seems to be a very effective way of discharging them quickly. Good technique too. B-)
lighten up Steele. Have a little fun.
Can you guys do a video about PID tuning to get the best performance out of your quad? Could you also try to explain it as simply as possible so a newbie like me can understand.
Love your show, Owen
Man i love my 406 duo, probably more than i should but hey.
This charger will work fine on 12vdc but to get the best of it you need an input voltage of 25vdc. you notice a difference in balancing time with this voltage too. I charge 10x 6s 5000mah packs at 1C in 40 mins with this little fella. POWER!.
Thank you for all the safety tips. I don't want to burn up any of my LiPo's, or worse, burn down my house. I now realize that if you don't have a way to measure battery voltage, you shouldn't be parallel charging.
Great video on parallel charging. One question when making the connections. Which leads should be connected first, the main leads or the balance leads? I would think it would be the main leads since these thicker gauge wires should theoretically be able to handle voltage equalization better than the thinner gauge balance wires, but this is conjecture on my part.
Another helpful video thanks guys. Could you please please please do a video on the setting for the HS1177 cam......keep up the great work....
This was super helpful!
I have bad experience with parallel charging. I charged 2s battery and forgot to pull out wires from distribution bord, then connect 3s battery. I got fire in 1 minute. It was terrible. DO NOT CHARGE battery with different count of cells. But now I now I can charge 6 batteries in parallel mode and all is fine.
I have a question, how bad is it in batteries if you store them out in an unheated building in the winter. I'm in NC so the coldest temp we would ever see is like 0 degrees F.
I agree more with Chad that all cells in all packs vs each pack itself should be within 1-2v for safe Parallel Charging. That's how I charge too.
I would love to see your guys opinion about some fpv simulators, maybe an idea for a new video?
Is there any way to prepare the batteries for parrarell charging ? To make the voltage even? Storage charging ?
Sky rc 1400w 30a duo 2 channels of 30 amps and 1400watts (700watts per channel) does everything the I charger does for half the price, been using it for a year now best charger I've had, and you can plug it into your px and go even deeper
What about the number of blades on a propeller? What's better, 2 or 3? Maybe even 4 blades because the quad in the background had that many.
In depth tuning video would be great, I wanna hear from you guys when to add or remove say P or "this is a sign of a low I" etc
Would you recommend parallel charge 1300 and 1500? What should be the charging amperage?
I have 1 maybe 2 questions. Steele was talking about cell voltage something along the lines of if you have a 15v cell and a 17v cell. The lower voltage cell will take more abuse.
So here's my question/s is Steele talking about the cells in the battery pack or is he calling the battery pack the cell? If the first is what he is talking about, then how do we measure each cells voltage?
The fuses offer no protection at all against problems at the balance connectors, only the main outputs.
I would love to see the guys do challenges against each other including the swede! :D
no matter what, just flying being fun to watch!
Haha "I love singular sleeps". Very helpful video. Thanks guys.
Thanks for the video. How low (voltage) do you let your batteries get during a flight?What is your average flight time with a 1300?
Good information as always thank you guys.
one thing to check for PSUs are if they have a physical switch. some don't and you have to hook a button up to the wire that toggles power
+Ty Lloyd The PSU in the video has no switch. Once you add the resistor they turn on when you add power.
+FinalGlideAus oh awesome, i might have missed a part in the video. Apparently now i have some old PSUs that i otherwise would not have ever used. good video, thanks
Steele's SMC batteries are pre order only and not available. From what I read they look awesome and the price is right.
+Michael Schmidt They're great batteries and definitely worth the wait. I pre-order mine, and they are good about getting them out more quickly than you would expect.
+Michael Schmidt They just ran out of them the other day I'd have to think. They had them in stock a few weeks back when I was thinking about getting some 4S packs. I'm guessing more people learned about them recently. I learned about them just a few months ago from a helpful review done by RC Devotee. Running some of their 3S packs and they seem great. Especially like the price for what you get in comparison to some other brands. Have a few Graphenes too, but I'm too new at all of this to say which is better.
Can you please show us how you hooked up the 12 volt output on the HP DPS-1200FB power supply? I got one, thinking they would have some kind of obvious place to plug into. It doesn't.
Thank you.
Sorry, I just found the page about hooking up the power supply. Thanks for that!
hey thanks for the video was just wondering connectors you use for power and the size cables you use for the power supply. thanks¡
Hey guys thanks for all the videos I'm new to quads and I'm having a blast! I was wondering though how/where can I get my hands on some Rotor Riot stickers?
When do you consider a pack to be out of balance (at what voltage difference)?
How often do you suggest to balance charge?
+joost xboxsweg - I see... What about the case where all the cells are above the minimum, but there is a significant difference between the volts on each? Is there any specific amount of voltage difference that would prompt you to balance charge the pack?
+joost xboxsweg okay thank you
We are currently providing customised Lithium Battery packs in India , We recently had an enquiry about providing two battery packs of same voltage but of different capacity for a bike , SO i wanted to know the can we provide that ? If yes then how shall the batteries be connected to each other to give the power and also how can we ensure safety
I believe that Mr Steele is incorrect. It does not charge 1 cell more than another.. It charges them all, and than only discharges the cells that are higher. This is why it takes longer to balance charge because the charger will keep charging, and than discharging to keep everything balanced.
The link you provided for the instructions how to modify the power supply goes into using two of them to do 24V do you need to do that for the charger that you were using?
+Jonathan Wolff Only if you want to use the full power of the charger. with one PSU you have 50a available. Two PSU's give 100a but that is not really needed if only charging smaller size packs
finally i think i get it! thanks guys!
Video starts at 8:55, you're welcome :)
I would like to see a review on Turnigy Graphene lipos. I brought some and I really like them
+planesofpaper I have an idea for a battery episode to do soon.
That was very good guy, nice one👍
PID tuning series from you guys would be mega..
Please send/add a link for the parallel board.
How about a video about a charger where we don't have to find and modify our own custom power supply... Most people just need a charger they can plug in the wall and works well. So this might be the "BEST" solution but it's definitely by far not the simplest or most convenient... Something like the hitec X4 plugs into the wall and charges 4 batteries at a time. Very convenient and costs under $200 (power supply included) Other than that great videos :-)
I would love to see an episode on learning expert mode (no self level) I'm currently flying in sport mode which still utilizes auto level but I want to take the next step and start learning how to fly without it, bit I don't k ow where to start....love the show , keep the episodes coming!
At minute 1:26 you say we have to charge our batteries at least 1C.
I know it will take more time to charge the batteries but Is it dangerous to charge at LESS than 1C?
Thanks.
Documentales Tv not at all, it is probably safer, so if you have the time you could always charge at half c. It probably isn't worth it though as it won't add a noticeable amount of cycles to the pack.
“I love singular sleeps” Fantastic ;)
Can you parallel discharge or cycle multiple batteries using the Para board?
How do you guys run your packs in? And also cycle charging I know it's not when your riding your bike home for the shop what is it and what's it purpose? Keep em coming guys:)
Should i always balace when parallel charging or regular charging will work?
7:00 yep, Steele is right sorry chad. The total voltage is what matters unless you plug balance leads in only.
So for 4s Lipos overall voltage difference would be maximum 0.8V to be safe to charge them together ?
I am new and have spent all my money on the quad and goggles, is there a cheaper charging option so i can get up and start flying until i can afford a better charger. thank!
can you make a video on preparing the PS so we get the proper 12V output?
is there an updated link to how to setup the HP power supply. The link posted is dead.
Good to know. I was under the impression that I had to be within .01/cel when parallel charging... so for a 4 cell lipo I would be looking for a .04 variance. I don't know where I heard it, but now that I know it's .2/pack... I'll be charging a lot more batteries together. =D
+Mikey “JellyLegs” Richard I don't believe there is a hard and fast rule there. The further out the cells are the harder it will be on your packs so try to get them as close as possible
+FinalGlideAus Ohms law is a pretty hard and fast rule... V=IR. When you plug the second pack into the board the current will flow from the higher voltage pack to the lower voltage pack. Internal resistance of each pack is ~25mOhms so call it 50mOhms for the two packs (the IR is essentially in series for two packs in parallel). What current will flow?
1. 0.1V/Pack: I=0.1/0.05=2A (about 2C for a 1000mAh pack)
2. 0.2V/Pack: 4A
3. 0.1V/Cell (4S) = 0.4V/Pack: 8A
4. 0.2V/Cell (4S) = 0.8V/Pack: 16A
So for a brief moment in time, Chad is charging the lower voltage pack at 16C (or possibly higher with multiple packs), while Steele is charging it at 4C.
Personally I group them into 0.1V ranges. If there are some that are slightly out, charge the lower packs partially until they're within 0.1 of the higher packs and then stop the charge, add the higher packs and restart (you can now adjust the Amps to cater for the additional packs you've added to bring your charge rate back up to 1C)