Andy haha. I guess my concern is in the hassle of switching batteries on and off the charger while on location, every 25 minutes. Constantly having to remind myself. At most I was hoping to run 2 8,000s per channel @ 10 amps. Come back to the charger every 45 minutes or so.
Andy, what about those pesty QC1200s. Would it be safe to hook up 4 or 6 of those at a time > They're powering my passport and my gimbal. I go through them like hotcakes. So voltages will be all over the place....
Zach, I replaced my gimbal and Passport power with a Thunder Power 2250 for that very reason its slightly heavier but it works
If the parallel board will workout, I wouldn't mind using them. The internal resistance is a scare though when hooking them all up to each other before charging.
Nick if you do a second Hyperion you should probably do a second eFuel. Single eFuel is only 60amps (in the best of times) advertised output.
Sure. For the smaller capacity batteries, paracharging seems to make sense -- with the caveat that it's harder to ensure that gimbal batteries are with 0.1V of each other before you paracharge them. Andy.
Do I need to make sure my batteries are within 0.1v before paracharging them Andy? Sorry I'm confused.
Zach this is a pretty good article to give you some guidance http://www.rchelicopterfun.com/parallel-lipo-charging.html
That seems to be the conventional and alleged wisdom amongst the select few that practice the art of paracharging. The issue is really one of figuring out the in-rush current. If you imaging connecting the sixth battery up, the resistance of the other five in parallel (assuming 38 millohms each) is only 0.0076 ohms. So imagine that the sixth battery you connect up is 0.2V higher than all the others. Using that nice Mr. Ohm's formula, that's going to yield an in-rush current of 26 Amps until the batteries have equilibrated. Not much by flight battery standards, but you can see how it might cause problems for balance leads that suddenly decide they're going to act as a one-time fuse. As always I defer to Those That Know These Things (e.g. EE gurus), but the above is how I calculated things and started to fret. Andy.
I read the page Gary linked. I doesn't sound like it would save you any time charging each battery after use to a specific volt so they're all 0.1v apart to begin paracharging them as a group.
"They can also be at different states of discharge - again within reason. You wouldn't want to try and parallel charge a pack that was 5% discharged with one that was 50% discharged for example." In my application, I most likely will be charging 2 QC8000s per channel at 10 amps each. My guess is that I can balance check each one and group them for example, these are 10-20%, these are 20-30%. - Note: I am not flying in parallel.
I purchased the parralell board simply to charge two packs per channel only when the two packs have been on the bird for the same flight. So I can charge 4 packs at a time, lets me keep the C rate down while charging 5000mah packs quickly
Hey Andy -- I just got my ProgressiveRC boards. Only problem, can't get the balance lead from the Hyperion to match the board. I purchased the "iCharger 106B+/206B/306B" version. The site mentions: "you'll be able to plug in to the 6S slot of your JST-XH balance board." Not sure how it works ): My hyperion balance cable doesn't fit.
Zach you plug the balance lead from the Progressive board into the 6S slot of the Hyperion JST board. Basically daisy chaining the balance side together. The Progressive does not plug directly into the Hyperion.
Hmm. Odd. I plugged the normal Hyperion JST balance lead in to the Hyperion, and then the Progressive RC balance lead goes into the 6S slot of that. The Progressive Parallel Charger board balance will certainly not plug directly into the Hyperion Charger. Andy.
The balance cable that goes to the board hyperion provided works fine. However when I take that same cable and try to plug it into the 6s slow on the paraboard -- the cable is 9 pins on one side, 8 on the other (hyperion cable). Both sides of the cable don't fit on either the 6s slot or the balance lead slot (both female) on the paraboard.
Good find. Thanks! Just ordered a couple. As for the justification for parallel charging, I find that being able to do an "overnight" charge at about 1C of 4 batteries at once is a heck of a lot easier than having to stay awake to switch out the batteries. Sure, it takes a couple hours, but I can leave them going and know that there'll be 4 fresh batteries in the morning. And no, I'm not worried about them catching fire. My studio's all concrete and cinder block, and the charging station is aluminum and steel. And everything's insured.
I think of them as concentrating the flames, making them hotter, and potentially explosive. I prefer to let my LiPos burn themselves out.