HLANG

Hi Guys.
I am experiencing a lot of problems with my Elite charger.
I tried tree different Hidrimax NiMH batteries to cycle. Two with 1650mA and another one 6.0V 5 cell 2000mA
After 2 cycles I get 1200Ma and 780mA for both 1650mA and the 2000mA rx pack, just 1200mA.
yesterday I purchased a new sanyo 4.8V 2700Ma rx pack and cylced it two times.
I got only 800mA capacity.
What´s wron?
I am using the default factory setting.
Thanks any help.
Henrique Lang

Rodney

Did you do the necessary forming charges first? That is charging for 16 hours at 0.1C.

HLANG

Rodney.
I plugged rx packs in Elite and used the default settings.
The last pack 2700mA I used yesterday got a low cappacity rate.
But he first tree packs, they are old (six months) and once again I can´t get a good capacity as I can in NiCd packs.
How can I setup my Accy Cycle Elite to charge my packs the way you suggest ?
Must I use a free memory location and program a new setup for each pack?
Thanks agai your help.
Henrique

tukkus

My Feedback: (2)

Hlang what is the charge rate that the default setting was at?

we need to know what it was set at while you were charging the batteries...and give the charge rate for each of the different battery capacities

HLANG

Hi Tukkus
I am outside home until Thursday 15. I will check as soon as I can what is charge rate default in my Elite.
This is a good question and I am not sure if charge rate is set to 1C or 1.5C
I will let you know
Once again, thanks your help
Henrique

rainedave

My Feedback: (1)

Henrique, if the charge rate is 1c or greater, then that is the problem, as Rodney and tukkus are pointing out. I'll leave it to the experts other than to say that with NiMhs you need to charge at 1/10C (approximately 150mah for the 1650s and around 200mah for the 2000mah pack) for 16 hours, then discharge them and repeat this about two more times. Then you can fast charge at a 1C rate. These first few slow, 16hr charges are called forming charges. I know it's a painfully slow process, but your patience will pay off.

richrd

You mentioned Hydrimax I’ve had bad experience with these some Panasonic WILL NOT fast charge. On pack in blue print do not exceed C/10. I had one in plane forgot an set fast charge, boy what a mess when one out gassed all over the foam the other 3 batts were put to use in a phone. Wife can talk all day now.
Rich

Geistware

My Feedback: (16)

Your charge wires my not be making good connections.
I would change them first.
This happend to me in the past when I charged my packs through the switches.

HLANG

Hi guys.
I am back to home and finally checked the default setup of my Accu-Cycle Elite for NiMH cell:
Discharge 4.4V
Disch cutoff 1.1Vcell
Dischg 0,30A

Peak chg 1.1A
Trickle 20mA
peak sensitivity 8mV/cell

So my question:
How to correctly setup my Elite to charge and forming those NiMH rx packs: Hydrimax 1450mA, 1650mA and 2700 MPI NiMH.
I think something is wrong because after cycling those packs I got only 700mA, 600mA and 1200 mA.
Thanks any help.
Henrique Lang

marcellus

You usually can't form/balance charge packs with such a charger as they stop charging by peak voltage detection. The problem is that it will stop when the first cell gets up to voltage and others may have not. Some peak detection chargers have a setting for form charging. I don't know whether yours has.
You need to charge them at 1/10C or less. You can use the Rx charger from your radio for the 4 cell packs. It will probably only give about 70 mA charge rate, so a 2700 mA pack will take, 2700/70 x 1.4 = 53 hours, from a discharged state. Otherwise get a charger that will deliver 1/10C and it will take 14-16 hours.
You don't really have much choice but to do this a couple of times to establish the full capacity of your packs. Then do it again after every 20 or so cycles in use. It will be well worth it as you will see!

tukkus

My Feedback: (2)

Hlang.....your peak rate is set too high, 1.1A is a very high rate of charge for a new battery, read the manual and find out how to set the peak charge rate for 10% or C/10.... if you didn't already know the C is the total capacity of the pack you are trying to charge, and the C over the 10 or C/10 just means you have to divide the capacity of the pack by 10 to get a safe charge rate when forming a new battery

so the peak charge rate should look something like this

for the 1450 pack..... 0.15A
for the 1650 pack..... 0.17A
for the 2700 pack..... 0.25A or 0.30A the elite charger will not allow you to set it at 0.27

those charge rates aren't 10% or C/10 but they are close enough because the elite charger will not allow you to match all C/10 rates

on a new battery it should take roughly 16-20 hours to charge....if you do the math at 16 hours for a 1450 pack at .14A you will get a much higher number than what the capacity should be, but for some reasons that i'm not sure about yet, when new batteries are taking a new charge they will charge much longer because of the chemical reaction from the charge and will some how form from that extra charge

i also have a Hobbico elite charger and a Hrydrimax 1450 battery
it took 16 hours of charging at 0.15A and it turned off because of a default timer setting.... so that means the battery could have taken even more of a charge...i checked my battery and it was at 88 degrees F

on the battery itself it says to charge it for 16-20 hours at .15A...it should also say that on your battery

and remember to make sure you have the right voltage setting for the 4.0V or 6.0V RX packs and 9.6V for the TX... go and read the manual on how to change the rates for peak charge and the voltage for each pack

you should be able to get by with only changing the peak rates and making sure you have the right voltage : 4.6/6.0/9.6V.... and the default settings should be fine for the discharge rates

i hope that helps...i also hope i'm not wrong, you might want to wait a day or two before you try anything i suggested in case someone with a little more knowledge on the matter corrects me.

good luck

HLANG

Hi tukkus
Thanks very much your comments.
I will try this setup.
Henrique