Lightning Fan

My Feedback: (17)

Hi guys. Apologies if this has been asked and answered, I looked and could not find anything similar.I have a GT Power A6 charger that has to be at least four years old. I've had good luck with it, up until recently.In the past, I've used it to balance charge "larger" to "medium" sized packs, 3S-6S in the 2200 to 5000 mAh ranges. No problems that I saw at the time.Lately, I've been balance charging some smaller stuff, in the 2S-3S , 900 to 250 mAh range.When I balance charge the smaller cells, the first two cell readings on the charger fluctuate ... wildly ... while the third cell in a 3S situation is stable. If I rig up three 2S, 900 mAh batts in series (so it looks like a 6S 900 mAh battery to the charger), the first two cells fluctuate and the other four are stable. When I say fluctuate, I mean the voltages bounce around, sometimes as much as 0.4 volts, up or down. The charge rate drops way below what I set if for, because the charger software is trying to figure out what the voltages of these cells really are. For example, if I set the charge current to 1.0 A, it might only charge at 0.2 A. I have had batteries come off the charger in this condition with the first cell at 4.25 volts, which scared the heck out of me.I seems as if the charger is OK with larger capacity batteries (now, when I look at the first two voltage readings, I see more voltage swings than the other cells, but usually they are only 0.02 swings). I'm no longer comfortable charging smaller stuff on it.Have any of you seen failures like this? I assume that the charger is toast now? Is it really a failure, or has it always done this and I only just now realized it? Thanks for any help.

Bluelt

My Feedback: (3)

I had a similar experience with a Gt power charger (the one that charges 4 batts at a time).  Changed the balance board and all was well.