ORIGINAL: lk808
I received one of the blue "V2" units off eBay yesterday and it didn't include a temp sensor. I've also seen mention and pictures of the temp sensor, however there is no connector for it on the charger as there is on the Bantam charger. The 601BC's firmware lets you turn on/off the temperature cutoff and setpoint, but the external temp always reads 0C during operation. The manual mentions 801BC in at least one place, so I suspect that the 80W rating of the 801BC also got mixed in by accident.
Here's what I've noticed of my 601BC so far:
- When using the coax power input, the black input clip is automatically disconnected, however the red clip is live so be careful not to let it touch the metal case of anything that is grounded. The coax input is center positive. If I decide to keep this unit and void the warranty, I will probably desolder the wires from the unit and put a coax plug on the desoldered ends.
- The Inc button didn't work very well and requires a harder push or multiple pushes. I turned on the button confirmation beep to help. I can't tell if it's poor quality switches, poor button debouncing, the loose nut behind the button ;-), or a combination of these.
- There's a red LED inside the case and somewhere near the Start button. It blinks from time to time but it is somewhat difficult to see. The buttons are blue and somewhat translucent, so the red light isn't conveyed very well.
- The right side panel wasn't assembled correctly. The red banana jack was soldered at a slight angle and the assembler couldn't get it to go on flush, so s/he tightened the screws anyhow. There was a slight gap allowing the backlight to shine through which was annoying. I loosened the screws and realigned the panel.
- The CD contains Silabs CP210x v4.2 drivers and the monitoring software (interestingly, in a folder called "e-station"). I tried to download and install the WHQL-certified v5 drivers from silabs.com but the Silabs installer was unable to install on my system, so I used the CD drivers. It works on XP Pro. I can view various graphs as well as the charger settings.
I've been cycling various 7- and 8-cell Sub-C NiMH and NiCd packs, mostly new. I haven't tried charging lithium batteries yet. Here's what I've noticed:
- During charging and discharging, the charger starts at a high rate (but not necessarily the rate that I select) and gradually tapers down as it nears the end point. I've selected 2A discharge and the highest rate I've seen on the display is 1.3A discharge. The packs were partially charged, so I suspect that it starts at the rate specified for a particular state of charge.
- The case gets pretty hot during discharge. It has stayed cool during charges up to 3A. Although there is a finned heatsink on top of the case, it is interesting that the FETs contact the bottom panel and the power resistors don't contact the case and rely on the wimpy fan for air cooling.
- During charging, the current and fan will stop and start repeatedly. I haven't noticed a definite pattern, but during the first charge I thought I had a defective unit. I assume that it is trying to determine how full the battery is.
During the last 4 charge cycles, the charger reported Connection Break just as it neared the end of charge. This happened on 3 different packs and always towards the end. I'm using the alligator clips on wire leads to a Tamiya connector. I just reclipped the leads and I'm testing again to see if it was a bad connection.
These chargers seem to be a bit of a lottery.
Some seem to work ok, others are totally unreliable. The units are probably blown together in china for under $10 and the quality control is just not there.
It's a shame really as this charger is very well specified and would be a market leader if a few issues were addessed.
There are no other chargers on the market that have all these functions as well as balancing in one small field unit.
My mkII is still working at the moment with only a few occasional glitches however I always get the feeling I can't trust it. I certainly wouldn't go out and leave it unattended.
I can do this with my Pro peak constellation charger as it has never incorrectly charged a pack in over 300 cycles.
Balancing a 3 cell LiPo on my BC601 slightly overcharges the pack at 12.66V on average. (4.22v per cell) This equates to about 0.5% overcharge which is still within the normal 1% tolerance.
There is no temp sensor on this model.
The fan will switch off approx every 2mins as the charger stops to measure battery voltage drop during charge.
The led on the circuit board will also flash if you connect a battery to the output of the charger without a power feed connected. It appears to monitor some sort of process during the beginning of the charge cycle and switches off a few mins afterwards. This was not present on the mkI models.