Pb regen battery
 

Hi Guys,

Sorry if I'm in the wrong place. If so, point me in the right direction please.

I just got a Cellpro PL6 and so far so good. Very happy.

Can anyone recommend a Pb battery size / type / category etc. for regenerative dicharging in to?

Much appreciated

James

The amount of energy that a PL6 can put back into a battery is low enough for any 12V automotive lead acid battery to absorb.
The deciding factor will be how large/heavy of a battery you are willing to move around, followed by how many charge cycles you want to get out of the battery before it needs to be recharged.

Hi Itc,

Thanks for the reply.

I am presently using a 75Ahr car battery for charging and discharging. Its too heavy.
I will soon have a power supply. The new battery would only be used for discharging.
I'd like a battery that's much smaller and lighter.
I want to be able to discharge 6 x 5000mAhr from 100% down to storage %
Given that 6 x 5Ahr = 30Ahr and that I only need to take out about 50% i.e.15 Ahr,
How small an Ahr battery would you recommend I could go to?

Any advice would be great.

Thanks
James

I'm a bit confused, sorry.

If you use the SLA battery only for discharging and not for charging, what do you do when the SLA battery is at capacity?
How will you discharge the SLA to "make more room" for additional LiPo discharging?

If you only want to discharge batteries down to storage and don't want to use the charger for that, I would suggest a small inexpensive discharger, like this...
https://www.banggood.com/AOK-3-in-1-...p-1051214.html
(available on eBay as well, in addition to other websites)

Very detailed thread on this unit over here
https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/show...iPo-discharger

There is also a bit nicer, but more expensive unit here as well
Perfect Regulators - Universal Lipo Discharger Pro V2

BTW, if you use small 2s LiPos for Rx power, I would recommend these for discharge/storage.
Very easy to use, nice quality unit.

G-Force G2SD Storage Discharger - Hobby Square

You're right, I'm not thinking straight.

Had a look at the bangood discharger with bulbs.
Also scanned over the article you linked and may well create my own discharge from the build thread there.
Needless to say, the battery is now out of the equasion.

Thank you for your help,
Much obliged,

James

If you had one of the newer iChargers rather than the PL6, you would have the option of high powered (~500W) resistor discharge
This allows for "regenerative discharge) into a fan cooled external resistor rather than back into the battery
Pretty clever option that the PowerLab chargers don't support

Another option that I forgot to mention is the new ISDT discharger
ISDT is a recent newcomer to chargers and just released a pretty nice self contained duscgsrfer

ISDT Revolution Starts Here

The ISDT unit looks superb but a wee bit pricey.
Like more than three times the price of the units with the bulbs.
And it's only 100w compared to the 450w from the other three combined.

FWIW, I don't think you will get 450W by combining 3 of the triple bulb units
You can check the RCG thread again from jj604
If I were to buy one just for LiPo, the ISDT is probably the one.

Here is another lie cost "bulb type" discharger
This is a bit more versatile than the other bulb type, as the controller is also a cellmeter and servo tester

AOK Cell Meter 8 Multifunctional Digital Power Servo Checker Tester 2S-8S 150w | eBay

If you check Thingverse, you will find 3D printed holders/base for the 3 bulbs ...

Hi Lewis
This is interesting.
Do you know how many amps the discharge is?
Am I missing something?
Thanks for this post, Mike Mueller

Hi Mike,
IIRC, a 3 bulb unit is about 4A of discharge current. Folks will often put 2-3 in parallel in order to get above 10A discharge current...it is detailed in the RCGroups thread I linked above.
When they put 3 in parallel, they use this AOK unit (different from the Cellpro 8 unit, but uses the same bulbs)

AOK 3in1 150W LiPo/LiFe Battery Balancer Discharger Voltage Tester RC Car Quad
There are LOTS of other suppliers for this unit (Bangood, eBay, Aliexpress, etc). Just make sure its the blue unit and comes with 3 bulbs.

If you have any questions, please give me a call.
I can't fly for *****, but I can do electronics really really well ;)

​​​​​​​

Here is a link to a parallel setup for 20A discharge!
https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/show...&postcount=352

BTW, if anyone has a 3D printer, you can always download a holder for the 3 bulbs from Thingverse.
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2185787