Dual Powerlab 8 vs Icharger 4010 Duo

[T.S.Davis]

I'm feeling better about my pile of chargers now. Thanks Mark.

[MarkF]

It doesn't see the other cells and thats why parallel charging is dangerous. Most have been lucky up to now but a parallel board can't monitor all the cells it's plugged into. If you get a bad cell the other packs will hide it. Most guy's I see are using it for their 1s packs or 1300 quad packs but they can all fail, so parallel boards are not recommended. If you know all the packs are good and no cells are off then parallel boards work. But only then.

Mark

[kevinpratt823]

It does not recognize them individually, it brings them all up together, hence some precaution and awareness need be taken. Its the same concept as connecting packs in paralell in a boat, if one pack fails it will take the other down too. Sorry guys , too much going on to get into this now.

[dasboata]

parallel balance harness on each set of 4.

And how does the charger recognize each pack or it doesn't and just maintains the correct voltage per cell ?

[kevinpratt823]

Either way, in parallel the voltage is the same across all 4 cells while connected. If the packs are in decent shape, all goes smoothly, if one cell is bad, that whole set of 4 will take a long time to get up to voltage if at all because that cell is holding all 4 back, and you know there is a problem. This is why I also charge all individually on occaisions so I can see what packs are still ok for me to charge in parallel. I do not discuss parallel charging much, because there is a lot of room for error and I don't want to see anybody else have issues, that being said I have been doing it for several years and with a little awareness and due diligence I have never had issue. I don't run boats anymore really, but I now charge (6) 4s/1500mah on each side all year for fpv racing, when something is out of whack, the balancing process takes a little longer. I identify the pack causing it and remove it from this type of service.

[T.S.Davis]

Only happens when you balance across packs. I Just charge everything as a single now and the problem goes away but holy crap was that an expensive learn.

[kfxguy]

Yeah me too. How's that work? Not questioning. Wanting to learn something. Your not the only one I've seen doing this.

Note on the iCharger.
My duo will balance two packs obviously. One of the gillion options on this thing is "regenerative discharge". If one cell is slightly high it discharges it a bit. With regenerative discharge on it pumps voltage back to the source. Sort of saving juice if you follow. So if charging form a battery it pumps power back into your car battery. Pretty slick.

You're supposed to turn it off if you are using a power supply as the voltage feed back to the supply will climb. Unfortunately, even though it's turned off, it still back feeds to the power supply until your power supply overvolts and shuts off or self destructs. I lost 4 power supplies before I figured out what it was doing. It's a horrible design flaw. My bulldogs will just reset themselves but charging stops as the charger shuts off and reboots. The computer type power supplies that are popular lately that go 75 amps don't have overvolt protection. They just die.

Ahhhhh. This is why my power supplies were failing when using ichargers. When I switched to powerlab I didn't have any more issues.

[T.S.Davis]

That's exactly what I was thinking. How does it know which cell in which pack is low or high.

I want to know this too. I know others are using this approach to charging so if someone knows how this works please share. I'm ignorant and want to understand it.

[roofintrash]

I'm still confused by this.

So the charger is monitoring voltage for 4 cells for each one cell that it thinks it's monitoring. You could have one cell low and one high cell in the paralleled set but voltage reads to the charger like everything is golden.

Does this make anyone else's head hurt?

That's exactly what I was thinking. How does it know which cell in which pack is low or high.

[T.S.Davis]

parallel balance harness on each set of 4.

I'm still confused by this.

So the charger is monitoring voltage for 4 cells for each one cell that it thinks it's monitoring. You could have one cell low and one high cell in the paralleled set but voltage reads to the charger like everything is golden.

Does this make anyone else's head hurt?

[roofintrash]

Hi Kevin are you really charging 8 pack there how do you keep track of the balancing on them ? thanks Chris

Thank you for asking the question that has made my bald spot bigger.

[T.S.Davis]

Hi Kevin are you really charging 8 pack there how do you keep track of the balancing on them ? thanks Chris

Yeah me too. How's that work? Not questioning. Wanting to learn something. Your not the only one I've seen doing this.

Note on the iCharger.
My duo will balance two packs obviously. One of the gillion options on this thing is "regenerative discharge". If one cell is slightly high it discharges it a bit. With regenerative discharge on it pumps voltage back to the source. Sort of saving juice if you follow. So if charging form a battery it pumps power back into your car battery. Pretty slick.

You're supposed to turn it off if you are using a power supply as the voltage feed back to the supply will climb. Unfortunately, even though it's turned off, it still back feeds to the power supply until your power supply overvolts and shuts off or self destructs. I lost 4 power supplies before I figured out what it was doing. It's a horrible design flaw. My bulldogs will just reset themselves but charging stops as the charger shuts off and reboots. The computer type power supplies that are popular lately that go 75 amps don't have overvolt protection. They just die.

[kevinpratt823]

Hi Kevin are you really charging 8 pack there how do you keep track of the balancing on them ? thanks Chris

parallel balance harness on each set of 4.

[dasboata]

Off and running. Just charged (8) 5s packs from 3.7v/cell up to 4.2 in under 24 minutes! I'll post up a more detailed thread when I have time, but this thing is badass! :) I just need to build up a safer charge area now.

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Hi Kevin are you really charging 8 pack there how do you keep track of the balancing on them ? thanks Chris

[kevinpratt823]

Kevin

You picked the right charger. If you talk to the company's who sell both chargers they will tell you the i chargers have a higher failure rate.

Mark

I actually did just that, and that is exactly what I was told. Thanks Mark.

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