Connectors blown ?

Just gone to connect my 50v 15a battery to my crystallite controller and the positive anderson connectors have gone and fried
Any ideas whats gone wrong

spark or meltdown ?

Really bad spark when i shoved them together and the positive side has melted and gone black

By your description I can't tell the severity of your "spark"? All controllers spark a bit when connecting power but once connected they work fine. Higher the voltage the larger the spark to the point that a pre-charge resistor becomes an attractive component. 50V is getting in that range.

Are you running a fuse?

If you're melting plastic and connector tabs are burning away - that would be more a dead short somewhere in your controller or wiring. Obviously, system wouldn't work if that is the case so you need to remove the short and fix whatever damage exists in your system.

A couple weeks ago I was switching my lipo battery from series to parallel to charge. I made a slight mistake and POOOOFFFFF!!!!!! The anderson connector vaporized in my hand, leading to a slight case of KFF(Kentucky Fried Finger.) Luckily, only had a pin sized burn on my pointer finger, but it was pretty deep. I've since been charging in series and not switching to parallel. Do you reconfigure your pack to charge?

number1cruncher said:

Do you reconfigure your pack to charge?

Click to expand...

Not sure who you're asking? But I haven't used my RC charger much since getting a Meanwell. I just check the cells from time to time with a cell log but everything seems to stay in pretty good balance. My LVC comes in around 3.4V/cell and I charge to 4.10-4.15V/cell. But, I used the hell out of the RC charger until I became comfortable assessing the health of my pack.

But now I've been thinking about nixing the series power connectors because it doesn't seem to ever need them?

Ykick said:

number1cruncher said:

Do you reconfigure your pack to charge?

Click to expand...

Not sure who you're asking? But I haven't used my RC charger much since getting a Meanwell. I just check the cells from time to time with a cell log but everything seems to stay in pretty good balance. My LVC comes in around 3.4V/cell and I charge to 4.10-4.15V/cell. But, I used the hell out of the RC charger until I became comfortable assessing the health of my pack.

But now I've been thinking about nixing the series power connectors because it doesn't seem to ever need them?

Click to expand...

I was asking the OP, but your answer is welcomed.

Pretty big sparks are normal. Eventually the contacts get more and more fried. A poor connection when the caps fill in the controller might have resulted in a hot spot melting the contact this time. It sorta sounds like this might be the case. Is the bike new, or are these year old connectors?

But KFF might be the result if something in the controller is blown, and the short is causing a huge current flow.

I'd pop open the controller and look for scorches and smells before trying to hook it up again.

I did the wrong plug thing the other day with my lipos, and that anderson connector nearly vanished. Both andersons were melted goo till they cooled down. All the contact piece metal gone in a flash. Amazing what 48v lipo can do, with 30c on tap.

The Controller was brand new never used but did work for 15 mins then the led went out so i checked the power connectors and it went frying mad and melted the positive side away

Sounding like something inside created a dead short. gotta love that chinese QC. They let us plug it in and see if it fries immediately.