SkyRC iMax B6mini Professional charging cordless drill battery packs ?

zender

1 mW
Joined
Sep 23, 2019
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12
Hi to all, I'm considering to buy an SkyRC iMax B6mini Professional charger, and I need it to charge a battery packs for cordless drills.
The battery packs are something like this ones.

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So I see that SkyRC have many extension and cables that can be buy later, and I'm interested can it charge battery packs like this ones and can it calculate a capacity of this packs ?
 
What did the charger company say when you asked them?


Whatever charger you use, you'll need to know which pins on the battery pack are which, to hook up the main + and - of the charger to.

Additionally, it is unlikely that toolpacks will have any access pins to the cells inside, only to the main + and - of the pack, so you won't be able to use any of the balancing or cell-level testing of an RC charger, unless you cut the packs open and add wires to each cell to hook up to the RC charger.

Some toolpacks have an internal BMS that does balancing/monitoring of the cells, many don't.
 
"Thanks for contacting SkyRC.

To charge and check the capacity of one battery, you need to charge the battery to the full, then discharge the battery.
For your battery without balance lead, the values tested may be not accurate.

Best Regards"

"As we do not have such a battery at hand, we can not offer you any good advice on adapter/cables yet.
Based on your picture, we can only know that this is a 4S Li-Ion battery. As this battery does not have balance lead yet, you can only charge this battery with main plug only connected to B6 mini charger.
You need to figure out the +/- of your battery, and make a cable based on the actual connection point on the battery."

The + and - can be checked with DMM.
 
just put AMP spades on the end of a charge cable and shove those in the + and - of the pack. the interal bms will balance the battery.
 
That is ok, I know what I will do with cables if I can't connect it somehow I will use magnets to secure them to the battery pack... I' m mostly interested can I connect this charger somehow to this battery pack and measure its capacity ? I need to discarge a bat. pack to measure capacity, and I'm not sure can I do that ?
 
zender said:
That is ok, I know what I will do with cables if I can't connect it somehow I will use magnets to secure them to the battery pack... I' m mostly interested can I connect this charger somehow to this battery pack and measure its capacity ? I need to discarge a bat. pack to measure capacity, and I'm not sure can I do that ?

read:

flippy said:
just put AMP spades on the end of a charge cable and shove those in the + and - of the pack. the interal bms will balance the battery.
 
Hmm, I'm a bit confused.
All of this battery packs have two pair of contacts.
First pair is for charging on charger, and second pair is for connecting to cordless drill and discharging.

For example, connections for charging :

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Connections for cordless drill :

rctWN98.jpg


So I'm not sure is this charging contacts are supposed for discharging, as far as I can understand one set of contacts is for charging and other for discharging ( when using a cordless drill ). And I don't know if there will be some damage if I connect plugs to charging connections and try to discharge a battery pack ( to measure a capacity ).

I also found many cables that can be purchase for this SkyRC charger but I can't nowhere see other side of connections for it :

cbRZOJU.png
 
I get this SkyRC iMax B6mini Professional charger.
And I test it with this cordless drill battery packs and I need some help if someone know...

First what are this other pins used for ( beside + and - ) on this battery packs ? All of them have more pins and what they are used for ?

Bosch, first left is + and last right are -, what for are this two central ones ?

JYONISB.jpg


Makita it have even 7 pins for connecting on charger !

FOJig7B.jpg


My guess for Makita is that some of this pins are used for cells balancing since this battery pack and electronic on it have cells balancing, but I'm not sure... Does anyone know something about this ?

Second question is about SkyRC charger and charging this battery packs on it.
Ok, I just hook an crocodile clips from SkyRC to the + and - to this battery packs and do a discharging test and all was OK.
But when I want to do a charging it wont allow me to do that. Here is the error.

JLKj5HU.jpg


It wont allow me to do a balance charging, also it wont allow me to do a simple ( ordinary charging without balancig, same error ), so what I need to do that I can charge this kinds of battery pack on this charger ?
I see that there are balancing ports on this charger but don't know what to do and what to use to connect to this battery packs ?
 
First read the manual https://www.skyrc.com/files/30?open=1

It is four cells in series only one cell in parallel. (4S1P) You connector image is misleading since it means 5 pins for 4 series cells. Make sure you buy the 2.54mm JST pigtail to connect to your battery.

BTW Central connections appear to be a resistor that measures the temperature during charging/usage.

wires.jpg

So red will show your full pack voltage while left wire connected to batt negative.

Middle wires go to B1, B2, B3 moving along the series connector. Last connection B4 (4th cell end voltage) is also your batt Positive.

Look at the right side of your pack that is not shown, likely bottom right connection is a single end connector to that cell for black. then you will see a "bar" across the 2nd/3rd cells and then top right will be connection to the batt red.


When charging make sure you setup for the correct chemistry type of the battery. Also lower the charge amp down to something safer like 1.0A and must select 4S.

Details on your cells: (google the digits)
Samsung 25R 18650 2500mAh 20A Battery - INR18650-25R
This is arguably the most widely sold and respected 18650 form factor size cell on the market, still today. This cell is of very high quality and has a very economical price point to book-end it. This is an excellent balanced cell in terms of performance and reliability. Also this cell has a very good equilibrium with a moderate-high capacity of 2,500 mAh in energy, while having a high maximum continuous discharge/drain rating of 20 amps (Without any temperature cut involved). This cell is very stable, even when it's pushed to its max rating. This cell has about everything you could desire in a Li-Ion cell, as you can see from some of its attributes. It has many uses such as: power packs, high-output power banks, BMS's, power tools, and high powered flashlights as well. This cell has a much safer battery chemistry makeup than cells from the past, which make it more stable and much safer. This cell is often classified as a "Goldilocks" cell, because of its versatility and all of its attributes. This cell has passed the test of time and checks almost every box that you can reasonably image. There is no wonder why it has such a venerable history and a consumer favorite.
 
Ok, thanks for help till now, I'm pretty familiar with cells chemistry and charging for them ( in ordinary chilinchric cells chargers ) but this other side I'm very low with knowledge. Also this is not 25R it is 13P a 1300 mAh cell from Samsung, but that is not important so much now.

This is right and left sides of this pack :

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As far as I understand here I must get somewhere this balancing cables for this SkyRc charger.
Then make it in this order :
B1 - first black wire on - pole
B2 - one of central wires on + pole
B3 - one of central wires on + pole
B4 - last black wire on - pole and red wire on + pole
 
Follow what I posted, did the picture show up?

Solder wire:
Neg first cell negative
B1 first cell+
B2 second cell+ (will show voltage of 2 cells in series)
B3 third cell+ (will show voltage of 3 cells in series)
B4 fourth cell+ (pack full voltage if measuring from first wire to last wire in plug)

Order a Jst 2.54mm connector pigtail that has 5 pins/wires and if you get the design where one wire is red then that is B4 (rest black like pic above)
Other style comes with one black which is the negative and 4 red wires, just move away from neg B1, B2, B3, B4

I personally prefer the 22 gauge silicone coated pigtails where black is on one end and and red on the other with various colors for middle wires.
 
I now understand you... And cables arrived just today.

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Don't know why this one is different it is much thinner 26 awg, and isolation is from rubber, and this other ones are 22 awg and silicone based isolation...

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Ok, this is my configuration for charging this cell, but as I see you write solder wires, first of all solderion on li-ion cells is not good, and second I want to make this one like universal charging cable since I have couple of this cells.. It is not practically that solder and desolder over and over...
Do you have some idea how to make something that I can use over and over, just to plyg and go..
It come to my mind to solder a little alligator clips on this wires, so solder 5 small alligator on this 5 pin ends and then use small magnets to connect to each cell ? What you think of this idea ?

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The leads are super cheap and you actually are not putting very much heat into the cell. Use flux and the nickel strip takes almost all the heat.

But soldering to the clip and using a magnet is fine. I would just make sure you add little flags with B1 B2 B3 B4 written on each one so you do not forget. I bet you get tired of it and end up soldering the connectors to each battery in the end.

Careful w the magnets and don't let kids or animals ingest them.
 
Yep, I found many of them on Aliexpress, also find a extensions for them which is good since this ones are too short.
I just finished work with alligators and to the cables..

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Then I connect them with magnets to the battery pack.

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Then I try to connect this pins end to the SkyRC charger and then I get sparking ! I immediately unconnect everything and notice that one magnet and alligator clip was very hot.. My opinion in this is since cables are too short and it is hard to connect all without shaking and wiggle that in one moment contact was not firm and that shaking magnet and clip on battery cause a sparking...
So this must be used with longer cables, I see that there are available extensions to buy for this, like this ones. https://www.aliexpress.com/item/329...chweb0_0,searchweb201602_1,searchweb201603_55

I also contact a manufacturer and they told me that this kind of packs can be charged with ordinary charging without balancing. And send me this video.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4HpYu5as70[/youtube]

That was ok, since some of this packs have cell balancing with electronis installed so there is no need to balance cells more since battery electronics will do that job, but this is not working on my charger, when I try to press start like they do, nothing happens.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6YHc6YQZV0[/youtube]
 
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