headways not balencing with hyperion

[ridethelightning]

iv tried for the first time to balence my 16s2p 20Ah headway pack(6 month old maybe 70 cycles)with hyperion 1420.

balence plugs(2) for 14s and(1) for2s

it started charging 14s ok, but then when it had started balencing for a time, its alarm went off.

charger said "bad balence connection"

i checked the plugs with a meter to make sure all the balence wires were connected- seemed ok

voltages ranged between 3.5v and 3.2v.

the order was correct too.



im all new to hyperions .
Any idea what could cause this?

thanks in advance.

 

[wesnewell]

wag, you had the low and high side balance plugs reversed.

 

[dogman dan]

Or you just had a weak connection on the notoriously flaky jst plugs. Or whatever plug you have on the pack, or you have one loose balance wire in the pack.

Happy hunting.

Personally, if I have one cell that needs balancing, I just single cell charge it, or discharge it.

 

[ridethelightning]

Thanks guys

i dont think plugs reversed. i checked with meter

could very well be the main charge leads, as id jury rigged 2 aligator clips in paralelle with fine leads on the pos connector(i was too lazy to solder on the right matching bullet)perhaps contact was not good enough.

ill let you know how i get on when iv got time to fiddle.

 

[999zip999]

Or you didn't make you plugs right as you may have contuinue the count a bit earlier or later start for the charger and balance boards in your setup.

 

[999zip999]

The 1420 is sentitive and be dirty or loose plugs. Headsways can always be helped with a 3.60volt single cell charger. Make plug to. A pin connector. Easy double check with M.M. meter.

 

[dnmun]

i bet that is why the hyperion caught that guys house on fire on the RC group thread somebody pulled over here.

if it is not making contact inside the JST plug then the BMS built into the balancing charger cannot detect the cell voltage and may think it is lower that it actually is.

that is why i use the soldered sense wire contact.

if it is thinking the cell is at 3.70V and it keeps pushing more charge into it when it is actually already at 4.2V then that could be a problem. maybe that is what happens to the BC168.

 

[ridethelightning]

my sense wires are soldered onto nickle coated copper braid(probably good for 400A or something) that is screwed to the headway teminals, locktighted down hard.

the cellman bms i have uses these wires and would cutoff if they diddnt have good contact.

i have used this very hyperion unit to sucessfully ballence up to 6s samsung 18650 packs, so its probably something im doing,not the charger.

could conneting balence plugs before the charge plugs have any effect?

could different/uneven,length of sense wire have an effect? man i hope not....

perhaps i should split the pack again to 2 lots of 7s and try doing 1 at a time.

 

[docnjoj]

Unfortunately if your BMS balances OK then the fault is with the Hyperion. I have put mine away as it is too flaky. My 12S AMP 20 A123 battery balances fine with a Thunder 1220 that I bought after tons of difficulties with the Hyperion. There are many complaints about it in the R/C columns and plenty on E-S too. Frustratingly some folks have no trouble at all. Weird but it sucks.
otherDoc
edit: Apparently Thunder has a 1420 out now. I don't need one but it is probably much more accurate that the Hyperion.

 

[dnmun]

if the contact between the pin and clip inside the JST plug is loose then it would not make good electrical contact between the cell and the charger electronics inside the charger that compare the voltages of the adjacent cells to each other.

so if one cell is actually higher than the electronics think that it is then that section of the battery will not be drained down by the shunt transistors in the BMS of the balancing charger.

so the charger would continue pushing charge into the cell that has the bad contact and it is not being drained off by the BMS for that channel.

the balancing charger uses a set of comparators that look at about 2-4 channels at a time, and the one that it assigns the highest voltage to, without actually knowing the voltage but just comparing adjacent cells, is the one that it will turn on the shunt balancing transistor for. so that forces all the cells to move toward a central value. that is how the BMS functions in the balancing charger.

except the BC168 uses a series of single cell power supplies stacked one on top of the other, and each power supply has a fixed voltage it charges too and then that is changed by switching the setpoint in the program. very different from the icharger and hyperion circuitry.

just trying to understand why we have had these fires with the balancing chargers, one the BC168 and the other with the hyperion. the guy with the lipo fire in australia who just overcharged his pack was using bulk charging with no BMS again like floont. he somehow thought it was balanced so he could bulk charge. big assumption.

 

[ridethelightning]

still not tried it again with proper charge plugs, but my instincts say my charger is not to blame(i actually have 2 but one is still in the box so i could do a test to compare if all else fails.)
its done a great job on my other packs.

perhaps iv wired the balence plugs incorrectly.

the order is:

plug A
gnd , 1,2,3,4,5,6,7

plug B
8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15 :lol: :lol: :lol: so thats the problem. 15s!!

 

[Willow]

sorted??

 

[ridethelightning]

HMMM yes and no (insert pulling hair smiley here)

rewired the plugs as 2 x7s plugs each with GND (as you would have on HK lipo packs)and balenced fine. all14s now read 3.4v.yay

then i tried to balence the remaining 2s.....

balence plug has 3 wires- gnd ,1s,2s.

i checked the order and voltage etc SEVERAL TIMES before charging. then the really wierd shit started happening.

first ,thehyperion just shutdown as soon as id set it to charge .....3.6v, 2s Right? press for "Yes" and immediate full cuttoff.

i tried maybe 2 times with same result.

then i fiddled with plug connections, checked for shorts/reverse polarity and other nasty stuff -nope.

on the third try it started charging i checked the screen.omg +31A!!! WTF?

id set for 10A charge current. i felt the somewhat thin hyperion charge leads- very warm :|

i turned it off and tried restart- same thing.

i then tried charging 1s at a time,no balence. just clipped charge leads onto cell terminals- full cuttoff on charge start again.


i then tried to hook up to a another mint hyperion straight fom the box- 1s charging fine .no problems.

i hope i havnt got a dud unit...

anyone have any idea what the f%$8 is going on with this?