I just burned an icharger 208B

[evtdriver]

Hello,

today I decided to test my 2 icharger 208B with the 2 Meanwell (genuine 350-24) power supply I received this week.

I hooked the power supplies to the chargers (I didn't connect them to the batteries) and when powering on the power supplies one of my ichargers burned immediatly. (little smoke and bad smell)

I thought I did a mistake but I don't find any reason for the failure. Output voltage of the power supplies is 24V (checked before to wire the chargers)

The ichargers were working fine before that but I was using them with a smaller 12V power supply. I'm thinking that the icharger was faulty and didn't survive at 24V.
I wonder if you already had a such issue with this charger ? Do you see any obvious reason that could explain the failure ? I don't think this can be a earth loop issue because first the power supplies are insulated and second I didn't connect the batteries to the chargers when the failure happened.

The charger is still under warranty so I will return it. I want to be sure I didn't do anything wrong.

 

[Ykick]

By mistake I plugged a 6S Lip brick to input of my 106B+ iCharger - it saw about 22-24vdc instead of it's rated 12-16V or so. Totally fried/smoked the input circuitry. I dunno your exact model, 208? But, even if it's rated for higher input than my 106B+ 24v is gonna be cutting it close, me thinks?

 

[evtdriver]

208B is rated for 4.5-32V so 24V is within the specs.

 

[neptronix]

This seems to be a recurring theme. Get anywhere close to the maximum input voltage and you will have a fried iCharger on your hands.

Liveforphysics has noted that the cause is probably a spike in amps/voltage when the charger is turned on.

I saw my 13.5v radioshack power supply put out a 42v spike when i first turned it on after having it off for years. It has not done such since, but i wonder if it is a common thing for power supplies that are new or haven't been used in a while.

Good thing these actually have a warranty. Other than a few well known quirks, they are really great chargers.

 

[evtdriver]

Interesting to know.
The meanwell 24V can be adjusted to arround 20V and 20V input is enough to get maximum power from 208B. I will try this route and I hope it will prevent new failures.

 

[magudaman]

The second time I plugged in my brand new Icharger 3010B it spit smoke out. I was pissed, it cost me 45 bucks to ship back to china and Hobby King wouldn't refund me only ship me a new one that could be potentially bad. Anyways big ordeal that my credit card ended up fixing in the end. I will only buy Icharger from USA sellers so if there is a warranty issue I can at least ship it for cheap. Shook my confidence in Icharger though.

 

[kfong]

My 3010b recently burned up as well, only the 3 time using it and it smoked for no apparent reason. Sent it back, still waiting for an outcome. This is one big drawback with overseas stuff. Not sure if I trust the design. There have been reports of other 3010b doing the same. Sorry I bought it now.

 

[oaktowntandem]

Last week my brand new 1010b+ died after its first minute of charging at only 1 amp.

 

[Ziggurat]

And add to the list my iCharger 1010B+ after only a couple of weeks. I've been using a 12V battery as power source while waiting for a power supply to arrive. The usual routine -- charged the 12V, disconnected its charger, connected the iCharger, but this time with the little spark I got a popping noise, then smoke, then fire out the fan.

 

[neptronix]

Wow O_O...

I have never heard of iCharger 1010b+'s blowing unless abused in some way. ( loose connections often do it )
At least they have a 1 year warranty and are light to ship.

I've charged about 40 cycles here on mine with no issues. Even shorted the balance board once and it somehow survived.

 

[recumbent]

Yep, add me to the list of burnt "208B" chargers.

Worked great for two weeks then plugged in my battery pack to the balance port... FSSST a plume of white smoke and rancid smell, it was toast.

Opened it up and one of the mosfets was melted to the board.

Ordered a cheap Turnigy Accucell 8150 for less than half the price, and it works perfect, so far.

 

[Ziggurat]

And add to the list my iCharger 1010B+ after only a couple of weeks. I've been using a 12V battery as power source while waiting for a power supply to arrive. The usual routine -- charged the 12V, disconnected its charger, connected the iCharger, but this time with the little spark I got a popping noise, then smoke, then fire out the fan.

Follow-up: just checked my account and HK has credited me the cost of the blown iCharger 1010B+. It's been a long time, because I sent it on the slowest boat to China and ordered a local (fast shipping) hyperion EOS 1420i instead.

No idea why mine got credited when others didn't. I don't know what they had left to analyze, given the amount of flame that came out.

 

[liveforphysics]

So random, but my trusty iCharger 1010b+ that I had been using for 3 years of faithful service just randomly smoked 2 nights ago. It was balancing a little 5S pack at the time, and had just finished balancing and charging a bunch of other random RC lipo packs, then POOF! Little could of smoke, and it's toast. The smoke smelled like cap, so I'm hoping its the power supply which would be an easy fix. 3 years of perfect service and lots of full power charging, and then it goes POOF 20 minutes into balancing a little 5s pack. Go figure.

 

[neptronix]

Bummer.
I love my iCharger but i'm having a hard time recommending it after seeing this thread.
Please follow up luke, i am interested.

 

[liveforphysics]

Bummer.
I love my iCharger but i'm having a hard time recommending it after seeing this thread.
Please follow up luke, i am interested.

Well, it was perfect for 3 years... and it's not like I didn't treat it as rough as possible, including leaving it in the rain a few times, pouring RC model fuel into it by mistake, etc.

But seriously, seems very odd to have so many charger failures in a row here. Like a hidden firmware self-destruct or something. lol

At least they are cheap.

 

[neptronix]

3 years is a good service life. If it's just a capacitor, that would be awesome.

The way the FETs are mounted is pretty freaking bad. Air gaps between the cooling surface and all.

http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=24801&hilit=iCharger+2.5&start=15

 

[mauimart]

I have been using the 208B for over a year now, balance charging my 8S, 40Ah Calb pack (@12A). I have even used it to balance charge 4S, 100 Ah pack @ 20A with no problems (11 of these packs @ 5 hours at a time). I'm feeding it with 30VDC from a cheap meanwell imitation. I do point an external fan at it to help the tiny internal one. I fear now that I've viewed this thread the thing is gonna blow the next time I power on.