Quality 36volt lifepo4 charger

[passpato]

I am looking for a new charger for my Ping lifepo4 36 volt 10ah battery. I have replaced the charger twice now and I have lost confidence in the Ping charger. I have had the charger looked at by a tv technician but he says the price of a new one doesn't warrant too much investigation. I then shook it and played with the wires and it started charging. Unfortunately it stopped again when I moved it. I understand they have a problem with the switching thyristor not grounding on the case? If someone could post a picture pointing out what goes wrong inside these chargers so that i can have a go my self.
Or a good replacement ? I live in the uk but I have seen a Chinese Modial charger available in the usa with international shipping. It charges to 43.8 v so It may not ballance properly.
Any help appreciated.

 

[dogman dan]

This the 5 amp metal shell charger you keep breaking?

 

[dogman dan]

If it is the Ping (kingpan type) 5 amps metal shell charger, it does have decent cooling, if the fan has been working.

Open er up, and look for bad solders on the input and output wires. If something is loose in there, like a dropped screw, that could be the real problem.

If he's been blowing the cheaper plastic charger, he needs to go buy the metal one, from Ping or EM3ev.

 

[dnmun]

I am looking for a new charger for my Ping lifepo4 36 volt 10ah battery. I have replaced the charger twice now and I have lost confidence in the Ping charger. I have had the charger looked at by a tv technician but he says the price of a new one doesn't warrant too much investigation. I then shook it and played with the wires and it started charging. Unfortunately it stopped again when I moved it. I understand they have a problem with the switching thyristor not grounding on the case? If someone could post a picture pointing out what goes wrong inside these chargers so that i can have a go my self.
Or a good replacement ? I live in the uk but I have seen a Chinese Modial charger available in the usa with international shipping. It charges to 43.8 v so It may not ballance properly.
Any help appreciated.

i find it hard to believe that two chargers failed. can you open both of them up and show pictures of the type of charger you are asking about? do you have a voltmeter? did you look at both fuses?

what was the behavior of the chargers that caused you to think they have failed? did ping already replace one for you and now you think this second one is also bad for this reason?

 

[passpato]

The first charger was Dead on Arrival. Mr Ping replaced this one. The replacement shows the red light when connected but did not charge . I managed to make it work after I got it back from the TV repair man by picking it up and moving the external wires around. Im not sure what I did but I now suspect a bad connection somewhere but I can't stop it working by moving the wires. It may be from keeping it out in my garage in damp air ? I know I messed up a multimeter like that. I keep that inside the house now.

 

[dnmun]

how do you know the first charger is dead? when you refer to external wires, do you know which wires?

 

[passpato]

how do you know the first charger is dead? when you refer to external wires, do you know which wires?

The first charger would not work when it arrived. I had another PIng at the time and that ones charger did work. After Mr Ping sent a replacement I opened it up. I can't remember what I did to it but I blew several component on the board so It is definately useless now. The one that is in question now, I moved both inlet and outlet wires and bent wires incase they had breaks. I think it was the 240 volt side that made it work but Im not sure.

 

[dnmun]

no leds came on when you plugged it in or did it just not charge the battery? if there was no power led lit then it may have a bad fuse or bad connection in the fuse or plug socket. so go back and see if that was the problem on the first one and you may be able to make it work. that would help solve the charger need.

if you have a voltmeter you can check for voltage inside the case where the AC comes in too in order to see if it is getting juice through the plug and fuse on the input. if you have no power led lit. just stick the probes into the solder where the wires go into the pcb. use AC scale 200V.

 

[passpato]

Its working at the moment and I'm reluctant to mess with it. I understand there is a problem with the switching thyristor not earthing ? but I cant see it. It switches between 120 and 240 volts.
looking at my old blown up one, There are two 3 pin transistors I think they are thermistors touching the casing with thermal paste. I take it they are overheat protection ? Does anyone know where this switching thyristor is? I am looking for a 3 pin transistor right?

 

[dnmun]

the two npn transistor clamped to the case are the switching transistors for the oscillator. we have no picture of your charger so no way to know what you are asking about.

 

[amberwolf]

If moving the external wire between battery and charger around makes it work, the most likely problem is very simple: either a poor connection at the connectors at the battery end (solder or crimp), or an actual broken wire somewhere along it's length (usually at one end or the other), inside the insulation.


If moving the external wire between wall and charger around makes it work, the most likley problem is even simpler: replace the cord with another one (assuming it's like most of these chargers and uses the regular IEC connector like many kinds of grounded electronics do, including most desktop computers).

I've had a number of bad IEC cords, where their female contacts are spread out enough to not make contact with the male pins on a device unless you move the cord just right, or twist it. Sometimes it will even cause arcing that could cause a fire--somewhere in one of my threads I posted this problem with (I think) what I labelled as a Kingpan or Kingpower charger that I thought had been flaky--simply using a different cord fixed it. (and I cut the ends off the old one so I coudln't accidentally use it on something else and cause a fire with it)




FWIW, if the "Modial" charger you refer to in your OP is actually "Modiary" then you can look up my cellman A123 pack test thread/posts; at some point I open that Modiary charger up and poke around with it's voltage adjustments, so you could use that info to most likley be able to adjust this other Modiary charger to match your pack, if necessary.

However, IIRC, my "5A" Modiary charger doesn't charge at any faster rate than a max of about 4A....

 

[passpato]

Update. The charger stopped working again so I took the covers off and probed around with an ohms meter to test connections. I was amazed to find the supply lead is faulty. It looks bulletproof and has never been miss handled. I replaced it with a spare from a computer and its working again.
If anyone is using the UK type 3 pin supply lead. Its worth knowing its not reliable.

 

[dnmun]

was that the problem you had with the original charger too?

did you test it to see if there is AC inside the case behind the fuse?

 

[passpato]

was that the problem you had with the original charger too?

did you test it to see if there is AC inside the case behind the fuse?

The original charger is toast. It wouldn't charge and I shorted it and popped several components on the board. Mr Ping sent a replacement when it arrived DOA.