DIY Multi Battery Charger

Question, could I use my existing lipo charger to act as a power supply? Limit to 4S 5.9amp max draw....if so what 'battery type' mode would I put it on?..trying to see if it could be used as a CV CC power supply
 
Question, could I use my existing lipo charger to act as a power supply? Limit to 4S 5.9amp max draw....if so what 'battery type' mode would I put it on?..trying to see if it could be used as a CV CC power supply

Yes. Set it for LiPo CHARGE, not LiPo Balance. That will put it in plain old CC/CV mode without trying to balance. I've done this myself and use it to charge my Solo Batteries when I need them faster. However, you need to remember the Solo batteries have a mind of their own (literally). If they get more than 6.01 amps, they will disconnect themselves and the charger will stop and say connection break. I found my LiPo charger reads current about 0.5amps too low, so it was cutting off when reading 5.5 amps. Also, when the solo battery decides it is 100% full, it will disconnect itself. The charger will gain alarm saying connection break.
 
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I've got a discharger in mine. I was using it for a load capacity test to make it easier to tune the CC/CV converters since they will put out different levels depending on how discharged the battery was (battery isn't going to draw 6A if it's 70% charged). I needed something consistent to calibrate them all. It discharges, or charges to 50%, whichever is needed when using the "storage" option. The whole thing works off of 120/240VAC, or 12VDC car battery. Charges 6 solo batteries@6A each, plus controller, plus 2 usb devices for tablet/etc simultaneously ;) Also logs all battery data to a memory card whenever it's plugged in, displays battery errors as reported by the chip in the battery, reports charge cycles, plays a sound file when a battery is finished charging (I was having it send me a text message), displays percentage of charge to a tenth of a percent using nice pretty bargraphs on the 3.5" touch display, can view all 4 cell levels per battery, etc. One charger to rule them all lol.

Hi PdxSteve,
I am a poor lonesome 3DR Solo drone pilot down the hill in France. We do not have much Solo parts here around.
I have 7 batteries and 2 chargers.
I wish I could built same charger than the wonderful one you seem to have.
Would you share a wiring diagram together with a bill of material ?
Best Regards
Michel
 
Hi, that's something I'd have to piece together and would be pretty time consuming due to its complexity. I started laying it out on pcb but have had too much going on launching a new business, so I just have my working prototype and have kind of shelved working on it for now as it suits my purposes. It was initially Arduino based but I had to take a different route and use the Teensy as there isn't an Arduino fast enough to drive a full touch screen graphic lcd display in realtime. It required a great deal of code custom rewrite even though the Teensy is mostly arduino compatible, a lot of this wasn't. I've also been hesitant to release anything because the times that I have done that, some people have taken that and are now selling it as their own. This is something they can't duplicate because it's not just hardware.
 
@PdxSteve Hey mate, aren't you considering selling your multi charger setup?
I would love one like yours. Take my money :D
 
Glad to help you out there, Grant :) "my design" lol. ok. Where did you find out about the Yeeco's? Who told you it was possible and gave you the link to them when others were saying it wouldn't work? Funny how you use "Steve" as the example on how people should be naming their design different than yours. I'll name my charger that I've been researching (and you've greatly benefited from those 2 months of testing and research) how I want, thanks. Not that I would have used that name anyway. All you've done is took exactly what I've done and said you came up with it. Brilliant. Anyone can go look at the timeline here and on the facebook groups...
There appears to be some confusion in communication/intentions between Steve, and myself. You are correct in stating that when I posted on the Facebook group asking what people were using as a cc/cv power source and if these batteries accepted being charged in parallel (which they cannot). You told me about the yeeco boost drivers and that you had tested them up 6amps (because the battery will cut itself off above that voltage, the batteries themselves are capable of 2C chargeing if it weren't for the "smart" feature). I was appreciative of the info and the link, I think we might have even talked about where to source the molex connectors. All of this was good information, however where you claim that this is "your design" is simply not accurate. The fact that I decided to use them as CV/CC power supply to the batteries does not make the design "yours". I ordered one of them at first, conducted my own tests found the amp cutoff to be accurate and then ordered four more. I then started to draw up a diagram on paper, and when they all arrived drew up a CAD model that housed power distribution via a busbar, to the yeeco's and a fan. I next thought about how people out in the field would want to use the charger, since the yeeco's allowed 10-32volt input voltages, opted to use XT60 connectors on everything so power input attachments could be made by the end user as various power sources were thought up. I then tracked down a 12v 40amp power supply on Amazon that could run off 120/220ac. I also sourced everything else for the charger design along with designing the case and proper wire gauges throughout the charger. So when you say I stole your design that is not accurate at all, you provided me with a link to one brand of CC/CV boost driver. I performed my own tests and found it to be what I was looking for. For that I thank you very much. I never intended to come off in my instructable as implying anything. I used steve and bob as comic relief thought out the instructable (were my high altitude instructor's names that always had a good sense of humor and loved to talk about beer) :) I could have used bob in that example just as easily. So once again thanks for the link to the yeeco driver and the molex connector, but that is all you gave me. I really hope that you can see that I never meant to offend you at all, i actually thought you knew your stuff quite well when I was talking to you and Matt that day. I look forward to seeing your charger design, I believe I remember you talking/seeing you talking about using some sort of LCD panel/accessing the serial information off the battery. If you are having any difficulties with that I could put you in contact with my old boss who works a lot with serial communications between micro-controllers.
 
I've got a discharger in mine. I was using it for a load capacity test to make it easier to tune the CC/CV converters since they will put out different levels depending on how discharged the battery was (battery isn't going to draw 6A if it's 70% charged). I needed something consistent to calibrate them all. It discharges, or charges to 50%, whichever is needed when using the "storage" option. The whole thing works off of 120/240VAC, or 12VDC car battery. Charges 6 solo batteries@6A each, plus controller, plus 2 usb devices for tablet/etc simultaneously ;) Also logs all battery data to a memory card whenever it's plugged in, displays battery errors as reported by the chip in the battery, reports charge cycles, plays a sound file when a battery is finished charging (I was having it send me a text message), displays percentage of charge to a tenth of a percent using nice pretty bargraphs on the 3.5" touch display, can view all 4 cell levels per battery, etc. One charger to rule them all lol.
Hi,
Thanks for your previous precious advices...
Is discharger a unit we can find at Amazon ? Any reference ?
 
I built a variable discharger/constant dummy load based on this design, except mine goes to 10A. I use it to tune the DC/DC converters to get it right at 5.8A load as well as discharge batteries at 10A for storage. I'm also using an arduino to set the load instead of the 10 turn trimpot so I can detect when the battery hits 40% capacity and disconnect from the discharger so it doesn't keep going. Here is the base design I used and modified:
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Hey Steve, would you mind sharing the stl files for your lovely looking battery dock? Searched all over shapeways and stl finder to no avail...
 
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Here's my version of the 4x and single base for the Drok Booster.

drok_base.jpg

4x_drok_base.jpg

Rename the attachment extensions.

Use at your own risk. For informational purposes only.
 

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  • 4x_drok_base.stl.txt
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