Solo Battery charging cable

steven kornreich · Jul 15, 2015

Just curious, has anyone come up with a charging cable that I can use with my LIPO charger?
Basically a cable with male solo battery connector and banana connectors on the other end.

rrmccabe · Jul 15, 2015

Why not cut the cord off your Solo charger and put male/female banana connectors on it so you can swap it back and forth?

steven kornreich · Jul 15, 2015

Not a bad idea...

Operator74656 · Jul 15, 2015

We need a multi-battery charging option

Rich · Jul 15, 2015

I'm not sure... is the Solo charger a 'normal' LiPo charger, or is part of the circuitry in the battery itself?

The reason why I ask is that I don't see any evidence of a cell balancing port, and I'd be surprised if 3DR didn't balance the cells during charging.

I don't see an easy way to take the battery apart to figure out what's in there. If anyone does, let us know!

CanadianSolo · Jul 19, 2015

I stand corrected, I now believe that the "Charger" we get with the solo is merely a 16.8v DC 3.3A Power supply. Each battery contains the charger and balancer for each cell. This is probably why it takes FOREVER to charge. Not saying you could'n just put a Thunder power battery with Velcro in the battery bay and use female spade connectors to connect it to Solo. Then you could charger better batteries faster!

I wonder what the 3rd prong is on the battery? It has to be some sort of sense.....

AussiePilot · Nov 4, 2015

CanadianSolo said:
I wonder what the 3rd prong is on the battery? It has to be some sort of sense.....

Could be wrong but I assume it's nothing but a piece of plastic to ensure you plug the metal tongs in to the right sockets in the right orientation.

EDIT: Sorry - you meant on the battery. I was referring to the plastic prong on the charger's plug. Ignore my comment!

RolandS888 · Nov 4, 2015

3rd prong (top one) is double sided and is the data connection for the battery.

Battery can be charged at any rate you like by any lipo charger set to 4S without using the balance function. People are using American 2 pin power leads with plug pins bent to suit the spacing of the battery socket terminals, and banana plugs at the other end to connect to their charger

CanadianSolo · Nov 4, 2015

RolandS888 said:
3rd prong (top one) is double sided and is the data connection for the battery.
Charger supplied is actually a 4S lipo charger limited to 3.3 amps. Balance circuitry is contained within the battery.
Battery can be charged at any rate you like by any lipo charger set to 4S without using the balance function. People are using American 2 pin power leads with plug pins bent to suit the spacing of the battery socket terminals, and banana plugs at the other end to connect to their charger

I wouldn't say "Anyrate" there has to be a C limit to this battery. 3C might be the limit. And also, how do you charge it with the battery disconnect inside the battery. When I put my Volt meter in the battery I read 0v until I turn the battery on. I do notice that as soon as I plug in the factory charger the battery lights automatically do come on. So I wonder if there is a sensor in there that detects voltage input? If thats the case, we just need to find out what the charge limit is on this 4S.

RolandS888 · Nov 4, 2015

Personally, I dont charge at more than 1C, but once you use an aftermarket charger you are no longer limited to the 3.3 amps of the stock charger, that was my point, you have that control.
And yes, you need to turn this battery on before charging with an aftermarket charger.

Maddog · Nov 5, 2015

RolandS888 said:
Personally, I dont charge at more than 1C, but once you use an aftermarket charger you are no longer limited to the 3.3 amps of the stock charger, that was my point, you have that control.
And yes, you need to turn this battery on before charging with an aftermarket charger.

Will this charge it faster than the factory charger?
Also, will an aftermarket charger know when to stop charging a Solo battery?

Jubalr · Nov 5, 2015

You could safely charge it at about 5.5a and should charge it 20-30% faster than stock charger. The solo 'smart' battery will actually cut off the charging just before my charger does.

Maddog · Nov 5, 2015

Jubalr said:
You could safely charge it at about 5.5a and should charge it 20-30% faster than stock charger. The solo 'smart' battery will actually cut off the charging just before my charger does.

Thanks, I have an Accucel 6 that should work great.

z-axis · Nov 6, 2015

rrmccabe said:
Why not cut the cord off your Solo charger and put male/female banana connectors on it so you can swap it back and forth?

That's what I just did, but I used XT60 connectors instead.Having male bananna plugs on the battery side of the cord creates the possibility of forgetting to unplug the solo battery from its cable first, and now you have two bare bannana connectors that will short faster than a flea fart. This happened to me a couple of times using the Fatshark battery charging connector (which has banannas). XT60 connectors are totally enclosed and are 95% of what I use for my normal charging, so the bannana plug-to-XT60 basically lives in the charger, so I connect my XT60-to-Solo cable to it, and thus avoid any risk of shorting.

But either solution requires soldering skills, with the XT60 soldering job being quite a bit harder to do correctly with shrink etc...but doable as long as you practice it first. Don't try it immediately on your precious solo charger until you are good at it.

As far as the charger, my iCharger 106B does a battery voltage test first before beginning its charge cycle. To appease this check, you must turn on your battery first before starting the charge.
I am still working on getting the right charge voltage going, as the Solo charger does a straight 16.8V @3.3A, while the standard, non-balance LiPo 4S setting is I think 14.8V. I will research and report back on this.

Soloing · Nov 6, 2015

I believe I was the first one to ever take a Solo Battery apart, and I also started designing an aftermarket case for 3rd party batteries, that you can be used on the Solo. Head over to the 3DR Solo Owners thread (or not, as it is one of the worst Owner threads on Earth, ha ha) and look in the first post. There are plenty of pictures posted of how the battery looks taken apart.

The battery charger that comes with the Solo is nothing but a Power Supply. Just like you have on your Laptop. 16.8V rated at 3.3 Amps. The battery has a charger and balancer build in, so all you have to do is supply power.

Take a look at the attached pictures. I just took some cable with banana plugs already installed on one end, and the other end was just tinned with solder. I then took some pliers and "flattened" the end with the solder... Now the cables fit nicely into the Solo battery.

Set you charger to LiPo, 4s 5200 mAh, 5.2A and turn balancing off. DONE. Now you Solo battery will charge way faster than when using the charger it comes with...

Thanks.

EDIT: The one pictures shows the "naked" cells of the Solo battery that I cracked open. On both pictures showing the charger, look on the right side of the display. Port 2. Once you see the voltage of the pack, and the second picture shows the settings of the charger...

RolandS888 · Nov 6, 2015

You are right about that rcg Solo owners thread, i cant believe the negativity there, i unsubscribed long ago.
Good work on the battery disection.
Can you crack open the “power supply” and post some pics too.

Soloing · Nov 6, 2015

RolandS888 said:
You are right about that rcg Solo owners thread, i cant believe the negativity there, i unsubscribed long ago.

Yeah, there is no reason to watch that thread.
[/QUOTE]Good work on the battery disection.[/QUOTE] Thanks.
[/QUOTE]Can you crack open the “power supply” and post some pics too.[/QUOTE] What would be the benefit of that? It is power supply. One that millions of people use for their Laptops. If you want one open, google has a ton of pictures from the inside of a PSU...

Thanks.

EDIT: I see that my "quoting" didn't work, ha ha.

Maddog · Nov 6, 2015

Soloing said:
I believe I was the first one to ever take a Solo Battery apart, and I also started designing an aftermarket case for 3rd party batteries, that you can be used on the Solo. Head over to the 3DR Solo Owners thread (or not, as it is one of the worst Owner threads on Earth, ha ha) and look in the first post. There are plenty of pictures posted of how the battery looks taken apart.

The battery charger that comes with the Solo is nothing but a Power Supply. Just like you have on your Laptop. 16.8V rated at 3.3 Amps. The battery has a charger and balancer build in, so all you have to do is supply power.

Take a look at the attached pictures. I just took some cable with banana plugs already installed on one end, and the other end was just tinned with solder. I then took some pliers and "flattened" the end with the solder... Now the cables fit nicely into the Solo battery.

Set you charger to LiPo, 4s 5200 mAh, 5.2A and turn balancing off. DONE. Now you Solo battery will charge way faster than when using the charger it comes with...

Thanks.

EDIT: The one pictures shows the "naked" cells of the Solo battery that I cracked open. On both pictures showing the charger, look on the right side of the display. Port 2. Once you see the voltage of the pack, and the second picture shows the settings of the charger...

Thanks- that's great info!