imax B6

[D8ve]

d8veh

Cats read kitten Tika

 

[robdon]

is someone taking the p---
ROB

 

[robdon]

What`s this all about cats and no reply from d8veh, have I done something wrong, please explain so I can put it right, I would say sorry but do not know what for
ROB

 

[Deleted member 4366]

Sorry, I've a memory like a seive and I've been busy. I'll try and answer when I get home. I need to study my own connectors.

 

[Deleted member 4366]

Right. I've had a chance to study things. Unfortunately, as ever, your photos are missing essential detail. I'd need to be able to follow a wire out of the imax all the way to the battery, and at the same time see where you've spliced in the power leads.

Normally the battery and charger connectors are the same way round, not mirrored, so if you had a flat ribbon cable with the same connector each end, you'd have to twist it through 180 deg. to connect positive to positive. Is yours like that?

The imax will charge without the sense leads connected, but, like that, it won't do any balancing, so unplug the balance connector at the imax end,and just charge through the two power leads to see what happens. If you've connected to the right pins, you should see about 18v on the power wires. If it's more than three volts different, you've probably connected to the wrong pins. You should check the voltage of the two power wires. If it's in the correct range, see if it'll start charging, then connect the balance connector to the imax. If you press the second bbutton from the right, you should see the cell voltages.

 

[robdon]

this photo before connected to battery, yes positive to positive, look at this photo first, then I will do as you suggest, do you mean the two main positive and negative leads from the imax to the battery ribbon cable, because if I pull out the balancing leads from the imax I also pull out the pos and neg
wires which are spliced in

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[robdon]

another

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[robdon]

imax connected to the battery

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[Deleted member 4366]

That looks right for the power leads. Unplug the balance connector from the imax. The two outer balance wires are still connected to the imax power wires, so it should charge the 5 cells between those two pins. You now have only one chance to get it wrong - correct polarity or incorrect polarity. Check for 18v before charging.You can unplug the banana plugs from the imax to check them.

Looking at your two balance wire connectors, one is in the charger and one is on the table. Are the connectors the opposite way up? If they're the same way up,they're not crossed over like they should be.

 

[robdon]

I think it is working, pulled the balance wire out, selected lipo charge,
pressed button for 3 secs, came up R 5s S5s 18.5
confirm pressed enter started charging, plugged balance leads in without stopping, voltage 17.85 running 8 mins now at 17.92.
does that sound ok.
ROB

 

[robdon]

do I have to put it on lipo balance charge, voltages
3.59 3.48 3.58 3.48 3.64
ROB

 

[Deleted member 4366]

Now that it's working, you can switch to balance charging. It doesn't start balancing until they're charged up. It goes through some iterative charging/discharging procedure, which can take a while. The default time limit is 2 hours, so if you reach that. just re-start.

 

[robdon]

I will do that tomorrow in my garage, it is safer,
thanks for your help, I would not have a clue without you,
ROB

 

[KirstinS]

Did it work properly on the balance charge ? Thanks

 

[robdon]

Yes thanks to d8veh I charged it in two 5 cell, I then charged with proper charger and is now at 41 volts. I cant get it any higher than that.
When charging with the imax b6 using the set up that d8veh suggested,
do not plug the balancing plug in till the imax b6 checks 5s and charge voltage, then press confirm and insert balance plug, I could not get it to start charging till I had done this.
ROB

 

[Deleted member 4366]

That's weird. It means that it's not balancing, which is why you can't go over 41v.

 

[robdon]

the imax b6 was balancing for hours , I think their must be a faulty cell or something
R DONNELLY

 

[Deleted member 4366]

If it took hours, it is balancing then. The balancing algorithms in the imax are not very good.It goes through some sort of iterative process, but doesn't seem to be able to figure out which cells to drain and which ones to charge. It'll sometimes give up and say "full" after a while even though the cells aren't properly balanced. Sometimes, I used my wattmeter/balancer to balance the cells. It does it only by draining them, then I used the imax to charge them back up. It saved a lot of time. Now I have the BC168 charger, it's much quicker. It has six independent channels that charge through the balance leads, so just set the cell voltage, and each goes straight there with no messing about.

 

[robdon]

I think I may have been sold a duff battery, I bought it in November for a Giant Suede I have but put it in a cupboard to keep while I was ready for it.
It is 36 volt 15 ah, still has the delivery label on it.
I did not think or know about testing with a multimeter, until joining Pedelec forum, and reading about it.
ROB

 

[robdon]

when I put it on charge the charger stays on green, ie not charging.
looks like I may have to charge using the imax b6 through the balance leads.
battery is at 40.6volts, any ideas
ROB