Higher powered charger testing....dirtyGinge powers on .....

[DirtyGinge]

Hi All

Well yesterday I took delivery of my higher powered battery charger from BMSBATTERY.COM

So far, to use teh standard GM charger, after my morning commute of 11AH, I have to charge for approx 5 hours.....now I know that overcharging a smaller battery is problematic, dangerous and shortens the life etc, but what ive done is to use 2 x 20AH batteries for my morning commute.....3AH is just downright painful...so battery ordered

BMs order was for an alloy shell 600W charger, ( 48V 10a,) but they do models up to 2000W....i decided against too large a charger as a...im broke,.....b, the weight in shipping would subject much more force...

So BMSBattery ask you what kind of mains lead you want, what kind of battery connection you want, what voltage etc

Altough I hear mixed stories about them, I order for about £80 landed cost...requesting a 54.6 ( although drunk so they question the 56.4 that I insist is correct), so at least the customer services know what 13S x 4.2 volt is, things look up

[DirtyGinge]

So we wait 2 weeks ( this is common, I really suggest if you want something big from BMs, don't order anything else, small bits etc, as they tend to wait until all in stock, so I resist the urge to spend another 500 dollars on those handy bits and pieces, and just order the charger....)

Ginge goes on holiday...drinks lots of somserset cider, and then some more, then some more etc etc

..

AFter about 2 weeks, shipping update...charger shipped with tracking number, and in 2 days >
DHL - HK to London heathrow
LHR - Westmidlands DHL Depot
West Midlands > LHR
LHR  - Docklands....

Surprisingly, package turns up on the Tuesday after bank holiday ....gimme a flat battery NOW!!!

Case is about 2 inches longer than the GM Charger, but appears well built....packaging could have been a lot lot better.....1 cm of Foam around the charger... but still they provided a UK Mains lead, an anderson chinese knock of fitted ( red type, doesnt fit black and grey without cutting, same as uk red andersons ), but also 2 spare Fuses....dang handy and very thoughtfull

hmm charger is silent but charging....screwdriver time.....

So in the infinite DHL shipping ( damaged handling limited), at some point the charger has taken a big impact and the fan middle is snapped off the outside and jammed....

But the Ginge is not upset, I mean, we are used to stuff being broken on arrival, and we all have trade accounts with loctite, so how bad can it be

[DirtyGinge]

Glue the middle of the fan back on, wait a few mins and charge baby charge...apart from the fan ( which is large 40MM 1 inch thick fan, so im not surprised at damage, the board appears well made, the case is excellent, no sign of chinese workmanship here)

much louder, much bigger......a real MANS charger lol

so cut the bull, I go on morning commute and charge both batteries, one on normal GM charger 3a, one on the new one
battery one.... 2 hours 48 minutes
battery 2.......1 hour and about 5 minutes


so there you have it, if like me you struggle to get batteries charged overnight before the next day .......ampage baby ...my 20AH battery didnt feel any warmer with the more rapid charge...charge started at 10A, tailing off to 0.15a before cutoff

Now this is only day 2, so the charger may blow up, the house may blow up, battery may blow up,  honey wine may make me blow up etc, but so far........£80 well spent for the massive hours of monitoring saved.....

more as it comes

[Andrew]

Nice write up (or should I say rant) as always  

Nothing arrived for you from GM as yet, hopefully within the next week.  I've managed to fit my Cycle analyst this week. I have not tried it out as yet, but hopefully will over the weekend.  I stumbled across the 'Advanced' settings  and quickly stepped away    At least at present I can get some readings, although as the motors are different voltages I suppose it's not good for finding out how the power is being shared between them

[DirtyGinge]

cool....

We can get the limiter running when I come up...what you need is

Single wire running from back of the cycle analyst ( couple of inches to spare), through to where your throttle and controller wiring meet

soldering iron
Remind me and ill get resistors and diodes...

Thats pretty much it

If you feel brave, I can detail the procedure before then.....

regards

[GM Canada]

Nice write up (or should I say rant) as always  

Nothing arrived for you from GM as yet, hopefully within the next week.  I've managed to fit my Cycle analyst this week. I have not tried it out as yet, but hopefully will over the weekend.  I stumbled across the 'Advanced' settings  and quickly stepped away    At least at present I can get some readings, although as the motors are different voltages I suppose it's not good for finding out how the power is being shared between them

Don't be afraid of the Advanced setup. I have to admit I was a little intimidated the first time I did it. I was never good at these things as just seeing small oblects clearly is a challenge. I have done the soldering for this setup more then 10 times now and it is quite simple. One lead soldered to the TH on the circuit board and a jumper on r6. The lead to TH is a little tricky as everything is so small. The jumper on r6 I just add a blob of solder right over r6 to cover it and reach both contacts. The only time I ever had an issue was when adding a blob of solder to r6 the resister came right out. I dicarded it and added the solder over the contacts where r6 was and it worked fine.

Gary

[DirtyGinge]

Thanks gary....i think andrew might get the impression im a bit geeky  , so your input helps loads......

[GM Canada]

Thanks gary....i think andrew might get the impression im a bit geeky  , so your input helps loads......

A bit geeky? Your one of the biggest E-Geeks I know!   

When people ask me questions a can't answer I say come to our forum and ask the E-Geeks! 

Gary

[Bingo]

Hi
When you say you use 11 Amp-hr, what does that mean? How much in kW-hr? How do you measure Amp-hrs? Do you use coulomb counting or some other computational method?
Thanks
Bingo

[Thaialien]

Hi interesting about batteries charging voltage (do we presum that you are using 48v 12 A GM pack ?)
quote "
Altough I hear mixed stories about them, I order for about £80 landed cost...requesting a 54.6 ( although drunk so they question the 56.4 that I insist is correct), so at least the customer services know what 13S x 4.2 volt is, things look up  " end quote

i would like to know min and max to reach full charge !

the battery section on GM site says this for SOLAR Chargers

MODEL:SCR-4880 (48V 80W)
 PV Module Electricity Performance Parameter
Cell type:   16% efficiency high quality Polycrystalline cell
Glass type:  Tempered Glass
Lamination:  EVA ,Tedlar
Maximum Power( Pmax) 80W
Voltage at Pmax ( Vmp) 68.6V
Current at Pmax (Imp) 1.17A
Open-circuit voltage ( Voc) 82.9V
Short circuit current ( Isc) 1.33A
Tolerance: 3%
NOTE: POWER MEASURED UNDER STANDARD TEST CONDITIONS: 1000W/M2 AM 1.5 GLOBAL, 25? CELL TEMPERATURE

68.6v P MAX and open circuit at 82.9V
But GM knows best    I have one of those aluminium daul volt input GM chargers it only goes up to 53.9 v says on sticker (54.6 at 3.0 amps )(only chaged batteries 20 times) (use this just as emegency battery on the bike and run on AGM  12 amps they last me twice the distance sorry ) I don't know if its adustable inside ? I have no idea how to take this apart ? I bought this battery to get rid of weight but I ended up with more !
Someone will post pictures batteris testing facility and chargers if there where QC stickers with numbers on we could find out whos not pulling their weight !
 

[DirtyGinge]

Hi idea is that instead of my battery charging for 6 hours, its finished in 2 hours

you have to make sure that your battery can take the charge though, so it depends on the manufacturer / cells

the battery starts charging at for instance 44V 10 AMp, once the charger hits 54.6, the amps drop until they hit about .2 amp, then the battery is ready.....

you need to look at the C charge rate of the cells that are in your battery, to see if it can take the charge, but they also do 3 amp, 6 amp etc

regards

[GM Canada]

Dear Ginge,

I was just reading back in this thread and realized I called everyone here a geek and you the biggest geek I know. Umm e-geek I mean.

Hope you not offended, must of had a few extra pints that night

Gary

[DirtyGinge]

Hi gary...lol don't worry
im a married man with three kids...geek is a complimnt compared to what im normally called