I've been designing switch-mode power supply for awhile (begun with the 78S40). The dual input filter is required because there are two chargers directly connected to the same power source. Without a good filter at the input, the two circuits start oscillating because of the coupling thru the common power input. They are an absolute requirement when there is more than one power supply in parallel. Greetings, Anthony
@14m30s: Parallel diodes... Don't forget that the dual diodes in one TO-220 case are presumably on the same die, and thus are presumably extremely well matched in terms of Vf and so on. Also, they're obviously very tightly coupled thermally. These factors should place tight limits on the imbalance. That said, there's still a great deal of basic truth in your point. Cheers!! :-)
The Low Voltage Directive will tell you how fast the voltage must drop when the plug is disconnected. The problem is when you put a plug on a device that is not meant to be connected to the supply by a plug. As the pins may stay live for a lot longer. Mains inverters single to 3 phase are good for this. rectified mains on the inside and no bleed down as it's not required for directly connect equipment. As the diodes are made from the same process even the same dia the characteristic might be very close to each other. I have a 30A 30V PSU and the diodes are rated at 20A, so should be good to 40A. But one did go short circuit when the output was shorted. Nice high power supply but dies in a big way if you short the output. I did have two that were killed the same way. Diode bridge, switching FET's, and output diodes all went on both supplies on a very short controlled short circuit. meant to be testing a product not killing the supplies. No short circuit protection at all. :(
2 physical chargers on the board makes for easier fault-finding & even if one charger "dies" the other unit can continue to be used !! Glad I bought it ! 😎👍☘🍺
The spark gaps are there for the line surge not for the chokes but not really necessary since lighting rarely results in an overcharge condition in your house.
My worry with low price rechargeable tools is that they'll pull a gotcha and suddenly stop making tools compatible with the batteries I've already 'invested' in. I've got a bit more faith that ryobi or other brands won't do this.
I had that with parkside already, I have a bunch of their 18v tools and black performance 20v tools, the batteries/tools are all incompatible with green 20v battery's/tools.... I have Ryobi now..., I don't like Ryobi tools tho terrible ergonomics, design and expensive for no reason.
@@AlpineTheHusky Not really, the tools are slightly better and have a large resale value 2nd hand, I recently sold a totaled Makita angle grinder for £15 (burnt out armature, striped out crown gear and pinion gear, like VW modern Makita angle grinders are rubbish) paided £40 for it new. Think I got my money's worth if it was no name it would have gone in the bin. In afew year's I'll switch all my ryboi tools to Makita as they have X2 18v battery tools so no need to buy a new battery platform.
@@user-zt4ry9hm9u If you professionally use any tools you should go for cheaper stuff if you dont have money to throw around. I got Makita drills and the batteried die fast enough where no matter the brand you end up with the same uses. Use it hard and it doesnt matter if cheap or expensive
@@user-zt4ry9hm9u they are compatible now. Parkside changed the performance line to be compatible with the green line battery. The first batch of black performance line tools had different connectors because a agreement with Samsung. After the complains Parkside changed back to the green line battery system at the end of 2019. The green battery's have a max of 4ah while the Samsung battery packs go up to 5ah that's how you recognized a incompatible Samsung cell battery. Only the multi tool and the drill was ever sold as a incompatible system. Although everything you buy now are green line compatible
These bateries have no balancing function I've tested a few and basicly the bms cuts charging when 1st cell reaches 4.20v even if other cells are at 3.5v
The draper stormforce 20 v range have virtually identical batteries so possibly the same manufacturer???? That's possibly the reference to the 3ah battery which draper supply?????
Hi Julian, another excellent video. These Parkside and Ferrex products seem like great value and very reassuring to hear your positive assessment. A question: For the longevity of the battery and it's long term ability to hold a charge, is it better to use the slower 2 amp charger rather than the faster 4.5 amp charger? (albeit they take longer to charge up). Thanks a million. Brian in Dublin
I got one of these and the slow-charger types.... I use this to charge my packs fast before finalizing with the slow charger (it gets a little more current into the packs) Also, I can power my Lenovo T400 with these packs, so I made a custom portable pack out of 3 of these (20v @ 12Ah). I'd not suggest trying using the batteries with just any laptop.... Though I have tried with an old scrapped Dell Latitude E6410 (It had intermittent fault, so was a great sacrificial lappie), that worked. I'd suggest picking up a spare lappie for cheap at a bootsale to try... just in case (Or find the schematics for your lappie and find what the maximum ratings of all devices attached directly to the power-in line) Of course, won't work if the lappie is USBC charged.
I do this either. I bought 7 of these 2Ah batteries, because they were cheap. I disassembled them, took out the bms boards, connected all packs in parallel with just one board on top. Yesterday I added additional 5S5P pack to these. In a box, I hooked up to this now big pack a DC/DC step up converter set up at 21,2V (Lenovo Thinkpads accepting that voltage), 2 USB 5V2A chargers, 2 USB QC3.0 chargers and a step down converter set up to 12V. It is a complete big powerbank that can charge up my 94Wh Thinkpad battery 5 times while using the laptop or even run Ubiquiti wifi antennas in the middle of nowhere :) I added also top balance charging while waiting for a trustworthy BMS for the pack.
Julian, I find these batteries great and have converted all my various 18V tools to use these batteries. Lidl price for battery + charger = €30. However as I use the connector on the charger to mount the batteries on the various other tools, I have accumulated a number of chargers.It would be great if I could use them for other projects. I have been trying to work out what the function of the third connector beside + on charger, but no progress yet. Fitting different resistor values between + and this connector hasn't worked. Any Ideas?
You can find many circuits with parallel transistors for increasing power, thoough some have a series resistor in each, you might slightly decrease the individual ratings, but don't have to assume one will carry full load, otherwise thare's no point in pairing/multiples. So i see no problem with paralleling diodes, specially as they are probably schotky and in the same case, so probably matched (this is common in computer psu's) For a moment it looked like those boards are manufactured in multiples, notice the half holes at the top, but there aren't any matching holes or the big cut out at the bottom.
That's an interesting design. I think that I would have flipped the high voltage layout on one side and run a couple of mains tracks between the two. That would save the cost of that extra bit of wire.
Look at the ends of the boards and you'll note that the boards are cut from a panel of identical single charger boards, thgat's why both sides are identical and not mirrored.
You can see on the side edges of the circuit half circles. So the whole production line is a very long board with single chargers. If you cut only every second board you'll have a double charger. That's much cheaper than the cable.
I love these Lidl tools, mainly because they share the same batteries, and you can get replacements. My old B&Q hammer drill battery just failed, and you can't get replacements at a reasonable price, so the drill is pretty much junk now which is a shame. With the Lidl tools, they have kept to the same battery design over the past few years, and it's easy to get replacements every time they stock the tools. Only down side is that you have to wait for the 1 week window of them selling the tool you want, and as a compulsive collector, I want to collect them all! I wonder when they will be selling the hammer drill next?
Iirc lidl run a mailing list with the next few weeks special products... Or just keep going into the shop (which must be what they're hoping you'll do)
Good morning my friend. I have this exact model but one slot is completely dead. Fuse is OK by measuring it. Do you know what should I look for ,for a dead slot? Is there a common failure to these chargers that I should start checking?
The LP filters are a Pi+L filter, designed for two different frequency bands. The supply confused him, the bridge rectifier makes ≈350 Volts and the two diodes (paralleled, looking like a power transistor) on the heatsink are working at the ≈20 Volt level. Two diodes made together on one die can be matched well enough to be loaded to the max when paralleled. Ron W4BIN
Hello sir I have a different kind of problem I need help with I bought a underwater ROV drone "CHASING GLADIUS MINI" and my son broke the 50m tether/cord off the WiFi box so I stripped it and found a black and white wire in it surrounded by Kevlar material, that tether/cord needs to be somehow connected to a 4 prong connector, I opened up that WiFi communication box and it has red(L), black(N), yellow(BAT) and blue(GND) wires not sure how to reconnect this?
iv just come across a parallel diode problem on the power supply board for a small flat screen tv.. its the Vestel model(or board) and its as big problem with them as iv discovered.. Here's one for a laugh!! they offer a fix kit... 3 BLOODY DIODE"S!! they are 5A 100V P.S. the "real fix" i found out(video after video) is not replace all 3, but just 2... and a few versions of the Vestel boards have this problem!!
"BMS" is in the battery, but it's not really a BMS as there is no FET to disconnect the battery. It relies on the power tool to refuse to operate with low voltage, and the charger to refuse to charge if the battery reports unbalance etc. So if you use these for other projects you'll have to make sure of that as well. Note that newer batteries contain balancers; older ones just measure the cell voltages and report back via the data terminal.
Hey, Julian. Do you have an opinion either way on which 20V Lidl charger is best? I needed a 4Ah battery but wasn't sure whether to buy the cheap charger with 2Ah battery spare or the expensive dual one reviewed here. I have both but still in boxes with one getting returned at some point. Do you see any reason to pick this one over the other? I've seen in your other videos that sometimes the battery bundled charger is a bit more basic but then I do wonder if the slower charging rate will help battery longevity....? Thanks.
I got both types.... The dual charger charges fast, no doubt.... but leaves a little headroom the slower charger can then top up (From experience). i.e. the dual charger would charge for under an hour before showing as "fully charged" and then the battery would accept another 10-minutes charge on the cheaper charger. So depending on your needs, getting the cheaper one with an additional 2Ah to start off with means you'd have a battery to swap over when doing more-involved/long-duration work. Hopes this helps.
From Wikipedia. In electronics, a choke is an inductor used to block higher-frequency while passing direct current and lower-frequencies of alternating current in an electrical circuit. A choke usually consists of a coil of insulated wire often wound on a magnetic core, although some consist of a doughnut-shaped "bead" of ferrite material strung on a wire.
It stops unwanted high frequency electrical 'noise. The coil cannot pass high frequencies. In this case it stops that noise from being fed back into the mains supply...where it could cause havoc!
From playing with PSUs at less than the rated universal mains input, I have also played with the single slow-charge charger version (The circuit is similar on the dual-charger, just with lesser rated FETs): The SMPS IC stops switching at around the 25V mark mains-side.... (I recall one of the few I have still running as low as 18V unloaded, however I'd have to retake measurements again with my bench-PSU+multi-meter, to be sure) So unless there was a fault releasing smoke, when the LEDs die out, the voltage on the primary (Mains-side) capacitor is less than 25V.... That's usually safe to touch (unless ya dripping wet... of course)
I also have that one. Inside the battery there is 4 cells, so it is 14,4 v. The rison why they call this battery a 16v is probably because this is new line of this parkside batterys. The old 14,4 one are not compatible. By printing the max volteg instead of nominal they avid compatiblity problems.They are not alone, Makita also named new series of batterys 40v, but in fact inside there is 10 cells, so only 36v.
Double input filtering is not a bad thing. Could be the switching circuit is a bit dirty. Maybe you could scope the input and see what is getting back into the mains. With proper protection for the scope, of course.
I've been designing switch-mode power supply for awhile (begun with the 78S40).
The dual input filter is required because there are two chargers directly connected to the same power source.
Without a good filter at the input, the two circuits start oscillating because of the coupling thru the common power input.
They are an absolute requirement when there is more than one power supply in parallel.
Greetings,
Anthony
@14m30s: Parallel diodes... Don't forget that the dual diodes in one TO-220 case are presumably on the same die, and thus are presumably extremely well matched in terms of Vf and so on. Also, they're obviously very tightly coupled thermally. These factors should place tight limits on the imbalance. That said, there's still a great deal of basic truth in your point. Cheers!! :-)
The Low Voltage Directive will tell you how fast the voltage must drop when the plug is disconnected. The problem is when you put a plug on a device that is not meant to be connected to the supply by a plug. As the pins may stay live for a lot longer. Mains inverters single to 3 phase are good for this. rectified mains on the inside and no bleed down as it's not required for directly connect equipment.
As the diodes are made from the same process even the same dia the characteristic might be very close to each other. I have a 30A 30V PSU and the diodes are rated at 20A, so should be good to 40A. But one did go short circuit when the output was shorted. Nice high power supply but dies in a big way if you short the output. I did have two that were killed the same way. Diode bridge, switching FET's, and output diodes all went on both supplies on a very short controlled short circuit. meant to be testing a product not killing the supplies. No short circuit protection at all. :(
2 physical chargers on the board makes for easier fault-finding & even if one charger "dies" the other unit can continue to be used !! Glad I bought it !
😎👍☘🍺
The spark gaps are there for the line surge not for the chokes but not really necessary since lighting rarely results in an overcharge condition in your house.
At 13:00, that arrangement of the MOSFETS is a bi-lateral switch, similar to what's inside a 4066.
My worry with low price rechargeable tools is that they'll pull a gotcha and suddenly stop making tools compatible with the batteries I've already 'invested' in. I've got a bit more faith that ryobi or other brands won't do this.
I had that with parkside already, I have a bunch of their 18v tools and black performance 20v tools, the batteries/tools are all incompatible with green 20v battery's/tools.... I have Ryobi now..., I don't like Ryobi tools tho terrible ergonomics, design and expensive for no reason.
But you pay WAYY more
@@AlpineTheHusky Not really, the tools are slightly better and have a large resale value 2nd hand, I recently sold a totaled Makita angle grinder for £15 (burnt out armature, striped out crown gear and pinion gear, like VW modern Makita angle grinders are rubbish) paided £40 for it new. Think I got my money's worth if it was no name it would have gone in the bin.
In afew year's I'll switch all my ryboi tools to Makita as they have X2 18v battery tools so no need to buy a new battery platform.
@@user-zt4ry9hm9u If you professionally use any tools you should go for cheaper stuff if you dont have money to throw around. I got Makita drills and the batteried die fast enough where no matter the brand you end up with the same uses. Use it hard and it doesnt matter if cheap or expensive
@@user-zt4ry9hm9u they are compatible now. Parkside changed the performance line to be compatible with the green line battery. The first batch of black performance line tools had different connectors because a agreement with Samsung. After the complains Parkside changed back to the green line battery system at the end of 2019. The green battery's have a max of 4ah while the Samsung battery packs go up to 5ah that's how you recognized a incompatible Samsung cell battery. Only the multi tool and the drill was ever sold as a incompatible system. Although everything you buy now are green line compatible
These bateries have no balancing function
I've tested a few and basicly the bms cuts charging when 1st cell reaches 4.20v even if other cells are at 3.5v
Old comment I appreciate, but to avoid confusion, the newer batteries do have balancing.
The draper stormforce 20 v range have virtually identical batteries so possibly the same manufacturer???? That's possibly the reference to the 3ah battery which draper supply?????
Why do you need so many mains voltage chargers? Can't you charge batteries using your solar panels setup?
Hi Julian, another excellent video. These Parkside and Ferrex products seem like great value and very reassuring to hear your positive assessment. A question: For the longevity of the battery and it's long term ability to hold a charge, is it better to use the slower 2 amp charger rather than the faster 4.5 amp charger? (albeit they take longer to charge up). Thanks a million. Brian in Dublin
Hi thanks for the video. Do you see any way to connect some fans to this PCB without many modifications? To help cooling while charging.
if there ever be a b2 or a2 verion of this, it would be nice to see one or maybe two fans inside just like the mono chargers of 4.5A.
I got one of these and the slow-charger types.... I use this to charge my packs fast before finalizing with the slow charger (it gets a little more current into the packs)
Also, I can power my Lenovo T400 with these packs, so I made a custom portable pack out of 3 of these (20v @ 12Ah).
I'd not suggest trying using the batteries with just any laptop.... Though I have tried with an old scrapped Dell Latitude E6410 (It had intermittent fault, so was a great sacrificial lappie), that worked.
I'd suggest picking up a spare lappie for cheap at a bootsale to try... just in case (Or find the schematics for your lappie and find what the maximum ratings of all devices attached directly to the power-in line)
Of course, won't work if the lappie is USBC charged.
I do this either. I bought 7 of these 2Ah batteries, because they were cheap. I disassembled them, took out the bms boards, connected all packs in parallel with just one board on top. Yesterday I added additional 5S5P pack to these. In a box, I hooked up to this now big pack a DC/DC step up converter set up at 21,2V (Lenovo Thinkpads accepting that voltage), 2 USB 5V2A chargers, 2 USB QC3.0 chargers and a step down converter set up to 12V. It is a complete big powerbank that can charge up my 94Wh Thinkpad battery 5 times while using the laptop or even run Ubiquiti wifi antennas in the middle of nowhere :) I added also top balance charging while waiting for a trustworthy BMS for the pack.
Julian, I find these batteries great and have converted all my various 18V tools to use these batteries. Lidl price for battery + charger = €30. However as I use the connector on the charger to mount the batteries on the various other tools, I have accumulated a number of chargers.It would be great if I could use them for other projects. I have been trying to work out what the function of the third connector beside + on charger, but no progress yet. Fitting different resistor values between + and this connector hasn't worked. Any Ideas?
I'm trying to do same thing the battery outputs 1v difference in battery voltage might need reference
Excellent review, thanks. 👍
ya couldnt of said it better.. for the DIY'er these a perfectly reasonable
You can find many circuits with parallel transistors for increasing power, thoough some have a series resistor in each, you might slightly decrease the individual ratings, but don't have to assume one will carry full load, otherwise thare's no point in pairing/multiples.
So i see no problem with paralleling diodes, specially as they are probably schotky and in the same case, so probably matched (this is common in computer psu's)
For a moment it looked like those boards are manufactured in multiples, notice the half holes at the top, but there aren't any matching holes or the big cut out at the bottom.
That's an interesting design. I think that I would have flipped the high voltage layout on one side and run a couple of mains tracks between the two. That would save the cost of that extra bit of wire.
Look at the ends of the boards and you'll note that the boards are cut from a panel of identical single charger boards, thgat's why both sides are identical and not mirrored.
You can see on the side edges of the circuit half circles. So the whole production line is a very long board with single chargers. If you cut only every second board you'll have a double charger. That's much cheaper than the cable.
Still dont understand why car chargers for power tool batteries are so expensive
I love these Lidl tools, mainly because they share the same batteries, and you can get replacements. My old B&Q hammer drill battery just failed, and you can't get replacements at a reasonable price, so the drill is pretty much junk now which is a shame. With the Lidl tools, they have kept to the same battery design over the past few years, and it's easy to get replacements every time they stock the tools. Only down side is that you have to wait for the 1 week window of them selling the tool you want, and as a compulsive collector, I want to collect them all! I wonder when they will be selling the hammer drill next?
Iirc lidl run a mailing list with the next few weeks special products... Or just keep going into the shop (which must be what they're hoping you'll do)
Maybe a nice project to replace the mains charger with a arduino driven DC/DC boostconverter!
Good morning my friend. I have this exact model but one slot is completely dead. Fuse is OK by measuring it. Do you know what should I look for ,for a dead slot? Is there a common failure to these chargers that I should start checking?
Could you adapt the battery terminals to charge Ryobi batteries?
I've seen some boards where they doubled up on the line filter chokes, but never three of them...
Would it be possible to mount fans on this charger?
The LP filters are a Pi+L filter, designed for two different frequency bands. The supply confused him, the bridge rectifier makes ≈350 Volts and the two diodes (paralleled, looking like a power transistor) on the heatsink are working at the ≈20 Volt level. Two diodes made together on one die can be matched well enough to be loaded to the max when paralleled.
Ron W4BIN
Hello sir I have a different kind of problem I need help with I bought a underwater ROV drone "CHASING GLADIUS MINI" and my son broke the 50m tether/cord off the WiFi box so I stripped it and found a black and white wire in it surrounded by Kevlar material, that tether/cord needs to be somehow connected to a 4 prong connector, I opened up that WiFi communication box and it has red(L), black(N), yellow(BAT) and blue(GND) wires not sure how to reconnect this?
iv just come across a parallel diode problem on the power supply board for a small flat screen tv.. its the Vestel model(or board) and its as big problem with them as iv discovered.. Here's one for a laugh!! they offer a fix kit... 3 BLOODY DIODE"S!! they are 5A 100V
P.S. the "real fix" i found out(video after video) is not replace all 3, but just 2... and a few versions of the Vestel boards have this problem!!
Do these chargers have BMS on them? Or the BMS is mounted on the battery itself?
"BMS" is in the battery, but it's not really a BMS as there is no FET to disconnect the battery. It relies on the power tool to refuse to operate with low voltage, and the charger to refuse to charge if the battery reports unbalance etc. So if you use these for other projects you'll have to make sure of that as well. Note that newer batteries contain balancers; older ones just measure the cell voltages and report back via the data terminal.
Hey, Julian.
Do you have an opinion either way on which 20V Lidl charger is best? I needed a 4Ah battery but wasn't sure whether to buy the cheap charger with 2Ah battery spare or the expensive dual one reviewed here. I have both but still in boxes with one getting returned at some point.
Do you see any reason to pick this one over the other? I've seen in your other videos that sometimes the battery bundled charger is a bit more basic but then I do wonder if the slower charging rate will help battery longevity....?
Thanks.
I got both types.... The dual charger charges fast, no doubt.... but leaves a little headroom the slower charger can then top up (From experience).
i.e. the dual charger would charge for under an hour before showing as "fully charged" and then the battery would accept another 10-minutes charge on the cheaper charger.
So depending on your needs, getting the cheaper one with an additional 2Ah to start off with means you'd have a battery to swap over when doing more-involved/long-duration work.
Hopes this helps.
Could someone explain to me what a choke does as if I got a degree in Art History and not electrical engineering?
From Wikipedia. In electronics, a choke is an inductor used to block higher-frequency while passing direct current and lower-frequencies of alternating current in an electrical circuit. A choke usually consists of a coil of insulated wire often wound on a magnetic core, although some consist of a doughnut-shaped "bead" of ferrite material strung on a wire.
It stops unwanted high frequency electrical 'noise. The coil cannot pass high frequencies.
In this case it stops that noise from being fed back into the mains supply...where it could cause havoc!
How did you make sure the big electrolytes were discharged before touching the pcb?
Wait for the LEDs to turn off :)
@@JulianIlett Okay that was even simpler than I thought :D
From playing with PSUs at less than the rated universal mains input, I have also played with the single slow-charge charger version (The circuit is similar on the dual-charger, just with lesser rated FETs):
The SMPS IC stops switching at around the 25V mark mains-side.... (I recall one of the few I have still running as low as 18V unloaded, however I'd have to retake measurements again with my bench-PSU+multi-meter, to be sure)
So unless there was a fault releasing smoke, when the LEDs die out, the voltage on the primary (Mains-side) capacitor is less than 25V.... That's usually safe to touch (unless ya dripping wet... of course)
Hi all,yesterday one side stopped working 💪 🙃 in my same charger
Julian is this from the shed?? with rendering :-)
No, still making videos in the office - furloughs permitting :)
@@JulianIlett I thought there looked a lot of room lol
iv got the air compressor / air bed pump combo which is 16v ?
I also have that one. Inside the battery there is 4 cells, so it is 14,4 v. The rison why they call this battery a 16v is probably because this is new line of this parkside batterys. The old 14,4 one are not compatible. By printing the max volteg instead of nominal they avid compatiblity problems.They are not alone, Makita also named new series of batterys 40v, but in fact inside there is 10 cells, so only 36v.
Nice video Sir! 😊
Double input filtering is not a bad thing. Could be the switching circuit is a bit dirty. Maybe you could scope the input and see what is getting back into the mains. With proper protection for the scope, of course.
Where are you finding Parkside products?
Lidl
_Good morning_ when posted at 11pm??? What did you smoke Julian? ;)
You should take a look at omni charge battery