7:10 I've been trying to tell people for years that the Opus reports 10 - 15% high on discharge capacity, no one seems to listen or care. Now you have worked it out.
Always known that, you can buy a 40 buck item and expect it to be accurate, that said using the same type of testers for the entire build will serve you well. After all we don't REALLY care about the number we care if the cell is still useable
just making sure you know that the Junsi iCharger X8 can do 8S and there is the X12 for 12S and if you have $350 there is the 4010 duo that can do 10S but also do 2200 watts of discharging and 3200 watts of "extra discharging" mode and 70 amps of charging in synchronous mode. I'm testing the S6 and the ISDT P30 right now before I make a video because I have some ideas about these chargers. My usage is for a minivan camper using lifepo4, but hopefully I come up with tips for everybody, including a rundown of a 24v DIY 75 amp power supply with dc floated ground
For the uninitiated. If you dont manually set your voltages/curves please use the LiIo setting for lithium ion batts (e.g. typical 18650). Petes packs are large enough the max charge current of the i6 isnt enough to hurt them in LiPo mode. However if your charging a lower capacity pack you can/will damage your pack. Just an added safety measure, use LiIo mode for LiIo batts.
Opus is notorious for testing 10% high for two reasons, both related to excessive heat from the Achilles heel of the Opus, the fan 1. The fans inability to keep the temps under control means during charging and then discharging the cells are bound to get quite warm. Anyone that knows lithium well will know that cells provide the most capacity between 30 and 40 Celsius. This is partially why a cell rated for 3C continuous can give you an equal mAh rating at 0.2C and 2C. The room temp cell discharged at 0.2C is going to give you a high capacity based on the low discharge rate. The 2C discharge rate is giving you a similar capacity because the heat generated (probably bringing the cell to 45 or 50 Celsius). 2. Not only is the fan failing to keep the cells cool, it’s also failing to keep the charger cool. Not sure if the opus has temp sensors for each cell but I know if it doesn’t then it has some kind of thermal cutoff for the electronics. When this happens during the discharge it’s removing the load and giving the cell a chance to rebound in voltage. This would be similar to discharging a cell at 1A and then restarting the discharge after the cell has rebounded from 2.50V to 3.00V or 2.80V to 3.20V etc. You can squeeze a bit more capacity out of it but this is not the proper way to do a discharge test as we are measuring a constant current load. Giving the cell time to rebound goes against the definition of the word constant. So the “rumors” of the Opus testing 10% high weren’t rumors especially if you used the 1A discharge capacity test mode.
Yes, I agree, BUT if you test them all with OPUS or all with something else you're all good because you still have consistent results from a chineseium tester.. none are right just gota hope they have a consistent result, I tested north of 20k cells with opus love them ...
@@HBPowerwall technically yes...but if you have a large variation in your cell capacities then you might end up with 3000mAh+ cells that start/stop the discharge many more times than 1800-2000mAh cells...Not sure if its possible that during the 1A discharge a lower capacity cell can get through the discharge cycle without overheating more than a couple times whereas the 3Ah+ cell might take so long that it gets a dozen or more chances to rebound. Someone here on TH-cam posted time lapse videos of cells starting and stopping and the NCR18650's they were cycling just kept going on and off.
I’ve been using iChargers for like 10+ years... it’s about time you guys figured it out lol. The older ones are also fantastic. Night and day over something like a imax b6 which IMO is garbage.
IMAX B6 *genuine* is a work horse loved mine till i left it charging 6 amps solid for a week in a 40-50 deg shed lasted more than 3 years with hours and hours work every other day if not every day. But 30a charing is unbeatable! for sure and regen testing is a godsend!
HBPowerwall I get it, but it’s the control and granularity of settings that the iCharger has. Even the much older 4 button chargers. I have 3 different models including the 4010 Duo which can change at 70 amps... Perfect for powerwall charge / discharge testing.
@@HBPowerwall I'm amazed it's still working? I build lithium for car audio beside my home backup. Have 4 or 5 working power supplys/charges ect. Haven't used any beside 1 for 16s for almost 2 yrs. It's my favorite battery tool by far! Thanks for selling me on it back in the day!
@@HBPowerwall What size do you think the source Battery schould be? 10x bigger than what we Charge or discharge? And you meant 7S Pack? Also do you think a small chinese BMS could protect Battery enough?
Looks like an excellent charger. Don't know if there's any other charger out there that lets you discharge INTO another battery while testing. That's a feature that you'll definitely have to focus on on your impending review. I've only recently managed to setup my batteries so as to be able to charge FROM them, but discharging still happens though a resistive load, unfortunately. Also, how do you remove the modules from your 7s batteries for testing, are you just leaving a group with less capacity while charging, or do you have a couple of extra modules that you replace the one you take out with?
in theory balance data from the batrium over time could give you a close ah per pack knowing Ah in out of the total pack? Lot of work testing each pack. In reality full cycles of packs isn't where u wanna be. So your low packs may never show up in real cycle depths. But interesting little charger and the regen discharge is neat, meaning you won't in your case punch through 50kwh of elect.
I'm wondering if there are too many variables to get an accurate measure of cell capaciity. I suppose there is $$$ professional test equipment that can measure more accurately, but I've almost decided to just group them in 500mAh ranges. I have 4 of the Opus chargers and I don't think they even agree. I've seen people DIY their own capacity checkers, but it seems to be too much effort (and expense) vs the return. What do you think?
Way too much effort for 25 bucks you can buy one use it for a year and chuck it out - as for consistency of this unit on 157cell pack on pack i remember i tested 5 times and took notice of the results and it was with in 7ah difference between all 5 tests - That's not bad really when you think about it.. Air temp alone is enough to make the tests differ
What size do you think the source Battery schould be? 10x bigger than what we Charge or discharge? And you meant 7S Pack? Also do you think a small chinese BMS could protect Battery enough? I want to discharge/charge 10 18650s in parallel with it. So about 100 cells would be ok for that?
i tried a 3S battery 160p blew every fuse 4S160p worked fine 7s would work with a firmware update of the unit *i found that fault when filming Small Chinese bms will work but don't trust it
@@HBPowerwall What packs did you test with this setup? 1S80p? I want to charge and discharge 1S10p at a time on a 7s20p pack, do you think that could work?
Thanks for the screen run through with the X6 looks easy to operate, 2 quick questions: How did you kill the original one? With adjusting the charge Voltage levels how far does the settings go? I am running 90% Sanyo 4.35V 2900 mah per cell,
Not off the top of my head - but you need to setup regen discharge to another battery bank this video will help th-cam.com/video/sCYv1OPGhSc/w-d-xo.html
@@HBPowerwall yeah I wasn't sure if it would work without a discharge bank. I thought you had to have that in order to discharge. Just not sure how it's wired in line with the charger.
So will this work to check capacity on a 3.2V 180ah LifePo4 pack that's pre built of many smaller cells by companies like CALB, Winston? Or is this only to test individual cells?
Why dont you get li-ion battery equalizer with constant 6A balancing current? That way you will have all the packs balanced without burning power away.
Loose more power in cables that i ever will balancing, hell the inverters use more power in a day than i loose balancing :) Gota look at the bigger picture - one 30 buck panel will outweigh all losses
When you're testing the discharge capacity, do you need to set the cut-off voltage for the pack? or how else does the charger know when to stop? and I assume when you start the discharge, it only drains the pack instead of first charging to 100% then starts the discharge process? so basically you need to make sure your pack is at full capacity to begin the discharge test, right?
Ok - so there is the source battery charge / discharge protection where you can set the top and bottom in that very first menu *will do a better video of menu, but to discharge you have to manually set it to Charge, Discharge -> storage at each step - doesn't have a 'test' function
Thanks for the quick reply. So when you tested each of your packs, you first charged them to 4.2, then after that completed, ran the discharge test at 30A down to 3.0v?
Every time I test a cell it gives a different reading. I use an Opus C-3100 sitting on a fan so the internal fan doesn’t come on. 3 other Opus’s and the same results. That makes it hard for me to make a balanced set of cells.
I've never got the same result with the opus or any discharger for that matter way too many external factors to consider. Just roll with your results, and base it on good v bad cells ie good capacity & doesn't heat or self-discharge good to go..
This is still running today - Banggood has a huge amount of rubbish - THIS WAS AND STILL IS AWESOME! Used it for more than 40 hours solid last week alone! This was sponsored by Banggood and I make a small affiliate income that i can't from hobby shops.
thank you i really learn a lot form your youtube channel i am trying to be me my own power wall so wish me luck that i dont burn my house down. lol then my old laddie would be mad at me. but i wont blame her i would be mad at my self to. thanks,
![ILLSLICK X YOUNGOHM - We're The same [Official Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/yUJNkobYR0E/mqdefault.jpg)
7:10 I've been trying to tell people for years that the Opus reports 10 - 15% high on discharge capacity, no one seems to listen or care. Now you have worked it out.
Always known that, you can buy a 40 buck item and expect it to be accurate, that said using the same type of testers for the entire build will serve you well. After all we don't REALLY care about the number we care if the cell is still useable
just making sure you know that the Junsi iCharger X8 can do 8S and there is the X12 for 12S and if you have $350 there is the 4010 duo that can do 10S but also do 2200 watts of discharging and 3200 watts of "extra discharging" mode and 70 amps of charging in synchronous mode. I'm testing the S6 and the ISDT P30 right now before I make a video because I have some ideas about these chargers. My usage is for a minivan camper using lifepo4, but hopefully I come up with tips for everybody, including a rundown of a 24v DIY 75 amp power supply with dc floated ground
Yep great units .. have both X6 & 8
For the uninitiated. If you dont manually set your voltages/curves please use the LiIo setting for lithium ion batts (e.g. typical 18650). Petes packs are large enough the max charge current of the i6 isnt enough to hurt them in LiPo mode. However if your charging a lower capacity pack you can/will damage your pack. Just an added safety measure, use LiIo mode for LiIo batts.
Ok something I didn't know/understand - thank you for the heads up!!
Opus is notorious for testing 10% high for two reasons, both related to excessive heat from the Achilles heel of the Opus, the fan
1. The fans inability to keep the temps under control means during charging and then discharging the cells are bound to get quite warm. Anyone that knows lithium well will know that cells provide the most capacity between 30 and 40 Celsius. This is partially why a cell rated for 3C continuous can give you an equal mAh rating at 0.2C and 2C. The room temp cell discharged at 0.2C is going to give you a high capacity based on the low discharge rate. The 2C discharge rate is giving you a similar capacity because the heat generated (probably bringing the cell to 45 or 50 Celsius).
2. Not only is the fan failing to keep the cells cool, it’s also failing to keep the charger cool. Not sure if the opus has temp sensors for each cell but I know if it doesn’t then it has some kind of thermal cutoff for the electronics. When this happens during the discharge it’s removing the load and giving the cell a chance to rebound in voltage. This would be similar to discharging a cell at 1A and then restarting the discharge after the cell has rebounded from 2.50V to 3.00V or 2.80V to 3.20V etc. You can squeeze a bit more capacity out of it but this is not the proper way to do a discharge test as we are measuring a constant current load. Giving the cell time to rebound goes against the definition of the word constant.
So the “rumors” of the Opus testing 10% high weren’t rumors especially if you used the 1A discharge capacity test mode.
Yes, I agree, BUT if you test them all with OPUS or all with something else you're all good because you still have consistent results from a chineseium tester.. none are right just gota hope they have a consistent result, I tested north of 20k cells with opus love them ...
@@HBPowerwall technically yes...but if you have a large variation in your cell capacities then you might end up with 3000mAh+ cells that start/stop the discharge many more times than 1800-2000mAh cells...Not sure if its possible that during the 1A discharge a lower capacity cell can get through the discharge cycle without overheating more than a couple times whereas the 3Ah+ cell might take so long that it gets a dozen or more chances to rebound. Someone here on TH-cam posted time lapse videos of cells starting and stopping and the NCR18650's they were cycling just kept going on and off.
I’ve been using iChargers for like 10+ years... it’s about time you guys figured it out lol. The older ones are also fantastic. Night and day over something like a imax b6 which IMO is garbage.
IMAX B6 *genuine* is a work horse loved mine till i left it charging 6 amps solid for a week in a 40-50 deg shed lasted more than 3 years with hours and hours work every other day if not every day. But 30a charing is unbeatable! for sure and regen testing is a godsend!
HBPowerwall I get it, but it’s the control and granularity of settings that the iCharger has. Even the much older 4 button chargers. I have 3 different models including the 4010 Duo which can change at 70 amps... Perfect for powerwall charge / discharge testing.
What are these giant packs used for?
Run my home off grid with them
Great video, as always. Can I feed it with 30v 5a and get the output of 10v 15 a ? Ie raise amperage on behalf of lowering voltage ?
TIA
Been waiting weeks for this charger from Banggood. It’s in the country, so should get it this week.
Weeks? that's madness - got mine in under 4 days
heya wel you would think it would be higher then the smalller cell's
I LOVE my x6, I'm just barely trying to figure out how to use it as a power supply after a couple yrs of damn neat daily use
The things rock, I killed mine by not replacing the fan and it overheated to death - but great chance to buy an X8 :)
@@HBPowerwall I'm amazed it's still working? I build lithium for car audio beside my home backup. Have 4 or 5 working power supplys/charges ect. Haven't used any beside 1 for 16s for almost 2 yrs. It's my favorite battery tool by far! Thanks for selling me on it back in the day!
Happy it works well for you as it does me.
Do u think a video on rePacker would be any good?
I could do another
What do you use as the power source for the x6
any power from 6v to 35v from memory. I run it on my larger 7P pack so I can use the regen function - works so well
@@HBPowerwall What size do you think the source Battery schould be? 10x bigger than what we Charge or discharge? And you meant 7S Pack? Also do you think a small chinese BMS could protect Battery enough?
Why do you and others use LiPo mode for Liion cells?
Because stupid :) you get wrapped up in making video and miss stupid stuff like that.
@@HBPowerwall No worries, it was the third time seeing it this evening and was getting pretty confused based on my RC experience. Thank you!
Looks like an excellent charger. Don't know if there's any other charger out there that lets you discharge INTO another battery while testing. That's a feature that you'll definitely have to focus on on your impending review. I've only recently managed to setup my batteries so as to be able to charge FROM them, but discharging still happens though a resistive load, unfortunately.
Also, how do you remove the modules from your 7s batteries for testing, are you just leaving a group with less capacity while charging, or do you have a couple of extra modules that you replace the one you take out with?
ToolKitRC chargers do
Does the repacker site have a new link? The old one doesn't work
Sorry will update the link - www.repackr.com/#/pack-builder
Hi, When your testing these cells, What upper and lower voltage limits were you using?
in theory balance data from the batrium over time could give you a close ah per pack knowing Ah in out of the total pack? Lot of work testing each pack. In reality full cycles of packs isn't where u wanna be. So your low packs may never show up in real cycle depths. But interesting little charger and the regen discharge is neat, meaning you won't in your case punch through 50kwh of elect.
can you use a lead acid bank for the regenerative mode? say 24V 200ahc
as long as it's free capacity exceeds the capacity of the target battery.
@@HBPowerwall lovely jubbly. Many thanks and cracking videos.
Can you use an external resistor's instead of another battery for discharging on the input connector ?
You sure can
I'm wondering if there are too many variables to get an accurate measure of cell capaciity. I suppose there is $$$ professional test equipment that can measure more accurately, but I've almost decided to just group them in 500mAh ranges. I have 4 of the Opus chargers and I don't think they even agree. I've seen people DIY their own capacity checkers, but it seems to be too much effort (and expense) vs the return. What do you think?
Way too much effort for 25 bucks you can buy one use it for a year and chuck it out - as for consistency of this unit on 157cell pack on pack i remember i tested 5 times and took notice of the results and it was with in 7ah difference between all 5 tests - That's not bad really when you think about it.. Air temp alone is enough to make the tests differ
I thought LiPo was for the flat packs, 18650 should be Li-ion... no?
Well caught :( it works with right settings bit not the right way to do it. Even I’m still learning
What size do you think the source Battery schould be? 10x bigger than what we Charge or discharge? And you meant 7S Pack? Also do you think a small chinese BMS could protect Battery enough? I want to discharge/charge 10 18650s in parallel with it. So about 100 cells would be ok for that?
i tried a 3S battery 160p blew every fuse 4S160p worked fine 7s would work with a firmware update of the unit *i found that fault when filming Small Chinese bms will work but don't trust it
@@HBPowerwall What packs did you test with this setup? 1S80p? I want to charge and discharge 1S10p at a time on a 7s20p pack, do you think that could work?
Como faço para compra esse balanciador amigo ?
I’m just 220 cells away from putting two of my first battery banks together. I’ll pick that charger up to test when I finally get the cells
I can honestly say I'm impressed with the charger - now to do the other 52 cells
Thanks for the screen run through with the X6 looks easy to operate, 2 quick questions: How did you kill the original one? With adjusting the charge Voltage levels how far does the settings go? I am running 90% Sanyo 4.35V 2900 mah per cell,
tried to charge a battery that i was drawing from BANG, SMOKE, Sware words - forked out for a new one so i could do review lol
man, that was quite dump. :)@@HBPowerwall
Can you tell me how to set the 30A value in discharge setting.
Not off the top of my head - but you need to setup regen discharge to another battery bank this video will help th-cam.com/video/sCYv1OPGhSc/w-d-xo.html
Does the x6 charger require a discharge Bank to get 30 amps? If so how is it wired into the charger?
It only does 30amps when used with regen - but i know you can build a rister bank to use it also
@@HBPowerwall yeah I wasn't sure if it would work without a discharge bank. I thought you had to have that in order to discharge. Just not sure how it's wired in line with the charger.
Check out this photo / ebay link will give you a good idea - ebay.to/2O3ymBE
So will this work to check capacity on a 3.2V 180ah LifePo4 pack that's pre built of many smaller cells by companies like CALB, Winston? Or is this only to test individual cells?
it will test max of 6s pack so you could just test multi times till all cells have competed - do you have access to each terminal?
Why dont you get li-ion battery equalizer with constant 6A balancing current? That way you will have all the packs balanced without burning power away.
Loose more power in cables that i ever will balancing, hell the inverters use more power in a day than i loose balancing :) Gota look at the bigger picture - one 30 buck panel will outweigh all losses
When you're testing the discharge capacity, do you need to set the cut-off voltage for the pack? or how else does the charger know when to stop? and I assume when you start the discharge, it only drains the pack instead of first charging to 100% then starts the discharge process? so basically you need to make sure your pack is at full capacity to begin the discharge test, right?
Ok - so there is the source battery charge / discharge protection where you can set the top and bottom in that very first menu *will do a better video of menu, but to discharge you have to manually set it to Charge, Discharge -> storage at each step - doesn't have a 'test' function
Ooh and the cut off voltage is configurable std it's 3.2v i knocked it back to 3v but don't gain anything worth wild capacity wise for the change
Thanks for the quick reply. So when you tested each of your packs, you first charged them to 4.2, then after that completed, ran the discharge test at 30A down to 3.0v?
Yep, that all there is too it - for the 80p pack it took about 5.5hours to discharge maybe a touch longer
Can I use the icharger to test at what current my trace fuse blows for one 18650?
I did....
@@HBPowerwall I guess I was hoping to see the current slowly going up to see at which point the fuse blows. Maybe a power potentiometer is needed?
Every time I test a cell it gives a different reading. I use an Opus C-3100 sitting on a fan so the internal fan doesn’t come on. 3 other Opus’s and the same results. That makes it hard for me to make a balanced set of cells.
I've never got the same result with the opus or any discharger for that matter way too many external factors to consider. Just roll with your results, and base it on good v bad cells ie good capacity & doesn't heat or self-discharge good to go..
Hi! What is the size of the power plug? XT 60? or XT 90?
They are XT60s on the Icharger X6 bit.ly/xt60link
It seems almost like this was made for what we are doing! What is the max current and voltage?
800w is max voltage 6S - that is the only disadvantage - had this been 7S it would have been unstoppable
Does this charger allow you to test capacity for 6 independent cells at a time?
no but you can do 6S - so i guess you could rig something up. I'm not sure if it tells you each capacity tho
Nifty charger!
I'm really loving it... have to do a better video of the whole menu even if it's just a one take walk through
Local radio control hobby shops will most likely have these in stock. Forget that Banggood crap.
This is still running today - Banggood has a huge amount of rubbish - THIS WAS AND STILL IS AWESOME! Used it for more than 40 hours solid last week alone! This was sponsored by Banggood and I make a small affiliate income that i can't from hobby shops.
thank you i really learn a lot form your youtube channel i am trying to be me my own power wall so wish me luck that i dont burn my house down. lol then my old laddie would be mad at me. but i wont blame her i would be mad at my self to. thanks,
Thanks for tunning in, not buring the house down sure will keep the wifee happier
Wish i could send a picture icharger 406 duo off amazon 547.08 cdn without shipping
406 is an expensive unit
I like it
I do too if i should be honest..
holy crap 600 bucks expensive little bugger.
where on the planet to you live that it cost 600? USD it's only like 110 or something...
First :)
As Joe would say 💣⭐BOOOOOOOOOM⭐💣