Every RC channel has a video on lipo batteries and they all are the same content ---- except this one... This one is different. It is simply the best and most informative video on the subject I've ever seen. Well Done Bruce!
Hi there to the MAN behind RC Model Reviews. Never been to New Zealand but heard much about the beauty of its landscape. I'd like to thank you for this video which has given me a solution to a nightmare that's affecting everyone that's got a 2S and above LIPO battery in their arsenal. I made the charging link as prescribed and whilst typing this, I'm charging a 3 cell and getting the individual cells balanced using your idea. I'd like to add that I find your TH-cam channel very interesting and am grateful that I have learned much from it. As commented by Godfrey Poon recently, we mortals don't have your heat resistant fingers but we're slowly getting there!!! Cheers from up north-west in Malaysia. Ravi
Finally...! Someone explained the "C" rating on the batteries, rather than just using it in a sentence. Thank you. 1:31 - Why do some batteries have the rating in amps, as well as milliamps...? For those of us who suck at math. 5:09 - 4 X .450 = 1.25 amps Thanks again.
This is exactly what I did a few days ago with an unbalanced battery. My charger kept telling me battery error, well after some fiddling around I said enough! I'll just charge each cell individually and be done with it. Now I just got to make a 0.1" pin header connector with a JST or Deans. Thank you very much for sharing this great info.
I really appreciate you explaining how it works in a straight-forward fashion. No flowery prose from me, just a very genuine "Thank you." Please, do continue on your wonderful path to educate those of us who thought we knew and realize we don't. :) You do it in such a way that accepts we are human and that it is ok to make a mistake and continue on the correct path.
Thank you so much for not only this video, but all your videos. I watched this one a week or so ago and just found myself in a situation where I needed to make and use a lead like you demonstrate here. Had I not watched the video I wouldn't have even known to do such a thing and been left with no immediate solution to my problem. I've learned so much from you. Please keep 'me coming.
Fantastic. I just brought back from the dead several three cell lipo packs where one cell had gotten way lower than the other two. No special harness required. My new (2019) charger was able to charge all 3 and repeatedly discharge the two high ones until the lower one "caught up" IF AND ONLY IF I set the charging amps to around .01 and let the unit take its time. Without your explanation of how balance chargers work, I wouldn't have known this was possible. So, thanks.
Great explanation on how a charger balances a multi-cell LiPo.That homemade charging lead looks like it'll come handy if needed.Thanks for posting this!
Hey Bruce, Thanks for the great tip !! As BMSWEB mentioned, this came at just the right time. I have a 3200 mah battery that was in the plane when it was lost during an FPV flight. Plane was returned to me 3 days later and of course , Batt was dead. I used the Nimh trick to bump it up to 3v so it would charge normally which worked well. However one cell has been hanging about .8 lower then the other 2 cells. I just bumped up the one cell using this method and hopefully the Batt will now live a longer happier life.
I bought an iMax B6 charger and like yours, a bunch of various adapters came with the kit. One of those adapters, a small red one with a shroud around 2 pins, came in useful in place of your .1mm Pin Header, I simply used a small hobby fret saw to cut a groove around the base of the hood, not too deep or the pins will be damaged, and then used a pair of pliers to neatly snap off the hood, exposing 2 perfectly matched pins that fit into the cell connector, I then set about charging each cell individually and balanced what was an ailing 36v 10ah LiFePo4 Ping battery pack. Now, during charging, the SIGNALAB BMS cell LED's flicker into life within seconds of each other and they come back up to working voltage in unison,...if you have one of those chargers, use a fret saw or craft knife to cut a groove around the base of the hood, and snap off the hood,....works perfectly and the red and black wires are already connected.
You're not going to believe this, but after 3 or 4 years of charging Lipo batteries, one of Thomas' brand new batteries had a Time Out error which on balance Charge. I made up one of these and I'm charging it right now. Fingers crossed it brings the cell back up :) Anyway my point being this video came at the perfect time. If it was ages ago I would have forgotten about it.
i first got into rc about 8 years ago but havent really touched anything rc in about 6 years. now that i am building an ebike that will be powered via lipo, i am finally zeroing in on exactly how these chargers and balance ports work. it helps that i also got into solar and battery bank building recently. anyways you have confirmed what i thought was true about the theory of operation on these chargers. thank you
very good idea and saves time. Another way to do this is to use a separate balancer and balance the battery. After the battery is balanced then continue the balanced charging from that point with the charger.
Hi Bruce, Thanks for this tip. Just received a new 2200 Zippy 20C Flightmax battery and it had exactly this problem. One cell was a bit low so the first time charge was taking forever. It started off 0.05 below and ended up at nearly 0.1 below by the time the charger was starting to balance and it was looking like it might take the rest of the year. I didn't have any pin headers but it turns out the pins on a servo cable are close enough pitch that a pair of adjacent pins connects well with a pair of adjacent sockets in a common balance connector. So I just pulled the signal pin and used the servo cable. No need to get the soldering iron out. Nice. One thing I would caution is that you mut be very careful not to accidentally insert this hacked lead the wrong way around or bad things will happen. Was able to use this method to get the errant cell up to par and balance out the battery. Can't say for sure if it saved me time but it gave me a bit more confidence in the whole process. Will have to keep an eye on that battery. Beck to the binch.
That's a brilliant lesson. I've often had the issue of one cell lower than the others and as a result, the battery has spent ages on the balance charger. Certainly takes some of the mystique out of Lipo's.
I think i liked more the detailed explanation on how the charge works (whiteboard part) than the conector itself. Nevertheless, i've just made one myself to "rebalance" a Lipo. Just trying it now. Thank you Bruce for the effort and always detailed classes, not only this one, but many other topics i got lectured remotely :)
Nice one Bruce. don't forget though that many chargers can be set from the common default of balancing in the constant voltage phase to balancing always or in the constant currant phase. Also when considering spending a bit more on a charger the balance circuit power is an important spec to consider. Keep up the good work Bro.
Hello, I know this is an old video, but I hope you see that you have continually helped folks such as me. Great Intel and tip(s). Thanks so much. cheers Boots Langley La Mesa, Ca
this video helped me so much to understand battery charging and design my own charging systems for robotics! Thanks so much! I come back to this video now and then to review and refresh my understanding!
THANK YOU sir when building your own batteries your advice makes it possible. Only video like it from those of us who refuse to use BMS. Thanks again my hero
for those like me who have trouble finding the pins Bruce is talking about, type "pin header" in your favorite shopping website (I got mines from AliExpress) great video BTW, I wish I had known that a few months ago ;)
Wow, you just saved one of my most expensive batteries. I had 4.2, 4.2, 4.2 and 3.8V on a 4S lipo and couldn't get it to balance and I used this trick and it's now balanced like it was brand new. Thanks so much!!!
Thanks! Couldn't have been explained better! I'm just getting started with a little 1S-8S battery alarm/meter, cheap chargers, and 2S batteries for my quadcopters, and will be sure to keep them maintained thanks to your help!
Thank you, very informative. The sad thing is I used to try and discharge all cells and then charge them all again. This worked on probably 80% of the batteries. I used to get a few slightly puffed batteries that still worked OKish. I wonder how many batteries I messed up because I did not think of this resourceful 'trick'. Life lets those that still want to learn, another lesson, thanks
Awesome tutorial, I'm knew to the RC World and this video is a tremendous help in understanding the ins and out for charging damaged RC batteries. Great job thanks!!!
3:35 Ron, The "L" in solder is like the "P" in swimming; both are silent. Greetings from A-MUR-CA. Love your channel for the education and entertainment.
so it is that simple! I was trying to figure it out how the charger can balance the 3 cells battery! All those inventions always suprise me by their simplicity! Usuelly people think that it is much more complecated than it really is !
you should be nicknamed "Ohm's" cause you get it! my uncle totally understood, and he would explain in a way that folks would or could...get it. Uncle Ohm's. salute and thanks
Been years since I last watched your videos, and about 3 years later still thoroughly enjoying them as much as I did back then. Not sure if I sent regards the last time I watched your enjoyable and informative videos, so heres a big thank you. Cheers. PS: so very curious to know if you were ever a teacher or a professor or the like, you have a great style and energy about you in the way you share knowledge!
Top content Bruce! I wish I saw this vid a couple days ago, I spent the whole day yesterday charging 2 unbalanced lipos, well I just made my individual cell charging cable, thanks!
Thank you for this video. I purchased a brand new venom battery with one cell staying at 3.9v I tried your method and revived the battery. It took well over 3hrs to fix one cell but it worked.
Good info Bruce. One thing you can di if you use those 4 button chargers is to charge it on Fast mode. this stops the battery when one of the cells reaches 4.20V Then since charge each cell. But I use Hyperion Chargers and it keeps the cells balanced during the entire charge. So if one cell is higher it will bring it back within spec (.01V difference) during the charge of the battery this leaves my packs charged without over charging them.
A source of pin header for a quick hack would be a servo extension lead. Remove the outer shield that the female plug goes inside of. You'll then be left with 3 pins. Either use a knife to lift the retaining tab and remove the pin to the signal (white or yellow) wire, or chop it off flush. Then just plug into the servo connector on your multi lead. Or chop the extension and solder into a spare plug, whatever floats your boat.
Happy New Year Bruce. Your a top bloke. Hope to get up north and fly with you some day. This vid was brilliant . Just made myself a field charger with 18650s 4x6 but one cell (4 x 2500mah) was 0.11 difference from the other cells. Was painful to try balance through charger at .5amp so i made a rig and got them back up to match the rest. Thankyou have a wonderful new year champ.
I wish I watched this about two years ago! Sometimes I've been desperate enough to put crocodile clips on the positive and negative cell that needed balancing fast on my ebike battery without realising all this time I could have just done what you do! Many thanks!
Really hanging out for your results on the UHF systems Bruce. Your feedback will determine who gets my money, but hoping sooner other than later please mate. Cheers.
***** *Bruce*, to make nice *"connectors"* out of pin headers, use *hotglue*. Put a dab of it on *baking paper* (the hot glue won't stick to it after it cooled down!) and push the soldered header into it (try not to get too much glue under the black plastic part). Depending on the glue amount either take a second piece of paper and push from the top or, which makes the nicer connectors, just use less glue for the first dab and then after cooled down, repeat with the other side of the connector. The excess on the sides can easily be cut away with flush trim wire cutters. With some practice such connectors can almost look like injection molded ones, including the strain relief and protection against kinks near the solder joint.
Sir! I would love to thank your for your great demonstration about the function of BMS cinrcuits. I was searching the internet for that till i found your video, and it was all I ever wanted to know Thank you very much.
Awesome video! I over discharged a small 3S 300mha battery on its first use and I’ll try reviving the one cell that got too low with this (in a fire safe environment of course). Thank you very much!
***** Allot of times (especially with bigger batteries), those little pins have too much resistance and will heat up and maybe melt causing a short in your battery. If that happens with a lithium polymer battery, it will often lead to a lipo fire.
For those of you who don't want to bother using this way, discharge your battery to 3.3 volts, don't go lower than 3V per cell. Afterwards balance charge them to 3.7 volts. The balancing will indeed take some time - one or two hours but the result should be close to perfectly balanced cells. Once you do this, discharge again to 3.3V to make sure your cells are keeping the right voltage and then charge to full. If there is still a difference in the voltage maybe the cell /cells is/are damaged.
Great instructional video. I've done the same thing but by using push pins inserted into the balance plug and alligator clips (careful not to create a short). Additionally, at what point should one really consider replacing a pack when one cell lags behind? I have a charger that also measures resistance in each cell, does a lagging cell's resistance correlate with it not coming up to charge as quickly? What resistance value then might be considered the limit before tossing the pack? Thanks Bruce.
Great visual for beginners thanks. One question. Will a balance charging plate/station with a 5amp fuse protect my charger from a battery pack of 12 batteries if the input power adapter fails or drop below the 11volts required for the charger? Thanks
another thing I do is I take 3 separate 1 s batteries and connect them in series. When they are like below 3.6 V etc. I charge them separatelly to exactly 4.2 V !
Thank you for the explanation, we have problems with drone parrot bebop 1 batteries and as the drone needs a lot of power to fly and the charger has no way to balance we hope individual cell charging will help, or buy new. The pins I just bought to copy your cable are called: 40Pin 2.54mm Male PCB Single Row Straight Header Strip Connector Arduino
Amazing video. Watched a few others but this one gave me the confidence I needed to try this. Had everything I needed on hand and it's working as I type. Thank you for saving my battery!
Nice program Bruce.. glad someone explained clearly what goes on with this standard chargers... basically the final phase of the charge is as fast as fast the charger can "discharge" each cell.. wich in the case of the cheap chargers like the Acucell 6 is very slow (5W) .. even my IMAX B8 (25W) takes sometimes forever. I wonder what a good charger would be that does the proper process (complete the final balance throught the balance port individually) would be.. probable quite more expensive but i readed people in forums saying they are quite worth it
12:21 what about the resistance of that cable??? As they are much thinner then the rest cables , and you said you can charge batteries with a few Amps they will get hot. Probably the balancer in the charger takes time because it charges it with very small current right? Maybe I just misunderstood you so if there is the case sorry for that . Thanks for the explanation anyway :)
Excellent explanation of balance charging and how to work around charging all cells at the same time. Question: you mentioned "liquid tape". I'm only finding "Nail Gel Liquid Peel Off Tape Cuticle Guard". What are you using? I need something for when I "oops" forgot to put the heat shrink on.
Amazing explanation. I learned something today! Just one question Bruce. What happens when the polarity is incorrect due to oversight. Will the charger know or will there be fireworks?
AndyRC Probably Fireworks, magic smoke or battery or charger will get very hot very quickly. Dont do it there should be no 'oversight' always check the polarity first
You'll have a fire in seconds if you get the polarity wrong. Worse yet, sometimes the spark caused by a short will actually weld the connectors together so it's hard to pull them apart to break the circuit. (Speaking from painful experience)
I have a Raytronic c12 charger and I think it is a resonably good charger, but the battery is not balanced well (gensace 3s-a cell is about 0.05v lower) when it says it is fully charged. Should I just wait until it is balanced a bit better or should I do it your way? Thanks for sharing all of your amazing ideas!
Sir, thank you for the video. I'd already built the cable for a rainy day and that day has come. I just got a new battery today and needed to bring up two of the four cells. I need to test the maximum about of current I can run through the cable. 1.0A may be the safety limit.
thank you for all your awesome video's... just 1 question what those the white wire??? of 3 wire cables black,red and white that are going to my vintage servos
seems very logic thanks for explaining :D but my battery 6v is running a simmeler red black and White colour wire to the reciever? thats whas what confussed me in the first place, normale you only have + - coming from a battery??? its binn 20 years last time i seen my rc toys its vintage rc stuff from the 1980" (Robbe) its binn hard to find good info but thank you very much for your help its very nice of you thx :D
Airgunsmith NL sometimes rx battery supply will use the same type of servo wire(black, red and white) but only the black and red are utilized. Try to check the whitewire on the battery side, most likely it is not connected to anything. you may even remove the white wire if you want.
the white wire is not giving any volts but i'm not going to removed it...all is working after standing stil for 20 years so just want to take everything apart clean it bit by bit and restore it to its former glorie except for the 35 years old rust making it look super cool thank for your help Rrme
Great video. I was wondering if you could apply this to more than one cell in the pack at a time. Could you charge/discharge your whole pack at the same time through your sense wires.
If you were my professor when I took Circuit Designs, I would have actually aced the class. Excellent explanation Bruce! Another topic I'm interested in, How do ESCs work? and why do they produce so much heat?
It is a realy nice, well made and informative Video. You just did a small mistake: The wiring symbol for a battery has another polarity. The long line is the positive pole and the short line is the negative pole. But beside that, great Video!!!
cbsarka Yes, some of the newer (more expensive) chargers have a separate charge circuit for each cell so each cell can be charged individually rather than in series. Costs more though.
The Dark Pixel have a look at the Junsi Duos, they are really brilliant chargers, they even measure the single cell impedance and take that into the equation while loading. And the balance power of these goes beyond that of your normal chargers. Up to 2.4 amps balancing is possible. This might be the last charger you ever buy, really worth their money! (4010 Duo here)
The Dark Pixel I use a cheap DN Power charger. It seems to be called "Li-Ion/Li-Polymer Balance Charger Micro-Controlled". I bought it more than 4 years ago and the only way it charges is through the balance port. Its only drawback is that it has a max charging current of 2A so you might not be able to charge at 1C for batteries larger than 2Ah. The first result on google for "dn power lipo charger" returns an rcgroups thread about it.
Terrific overview @RCModRev - thanks so much. Coming up to speed with balance charging and understand the intrinsic problems with parallel charging, but wonder what you think of charging multiple lipo's using a serial balance board (e.g. 3x 2S lipo's at once using a 6S charger like the Turnigy you use here)? Also, I have a quad (XK X251) that comes with a 2S lipo but only has a balance connector - i.e. no separate 2-conductor power input/output connector. Can these batteries be charged using the type of Turnigy charger you show here? Thanks again.
Hi Bruce, very useful tips as usual, the battery symbol, the long terminal should be positive in your diagram :) I wish I had asbestos fingers like you when tanning those terminal pins!!!!
Every RC channel has a video on lipo batteries and they all are the same content ---- except this one... This one is different. It is simply the best and most informative video on the subject I've ever seen. Well Done Bruce!
Tom Muhleman, Jr. Agreed, I learnt so much with this guy. Thanks Bruce.
Never mind. Figured it out
U right sir..
I agree, the amount of time he takes to explain it step by step is just amazing.
Tom Muhleman, Jr. you are right the best one I found in all TH-cam servers.
Hi there to the MAN behind RC Model Reviews. Never been to New Zealand but heard much about the beauty of its landscape. I'd like to thank you for this video which has given me a solution to a nightmare that's affecting everyone that's got a 2S and above LIPO battery in their arsenal. I made the charging link as prescribed and whilst typing this, I'm charging a 3 cell and getting the individual cells balanced using your idea. I'd like to add that I find your TH-cam channel very interesting and am grateful that I have learned much from it. As commented by Godfrey Poon recently, we mortals don't have your heat resistant fingers but we're slowly getting there!!! Cheers from up north-west in Malaysia. Ravi
Finally...! Someone explained the "C" rating on the batteries, rather than just using it in a sentence. Thank you.
1:31 - Why do some batteries have the rating in amps, as well as milliamps...? For those of us who suck at math.
5:09 - 4 X .450 = 1.25 amps
Thanks again.
This is exactly what I did a few days ago with an unbalanced battery. My charger kept telling me battery error, well after some fiddling around I said enough! I'll just charge each cell individually and be done with it. Now I just got to make a 0.1" pin header connector with a JST or Deans. Thank you very much for sharing this great info.
I really appreciate you explaining how it works in a straight-forward fashion. No flowery prose from me, just a very genuine "Thank you." Please, do continue on your wonderful path to educate those of us who thought we knew and realize we don't. :) You do it in such a way that accepts we are human and that it is ok to make a mistake and continue on the correct path.
Thank you so much for not only this video, but all your videos. I watched this one a week or so ago and just found myself in a situation where I needed to make and use a lead like you demonstrate here. Had I not watched the video I wouldn't have even known to do such a thing and been left with no immediate solution to my problem. I've learned so much from you. Please keep 'me coming.
I come back to this video so many times to refresh before I start the process. Many thanks again for the excellent video.
What a great explanation of the basics of a balance charger. I love your delivery - clear, precise and engaging. Thankyou muchly.
Fantastic. I just brought back from the dead several three cell lipo packs where one cell had gotten way lower than the other two. No special harness required. My new (2019) charger was able to charge all 3 and repeatedly discharge the two high ones until the lower one "caught up" IF AND ONLY IF I set the charging amps to around .01 and let the unit take its time. Without your explanation of how balance chargers work, I wouldn't have known this was possible. So, thanks.
Great explanation on how a charger balances a multi-cell LiPo.That homemade charging lead looks like it'll come handy if needed.Thanks for posting this!
Hey Bruce, Thanks for the great tip !!
As BMSWEB mentioned, this came at just the right time. I have a 3200 mah battery that was in the plane when it was lost during an FPV flight. Plane was returned to me 3 days later and of course , Batt was dead. I used the Nimh trick to bump it up to 3v so it would charge normally which worked well. However one cell has been hanging about .8 lower then the other 2 cells. I just bumped up the one cell using this method and hopefully the Batt will now live a longer happier life.
I bought an iMax B6 charger and like yours, a bunch of various adapters came with the kit. One of those adapters, a small red one with a shroud around 2 pins, came in useful in place of your .1mm Pin Header, I simply used a small hobby fret saw to cut a groove around the base of the hood, not too deep or the pins will be damaged, and then used a pair of pliers to neatly snap off the hood, exposing 2 perfectly matched pins that fit into
the cell connector, I then set about charging each cell individually and balanced what was an ailing 36v 10ah LiFePo4 Ping battery pack. Now, during charging, the SIGNALAB BMS cell LED's flicker into life within seconds of each other and they come back up to working voltage in unison,...if you have one of those chargers, use a fret saw or craft knife to cut a groove around the base of the hood, and snap off the hood,....works perfectly and the red and black wires are already connected.
You're not going to believe this, but after 3 or 4 years of charging Lipo batteries, one of Thomas' brand new batteries had a Time Out error which on balance Charge. I made up one of these and I'm charging it right now. Fingers crossed it brings the cell back up :) Anyway my point being this video came at the perfect time. If it was ages ago I would have forgotten about it.
i first got into rc about 8 years ago but havent really touched anything rc in about 6 years. now that i am building an ebike that will be powered via lipo, i am finally zeroing in on exactly how these chargers and balance ports work. it helps that i also got into solar and battery bank building recently. anyways you have confirmed what i thought was true about the theory of operation on these chargers. thank you
very good idea and saves time.
Another way to do this is to use a separate balancer and balance the battery. After the battery is balanced then continue the balanced charging from that point with the charger.
Hi Bruce,
Thanks for this tip. Just received a new 2200 Zippy 20C Flightmax battery and it had exactly this problem. One cell was a bit low so the first time charge was taking forever. It started off 0.05 below and ended up at nearly 0.1 below by the time the charger was starting to balance and it was looking like it might take the rest of the year.
I didn't have any pin headers but it turns out the pins on a servo cable are close enough pitch that a pair of adjacent pins connects well with a pair of adjacent sockets in a common balance connector. So I just pulled the signal pin and used the servo cable. No need to get the soldering iron out. Nice. One thing I would caution is that you mut be very careful not to accidentally insert this hacked lead the wrong way around or bad things will happen.
Was able to use this method to get the errant cell up to par and balance out the battery. Can't say for sure if it saved me time but it gave me a bit more confidence in the whole process. Will have to keep an eye on that battery.
Beck to the binch.
That's a brilliant lesson. I've often had the issue of one cell lower than the others and as a result, the battery has spent ages on the balance charger. Certainly takes some of the mystique out of Lipo's.
I always wondered how the whole balancing stuff worked and why it sometimes takes for ages to complete a almost finished charge process. Great video!
I think i liked more the detailed explanation on how the charge works (whiteboard part) than the conector itself. Nevertheless, i've just made one myself to "rebalance" a Lipo. Just trying it now.
Thank you Bruce for the effort and always detailed classes, not only this one, but many other topics i got lectured remotely :)
Nice one Bruce. don't forget though that many chargers can be set from the common default of balancing in the constant voltage phase to balancing always or in the constant currant phase. Also when considering spending a bit more on a charger the balance circuit power is an important spec to consider. Keep up the good work Bro.
Hello,
I know this is an old video, but I hope you see that you have continually helped folks such as me. Great Intel and tip(s). Thanks so much.
cheers
Boots Langley
La Mesa, Ca
Bruce,
Very taken by your thoughts and remarks on bringing wayward cells back to balance. Thanks
Joe Homer
Love it, you explain things in a way all can understand and then tell them how to get something done. Love the work you do to help others.
Great teacher. Great "splainer"! Luigi Galvani and Alessandro Volta would be happy to see this!
this video helped me so much to understand battery charging and design my own charging systems for robotics! Thanks so much! I come back to this video now and then to review and refresh my understanding!
THANK YOU sir when building your own batteries your advice makes it possible. Only video like it from those of us who refuse to use BMS. Thanks again my hero
for those like me who have trouble finding the pins Bruce is talking about, type "pin header" in your favorite shopping website (I got mines from AliExpress)
great video BTW, I wish I had known that a few months ago ;)
Wow, you just saved one of my most expensive batteries. I had 4.2, 4.2, 4.2 and 3.8V on a 4S lipo and couldn't get it to balance and I used this trick and it's now balanced like it was brand new. Thanks so much!!!
You could have discharged the battery by using it a bit and then gone for balancing but this guys technique is definitely so much faster!
Thanks! Couldn't have been explained better! I'm just getting started with a little 1S-8S battery alarm/meter, cheap chargers, and 2S batteries for my quadcopters, and will be sure to keep them maintained thanks to your help!
I love your ability to explain electronics with some humour Bruce! Great video.
I couldn't figure out why one of my lipos seemed to only be charging one cell. Thanks for explaining this.
Thank you, very informative. The sad thing is I used to try and discharge all cells and then charge them all again. This worked on probably 80% of the batteries. I used to get a few slightly puffed batteries that still worked OKish. I wonder how many batteries I messed up because I did not think of this resourceful 'trick'. Life lets those that still want to learn, another lesson, thanks
Awesome tutorial, I'm knew to the RC World and this video is a tremendous help in understanding the ins and out for charging damaged RC batteries. Great job thanks!!!
Thanks, this is very helpful information about how multi-cell batteries are connected internally and the concept behind balancing charger.
3:35 Ron, The "L" in solder is like the "P" in swimming; both are silent. Greetings from A-MUR-CA. Love your channel for the education and entertainment.
so it is that simple! I was trying to figure it out how the charger can balance the 3 cells battery! All those inventions always suprise me by their simplicity! Usuelly people think that it is much more complecated than it really is !
New to Lipos. Just found your videos. They have been soooo helpful.
you should be nicknamed "Ohm's" cause you get it! my uncle totally understood, and he would explain in a way that folks would or could...get it. Uncle Ohm's. salute and thanks
Been years since I last watched your videos, and about 3 years later still thoroughly enjoying them as much as I did back then. Not sure if I sent regards the last time I watched your enjoyable and informative videos, so heres a big thank you. Cheers. PS: so very curious to know if you were ever a teacher or a professor or the like, you have a great style and energy about you in the way you share knowledge!
This is awesome Bruce. I learn something every time I visit your channel
bruce, thanks for this vid. was having some problems with a couple older tattu batteries. I got them all balanced now. worked perfectly
Top content Bruce! I wish I saw this vid a couple days ago, I spent the whole day yesterday charging 2 unbalanced lipos, well I just made my individual cell charging cable, thanks!
Gotta love the white board sessions!
Very educational.
Bruce, you've just justified your existence on earth and anything goes from here on!
Thank you for this video. I purchased a brand new venom battery with one cell staying at 3.9v I tried your method and revived the battery. It took well over 3hrs to fix one cell but it worked.
Good info Bruce. One thing you can di if you use those 4 button chargers is to charge it on Fast mode. this stops the battery when one of the cells reaches 4.20V Then since charge each cell.
But I use Hyperion Chargers and it keeps the cells balanced during the entire charge. So if one cell is higher it will bring it back within spec (.01V difference) during the charge of the battery this leaves my packs charged without over charging them.
VERY interesting and informative. I will be in the shed tomorrow checking batteries and making these leads up.
Nice example and explanations! Perfect as this is happening on a couple of battery cells! Thanks and hope you're going well!
A source of pin header for a quick hack would be a servo extension lead.
Remove the outer shield that the female plug goes inside of. You'll then be left with 3 pins.
Either use a knife to lift the retaining tab and remove the pin to the signal (white or yellow) wire, or chop it off flush.
Then just plug into the servo connector on your multi lead.
Or chop the extension and solder into a spare plug, whatever floats your boat.
Benjamin Harvey Yea, or you could just hack the existing server connector charge lead sine it will most likely have only two in there to begin with.
Happy New Year Bruce. Your a top bloke. Hope to get up north and fly with you some day. This vid was brilliant . Just made myself a field charger with 18650s 4x6 but one cell (4 x 2500mah) was 0.11 difference from the other cells. Was painful to try balance through charger at .5amp so i made a rig and got them back up to match the rest. Thankyou have a wonderful new year champ.
I wish I watched this about two years ago! Sometimes I've been desperate enough to put crocodile clips on the positive and negative cell that needed balancing fast on my ebike battery without realising all this time I could have just done what you do! Many thanks!
Really hanging out for your results on the UHF systems Bruce.
Your feedback will determine who gets my money, but hoping sooner other than later please mate.
Cheers.
*****
*Bruce*, to make nice *"connectors"* out of pin headers, use *hotglue*. Put a dab of it on *baking paper* (the hot glue won't stick to it after it cooled down!) and push the soldered header into it (try not to get too much glue under the black plastic part). Depending on the glue amount either take a second piece of paper and push from the top or, which makes the nicer connectors, just use less glue for the first dab and then after cooled down, repeat with the other side of the connector. The excess on the sides can easily be cut away with flush trim wire cutters. With some practice such connectors can almost look like injection molded ones, including the strain relief and protection against kinks near the solder joint.
Excellent explanation, i am new to the li-ion battery world an now have a good view on the balance charge method.
Thanks.
Sir!
I would love to thank your for your great demonstration about the function of BMS cinrcuits. I was searching the internet for that till i found your video, and it was all I ever wanted to know
Thank you very much.
Thank you for your channel! Really very useful information. And I get smarter and smarter each time I watch your videos!
Thanks, Bruce this addressed my problem and provided a solution. Now to get my hands on the pin headers.
Awesome video! I over discharged a small 3S 300mha battery on its first use and I’ll try reviving the one cell that got too low with this (in a fire safe environment of course). Thank you very much!
this was interesting and explains a lot... I'm curious why the chargers doesn't charge via the balance lead as well ? seems to be a better method.
***** Allot of times (especially with bigger batteries), those little pins have too much resistance and will heat up and maybe melt causing a short in your battery. If that happens with a lithium polymer battery, it will often lead to a lipo fire.
*****
I agree, see my post, above...
***** smaller cellpro chargers to charger only through balance leads but only up to 4s i think.
***** Interesting, the new Syma X8W charger does charge it's battery via the balance port.
+vladoportos Small chargers often do... (Often at around 1A max) They likely lack the current handling ability to charge at 6A though...
Sincerest Thankyou. The explanation and insight is very much appreciated. TonyC from Canada
Thank you boss. This is by far the best/easiest way to balance very unbalanced batteries 😁👍
For those of you who don't want to bother using this way, discharge your battery to 3.3 volts, don't go lower than 3V per cell. Afterwards balance charge them to 3.7 volts. The balancing will indeed take some time - one or two hours but the result should be close to perfectly balanced cells. Once you do this, discharge again to 3.3V to make sure your cells are keeping the right voltage and then charge to full. If there is still a difference in the voltage maybe the cell /cells is/are damaged.
Ill have to crack out the soldering iron and make one of these tonight.
Great video Bruce.
Great instructional video. I've done the same thing but by using push pins inserted into the balance plug and alligator clips (careful not to create a short). Additionally, at what point should one really consider replacing a pack when one cell lags behind? I have a charger that also measures resistance in each cell, does a lagging cell's resistance correlate with it not coming up to charge as quickly? What resistance value then might be considered the limit before tossing the pack? Thanks Bruce.
Superb, as always, Bruce.
Great visual for beginners thanks. One question. Will a balance charging plate/station with a 5amp fuse protect my charger from a battery pack of 12 batteries if the input power adapter fails or drop below the 11volts required for the charger? Thanks
The explanation portion after 06:00 is great! Thanks
another thing I do is I take 3 separate 1 s batteries and connect them in series. When they are like below 3.6 V etc. I charge them separatelly to exactly 4.2 V !
Best informative lipo charge and discharge!
Thank you for the explanation, we have problems with drone parrot bebop 1 batteries and as the drone needs a lot of power to fly and the charger has no way to balance we hope individual cell charging will help, or buy new.
The pins I just bought to copy your cable are called: 40Pin 2.54mm Male PCB Single Row Straight Header Strip Connector Arduino
best rc plane channel on yt. Thanks Bruce
his a good teacher, but a shity cheer leader!
4:00 did that not hurt?
I enjoy so much to see your lessons :) You make thinks so easy to understand.
You Rock!
Thank you very much for explaining the whole charge process in a very good way!
Amazing video. Watched a few others but this one gave me the confidence I needed to try this. Had everything I needed on hand and it's working as I type. Thank you for saving my battery!
Thanks for sharing . very good . one comment . you got the battery being charged drawn in reverse (the long line should be the positive) .
Love your videos and your website, Bruce - thanks!
Please make more of these how to and technical whiteboard videos. I find them very informative.
Nice program Bruce.. glad someone explained clearly what goes on with this standard chargers... basically the final phase of the charge is as fast as fast the charger can "discharge" each cell.. wich in the case of the cheap chargers like the Acucell 6 is very slow (5W) .. even my IMAX B8 (25W) takes sometimes forever.
I wonder what a good charger would be that does the proper process (complete the final balance throught the balance port individually) would be.. probable quite more expensive but i readed people in forums saying they are quite worth it
12:21 what about the resistance of that cable??? As they are much thinner then the rest cables , and you said you can charge batteries with a few Amps they will get hot. Probably the balancer in the charger takes time because it charges it with very small current right? Maybe I just misunderstood you so if there is the case sorry for that . Thanks for the explanation anyway :)
Excellent explanation of balance charging and how to work around charging all cells at the same time. Question: you mentioned "liquid tape". I'm only finding "Nail Gel Liquid Peel Off Tape Cuticle Guard". What are you using? I need something for when I "oops" forgot to put the heat shrink on.
Amazing explanation. I learned something today! Just one question Bruce. What happens when the polarity is incorrect due to oversight. Will the charger know or will there be fireworks?
AndyRC Probably Fireworks, magic smoke or battery or charger will get very hot very quickly. Dont do it there should be no 'oversight' always check the polarity first
indeed
You'll have a fire in seconds if you get the polarity wrong. Worse yet, sometimes the spark caused by a short will actually weld the connectors together so it's hard to pull them apart to break the circuit. (Speaking from painful experience)
so not a fool proof solution then thanks just wanted to check :)
Have you been a teacher? It feels like that. Very easy explonations. Thanks!
Excellent, will spoken and easy to understand, thank you.
Wow ! What a way to describe complex things. You are my favorite. I like to meet you in person sometime if ever it happen.
hey i have a little confusion. is the battery polarity correct in the figure?
good stuff bruce its good to see you doing handy stuff again cheers bazz
I have a Raytronic c12 charger and I think it is a resonably good charger, but the battery is not balanced well (gensace 3s-a cell is about 0.05v lower) when it says it is fully charged. Should I just wait until it is balanced a bit better or should I do it your way?
Thanks for sharing all of your amazing ideas!
Sir, thank you for the video. I'd already built the cable for a rainy day and that day has come. I just got a new battery today and needed to bring up two of the four cells.
I need to test the maximum about of current I can run through the cable. 1.0A may be the safety limit.
long time bruce,,, nice , very informative ,,, But who on earth would even dislike your video ?
Thank you for passing on your excellent knowledge, I have learned more today.
Great explanation. I've a 3S battery with 3.42V cell, can I try reviving it using this method or is it a lost cause?
thank you for all your awesome video's...
just 1 question what those the white wire??? of 3 wire cables black,red and white that are going to my vintage servos
seems very logic thanks for explaining :D
but my battery 6v is running a simmeler red black and White colour wire to the reciever?
thats whas what confussed me in the first place,
normale you only have + - coming from a battery???
its binn 20 years last time i seen my rc toys
its vintage rc stuff from the 1980" (Robbe)
its binn hard to find good info but thank you very much for your help its very nice of you thx :D
Airgunsmith NL sometimes rx battery supply will use the same type of servo wire(black, red and white) but only the black and red are utilized. Try to check the whitewire on the battery side, most likely it is not connected to anything. you may even remove the white wire if you want.
the white wire is not giving any volts but i'm not going to removed it...all is working after standing stil for 20 years
so just want to take everything apart clean it bit by bit and restore it to its former glorie
except for the 35 years old rust making it look super cool
thank for your help Rrme
Awesome explanation Bruce! I never knew the intricacies of these chargers.
Great video. I was wondering if you could apply this to more than one cell in the pack at a time. Could you charge/discharge your whole pack at the same time through your sense wires.
If you were my professor when I took Circuit Designs, I would have actually aced the class. Excellent explanation Bruce!
Another topic I'm interested in, How do ESCs work? and why do they produce so much heat?
It is a realy nice, well made and informative Video. You just did a small mistake: The wiring symbol for a battery has another polarity. The long line is the positive pole and the short line is the negative pole. But beside that, great Video!!!
Are there any chargers that use a more direct method of charging each cell individually, thus avoiding this problem with the cheap 4 button chargers?
cbsarka Yes, some of the newer (more expensive) chargers have a separate charge circuit for each cell so each cell can be charged individually rather than in series. Costs more though.
***** Can you recommend any good ones?
The Dark Pixel have a look at the Junsi Duos, they are really brilliant chargers, they even measure the single cell impedance and take that into the equation while loading. And the balance power of these goes beyond that of your normal chargers. Up to 2.4 amps balancing is possible. This might be the last charger you ever buy, really worth their money! (4010 Duo here)
mooq! Thanks! I'll check it out :)
The Dark Pixel I use a cheap DN Power charger. It seems to be called "Li-Ion/Li-Polymer Balance Charger Micro-Controlled". I bought it more than 4 years ago and the only way it charges is through the balance port. Its only drawback is that it has a max charging current of 2A so you might not be able to charge at 1C for batteries larger than 2Ah.
The first result on google for "dn power lipo charger" returns an rcgroups thread about it.
Terrific overview @RCModRev - thanks so much. Coming up to speed with balance charging and understand the intrinsic problems with parallel charging, but wonder what you think of charging multiple lipo's using a serial balance board (e.g. 3x 2S lipo's at once using a 6S charger like the Turnigy you use here)? Also, I have a quad (XK X251) that comes with a 2S lipo but only has a balance connector - i.e. no separate 2-conductor power input/output connector. Can these batteries be charged using the type of Turnigy charger you show here? Thanks again.
Hi Bruce, very useful tips as usual, the battery symbol, the long terminal should be positive in your diagram :)
I wish I had asbestos fingers like you when tanning those terminal pins!!!!
Must be used to the hot weather down here in Australia.