PL8 Parallel Charge won't go over 10A?

[Planehazza]

Trying to parallelcharge3 5000mAh 6s packs. Set the charge rate at 5Ah (so it should treble it as it's in 3P mode) but it keeps reverting to 3.33A to stay at a 10A max rate. What am I doing wrong? It's set on DC mode, with low volts at 23v and current draw at 45A.

Using the accurate charge feature.

EDIT: ^ that was my mistake, I need to use the high power preset.

[Shauny]

You need to start in high power not accurate charge Harry then it'll let you.

[Planehazza]

You need to start in high power not accurate charge Harry then it'll let you.

Cheers dude

[JoeBailey]

+1 stick it in high power mode and it will go upto 40 amps

Sent from my SM-T315 using Tapatalk 4

[Planehazza]

Every other question I've had, I've gone straight to the manual. Was lazy this time, and there it was right under the parallel section lol.

[Planehazza]

How close do people like cells to be when parallel charging? In the past I've only parallel charged them in pairs so that all 12 cells are very close. Can I safely say charge a pack that is at 3.7v across all 6 cells at the same time as a pack that is 3.9v across each cell? Or is 0.2v too much a difference?

Also there seems to be a lot of debate about charging different capacities together. Some say do not do it, others say that Ohm's law will take care and all packs will charge to 4.2 per cell. What are peoples thoughts?

[johnsandywhite]

I quite often charge Lipos of different residual voltage. I connect the discharge cables first before the balance leads and had no problem. One Parallel charging board instruction says to connect the balance leads first. When I did that, some cables fried. We have had this question before and there are lot's of yes and no answers given. I have also charged cells of different mah. 3000/3300 and 4500/5000.
I know experts say you shouldn't. But parallel charging just charges ALL the cells to the same voltage. It doesn' know how many mah there are in each cell.

[PKNEC]

As far as I am aware if you plug the batts in the charge board and leave for a few minutes the voltages will balance out on the board.
Then you can charge them and all should be ok.

[Storrm]

+1 re Johns response. I'll regularly charge 6 batts of different capacities as long as the cell count is the same. I do try to make sure I'm adding batteries with roughly the same residual charge (within 20%) and always plug the discharge cables in first and leave for 15-20 secs for them to equalise before attaching balance cables. Beware though that if you are using a cheap parallel board and you attach two very different charged batts you run the risk of burning the tracks out on the board. I did this once before investing in a fused FMA board for my PL8 but in general, just be sensible and you'll be just fine

[cjcj1949]

Try to keep as close to everything the same as possible. Different volts and different capacities do create a problem. The greater any differnces the higher the initial charging currents and these can be very large. We know that charging over even 1C shortens battery life. Charging different capacities is much the same. If you have a 100mah and a 5000mah in parallel then the voltage difference is much more critical as a small charge current to a 5000mah cell like 5 amps is a large current for a 100mah cell. I would keep within 100mv and 20% of capacity as big batteries cost a lot and the closer you try to get the less chance there is of accidentally connecting batteries that are further out than you think.

If you don't want to bother getting the volts close then put some small resistors in series. Something like 0.1 ohms will cut the initial charge currents by about a factor of 10.