Amps question on pl8

[vtrnutter]

Hi

I recently took delivery of my new pl8 v2 charger and parallel board.

At the moment I only have a 12v 20 amp power supply whilst I am waiting for my new one to arrive.

I went into the charger settings and set the setup to 20 amp for the psu.

However, when I was trying to charge 4x4s 4000 packs in parallel the maximum charge rate that I could select was 2.5 amps or 10 amps total.

Can anyone explain why?

Thanks.

[sacko]

You get a limited wattage when on 12v.

Its 400w on the PL6.

[st200ol]

The charger software will be working with Watts not Amps, you have a 240Watt PSU, the 12V supplied by your PSU needs to be stepped up to 16.8V (the maximum voltage for the 4s lipos)

16.8*10=168Watts the conversion is not 100% efficient, so the software limits at this wattage.

This is why it is better to operate the charger at the maximum voltage it will accept, it will run cooler and more efficiently.

[vtrnutter]

The charger software will be working with Watts not Amps, you have a 240Watt PSU, the 12V supplied by your PSU needs to be stepped up to 16.8V (the maximum voltage for the 4s lipos)

16.8*10=168Watts the conversion is not 100% efficient, so the software limits at this wattage.

This is why it is better to operate the charger at the maximum voltage it will accept, it will run cooler and more efficiently.

Thanks. Very logical. Actually I was surprised that the settings in the charger were amps rather than watts. Just proves that I need that monster 24v supply to arrive ASAP.

[scallybert]

Hi
However, when I was trying to charge 4x4s 4000 packs in parallel the maximum charge rate that I could select was 2.5 amps or 10 amps total.

2.5/10 is the top of the range on the PC interface ? If you try and increase in the front panel, it loops round to 10mA (or such) ?

This happened to me. I don't understand why, but I found that:

• One of the presets is 'high current' or such.
• If you copy this, and play with the copy, youcan go above 10A.
• It wasn't obvious what was different between this preset and those that wouldn't go >10A.
• I just based my presets on copies of this, and went back to worrying about other things...

[jamiem]

2.5/10 is the top of the range on the PC interface ? If you try and increase in the front panel, it loops round to 10mA (or such) ?

This happened to me. I don't understand why, but I found that:

• One of the presets is 'high current' or such.
• If you copy this, and play with the copy, youcan go above 10A.
• It wasn't obvious what was different between this preset and those that wouldn't go >10A.
• I just based my presets on copies of this, and went back to worrying about other things...

I had the same thing last week when setting up a load of custome presets, most puzzling. I went through every visible setting; nothing was different! I then copied and pasted the one preset that did allow the higher rates up to 40A and suddenly they all worked.

[scallybert]

I had the same thing last week when setting up a load of custome presets, most puzzling. I went through every visible setting; nothing was different! I then copied and pasted the one preset that did allow the higher rates up to 40A and suddenly they all worked.

I'm glad it's not just me. I was starting to wonder if my sanity had left without me...

[Rctintin]

Sorry if a little off topic, but when charging 8 x 1s packs (mcpx packs) that are 300mah in parallel, do I set a charge rate of 8x300 = 2.4amps?

Cheers guys, Rob.

[jamiem]

Sorry if a little off topic, but when charging 8 x 1s packs (mcpx packs) that are 300mah in parallel, do I set a charge rate of 8x300 = 2.4amps?

Cheers guys, Rob.

Depends how they are connected. If they are on one of the cheapie leads that's basically 8 in to 1 then yes, just multiply the capacity by 8 as you have