I am about to order one and I do not see one of those nice laser cut cases for it.
Are there plans to make one. I plan to use mine as an isolated supply for projects
I am about to order one and I do not see one of those nice laser cut cases for it.
Are there plans to make one. I plan to use mine as an isolated supply for projects
Tom
I don't know if the holes line up conveniently, but it should fit fine in this:
one of those nice laser cut cases for it. Are there plans to make one.
I thought the same thing. Since there's not that much to see (other than some indicator lights which could be seen through a viewport opening where all the jacks are), I thought a low-profile, opaque, industrial grade, black delrin might be nice? Any interest?
I'm using these. I purchased six cells at the same time I purchased the charger.
The first set are all charged up. I'm not sure if I'll install the board in a robot or just use it as a charger and only keep the batteries in the bot.
I'll need to find some battery holders for the Lion cells if I'm going to use the batteries separately.
Keep in mind, if you ever wanted to need to go with less expensive cells (I've seen some for <$2 each, they should work just fine too. The "protected" types (like the Tenergy's) are not all that easy to remove on a routine basis (although) with the right "tool" you can. The un-protected types are shorter, and hence much easier to remove.
You could always scavenge cells from an old laptop too.
-Matt
I had an issue last night whereby it quit working (quit outputting power). I am using it with a prop proto board with only a 2x20 VFD display connected. It didn't seem to last as long as it should have in my opinion maybe 2 - 3 hours at best. I used my Fluke to check the voltage on each battery and one of them had 0 volts. I plugged in the charger and both blue led's are solid. After charging overnight I see this morning that both red led's are on solid indicating cell fault. I unplugged the charger and plugged it back in and both blue led's are on solid indicating charging. I am using a 12 volt 1 A regulated wall wart. It measures 11.90 volts on the barrel jack while charging.
There weren't any loose, bare wires or "oopsies" associated with my proto board connections or application so an overload is out of the question. So after I unplugged the charger I again measured the cell voltages. Each one measured 3.80 volts. I've plugged the charger back in and as I said earlier both blue led's are on solid. I'll watch them again to see what happens.
I'm not sure if this is true for the batteries Parallax sells or not. Many batteries don't hold their full charge with the first charging. It takes several charge / discharge cycles to bring the batteries up to full capacity.
I'm not sure which chemistries the above applies to.
I had a similar thing happen, but thought I was imagining something or missed something.
Both cells were fully charged, blue charge indicator lights were flashing. A day later, when Lion was under load, voltage provided was about 7.6 volts - all is good. I disconnected the Lion, did some work on the application circuit, and reconnected to the Lion, and got 0 volts. Hmm. Thinking that the cells mysteriously discharged overnight, I plugged in a charger. Blue lights started flashing within 30 seconds, indicating a full charge. Hmm again. I reconnected the application circuit and everything worked great. It still works great. It appears that the act of charging "reset" the Lion somehow. I wonder if there is some protection circuit that shut it down unnecessarily. But, I never got the red LEDs indicating a fault.
The chance that I had a short or other wiring mistake in my application circuit is very low - I checked it carefully before connecting to the Lion.
In any case, the Lion works great. I do wonder if the "protected cells" can shut down and reset, and under what condition that might occur.
Ok so now its been about 4 hours and cell A is still solid blue (charging) and cell B has gone solid red (cell fault). You suppose there is something wrong with the cell (s) ?
With the handy Fluke- with charger still plugged in - Cell A- 4.08 Cell B- 3.94 no charger connected - Cell A- 4.05 Cell B- 3.94
While I am writing this Cell A has just gone to flashing blue (charged). I am going to switch the batteries in the holder and see what happens.
Question- If the battery is just freshly charged I wonder if the charger understands that by the voltage and either indicates it's fully charged or shortens the charging time significantly?
So I switched the cells in the holder and now after approx 45 minutes Cell B (used to be Cell A the good one) is showing the blinking blue led to indicate it is charged, which we knew it was from before but it took the charger 45 minutes to figure that out. The other cell is still showing solid blue. Cell B (charged) shows 4.08 volts while Cell A (still charging) shows 4.02 volts.
Matt or who ever did the testing of this board at Parallax
I have a question when you did the testing of this board did you test this board with batteries with the portection board or with out them ? ?
This may explane what Don M and Lev are seeing
I found that some protection board are flake at best when the battery is almost fully charge meaning that if the current is a little to high it charge then dose not then charges then it dose not while you have the charger hook to the battery this problem is not as bad when the current is less than 200 milliamps when the batteries are almost fully charged this because when the cell voltage gose above 4.27 on the protection I have work with the charging stops then when the voltage drops below 4.00 then the charging will start agian when you are discharging the battery it work a littile different in that when the battery voltage drop below 2.7 I think it that low on some boaards the voltage will not come back on until the battery voltage is higher than 3.2 volts
I do not know if this helps but this is what I have found using this type of battery
Now after 2 hrs and 15 minutes Cell A has finally finished charging successfully. So what did I learn from this? Nothing that makes any sense. I switched the batteries from one socket to the other. Could have been some resistance in the socket connections or just a flakey new battery. I'll see what happens now after further discharge / recharge cycles.
Don M it the protection board in the battery that is doing this and this happen when the battery are almost fully charged
I have alot of these batteries and there protection board and when I first started working with these type of batteries I though that there was some thing wrong with these board but said let me see if the voltage on the batteries them self are going above the 4.27 volts and they where that when i found if you lower the current to less than 100 milliamps the first few time you charge them this problem is not as bad
I was using a power supply that volts and current meters on it when I was testing these batteries and I found this was happing when thay where almost charged
I have one of these boards coming to me in a day or two and I will do some testing on this board my self and let you guys know what I find out
Now after 2 hrs and 15 minutes Cell A has finally finished charging successfully. So what did I learn from this? Nothing that makes any sense. I switched the batteries from one socket to the other. Could have been some resistance in the socket connections or just a flakey new battery. I'll see what happens now after further discharge / recharge cycles
All testing is done with non-protected cells here. It sounds like you might have a bum cell. We're shut down for inventory right now, so I can't pull anything from stock until Friday.
Try draining the cells all the way down to cut-off voltage, and then taking them all the way to full-charge, and lets see what happens.
Since the charger is designed with maximum safety in mind, you may get a "broken cell" (solid red) sometimes because as it goes through its "checkout sequence" if anything seems amiss, it will not charge the cell. If it's a new cell and it's not really broken, simply disconnect power, wait 10 or so seconds and then it should resume normal charging.
On Friday I'll get you out a couple of new cells, if this doesn't correct what you're seeing.
-Matt
You may have to this three or four times for this not give you as much trouble
Try draining the cells all the way down to cut-off voltage, and then taking
them all the way to full-charge, and lets see what happens.
This is a good idea
Since the charger is designed with maximum safety in mind,
Matt Can you explane What the "checkout sequence" really is checking for ? ? <... What are the SET point as far as voltages and current and temperature ? ? ?
In an earlier post Matt said .......>
There's a small network of transistors that do that in a solid state manner.
Also, by breaking the electrical connection between the two cells (that are in
series with each other when delivering power), each cell is individually
monitored for voltage, current, and temperature. The charging circuit shuts
down on either cell when a out-of-normal condition occurs.
you may get a "broken cell" (solid red) sometimes because as it goes through its
"checkout sequence" if anything seems amiss,
When you get some time to test the Lion boards with some batteries with the Protection boards in them you will find that this is what is causing the problem as I had posted earlier
it will not charge the cell. If it's a new cell and it's not really broken,
simply disconnect power, wait 10 or so seconds and then it should resume normal
charging.
I have alot of these batteries and there protection board and when I first started working with these type of batteries I though that there was some thing wrong with these board but said let me see if the voltage on the batteries them self are going above the 4.27 volts and they where that when i found if you lower the current to less than 100 milliamps then the protection board will not turn ON and turn OFF
Got mine yesterday and it looks good. All I did so far was charge the two cells I bought from Parallax with it.
It has sat unloaded overnight .
One question I have is with all the warnings about proper charging and danger, what about discharge? Does the
protect board in the cell or the Parallax board shut down at discharge. For unattended use do you need to detect
discharge and dissconnect . Is there a danger in having them still connected to a load at discharge or do they just
sit at there min voltage and not get hot for example.
Here is what have found with this type of batteries
If the batteries have the protection on them here is how it work
When charging these batteries
When the voltage at the cell reaches about 4.00 volts or so you do not need as much current and here is why
The protection board take over and start shutting down the current to the battery when the voltage gose above 4.00 to about 4.25 volt if you drop current to about 100 milliamps or so this dose not happen as much
When you are discharging these batteries
If the current is to HIGH then the procetion board take over and shut down the current from the battery then you have to the battery back on the charger to reset the protection board
If the battery voltage drops below about 3.00 to about 2.7 volts or so the protection takes over and shut off the power coming from the battery and the battery will not have any output power until the battery voltage is higher than 3.00 volts
One note
I have some protection board that do not reset and you fry the protect board be care full about this part
One question I have is with all the warnings about proper charging
Hi Tom -
What Sam says is correct, and I'll build upon what he said...
There's always been the "Lion Battery Catches Fire" stories - like laptops igniting, etc. We've probably erred on the side of caution in the warnings parts of our document.
There's all kinds of redundant safeguards built into the charger:
1) We recommend "protected cells" because they monitor themselves for safe discharge rates. The Charger however, works just as well with non-protected cells as well.
2) Each cell is charged independently, so there's no possibility of "out of balance" charging conditions.
3) There's a 2 amp replaceable fuse to limit short circuit conditions, and if this fuse fails, then the protected cell would shut itself down as well.
4) Each cell is continuously monitored for "out of temperature range" conditions. If either cell becomes too hot or too cold, the charger circuit will shut down the charging sequence.
5) The charging chips also test for internal cell damage as well, and will not commence the charging
sequence until the cell is working properly.
All this being said, yes you can safely rely on the Charger Board in the same way that you rely on your Bar-b-ques propane tank. Is propane dangerous? Yes. But with the right fittings, valves, and hoses you're pretty safe.
Is there a lot of energy in the Li-ion cells? Yes. But with internally protected cells, temperature monitoring circuits, an external fuse, and blinky lights, you're pretty safe too.
We provide a 2 amp fuse on the board. And although we can't recommend it (liability!?), you could replace it with a higher value because the cells are perfectly capable of supply more than 2 amps. In fact, non-protected cells can discharge very quickly - much more quickly than our 2 amp fuse would allow.
Bottom line: "out of the box", we've put in just about every protection mechanism we could because we have no idea what knowledge range of customers we may sell it to - therefore, we've tried to strike the balance between "safe", "usable" and "really cool".
Matt
Do you know if the cells Parallax sells are the ones that the protection boards do not reset
if you over discharge the cells.
Is the indication of discharge the fact that the voltage falls below 3.7 volts
I have a question let say you are charging some batteries and you have a power outage for a few seconds what should happen
I try-ed this and this is what happen the charger would not start charing again until I ether remove the batteries for some amount of time that is if I left them out long enough or leave the power off for at least a minute or so Is it suppose to work this way
If it suppose to work this way then if you loose power you have to have the micro controller know that you use lost power and leave the power to Lion charger off for at least a minute to make sure that are really charing this seem to happen when the battery voltage at about 3.00 volts and where the HOT label is it get real HOT
I have second question for you let say that you have a battery voltage start at 2.50 volts and after about hour you come back and find the RED LED flashing so you power down the board and re-power back up and then it finishes charging and the battery voltage reaches 4.10
Is there a timer on this board that IF it dose not reach a let say a voltage of 3.75 in so many minutes then it time out and shows an error IF there is a timer WHAT are the specs time and voltages
Let me start off by saying I THINK THAT IS A GREAT PRODUCT and if you think I am nit picking it you are right I Just want to know all I can about what it suppose and why it dose it the way it dose it that all folks
I've done some testing here, and it appears that (as you pointed out in an earlier post a while back) that some "protected cells" are very sensitive (a function of their vigilence), and will "trip out" during a "glitch-event" (like momentary power supply dropout). It seems to be re-settable by removing power for a few seconds, and then re-applying (as you pointed out).
So far, I have been unable to duplicate the same effect on the two different versions of un-protected cells that I've used in the development of the board. And not all of the protected cells are prone to this "glitch", as far as I can tell either.
I'll keep you posted on some other cell sources. In fact, we're thinking of carrying a second brand of cells. A much less expensive, un-protected type, and combining it with the Charger Pack itself. I'll let you know when that happens.
When I got this glitch is when I have try to charge un-protected cells that there battery voltage is about 2.75 volts or lower and have charging for about 5 to 10 minutes then remove power from the charging ( also when this happen when the place on the the board that says " HOT " and it very HOT ) board them repower back up in less than 5 seconds is when this happen I have try ed the same thing when the battery are all most charged this dose not happen it reset each time
So far, I have been unable to duplicate the same effect on the two different
versions of un-protected cells that I've used in the development of the board.
And not all of the protected cells are prone to this "glitch", as far as I can
tell either.
Comments
Are there plans to make one. I plan to use mine as an isolated supply for projects
Tom
I don't know if the holes line up conveniently, but it should fit fine in this:
http://www.parallax.com/StoreSearchResults/tabid/768/txtSearch/enclosure/List/0/SortField/4/ProductID/706/Default.aspx
I thought the same thing. Since there's not that much to see (other than some indicator lights which could be seen through a viewport opening where all the jacks are), I thought a low-profile, opaque, industrial grade, black delrin might be nice? Any interest?
-Matt
I have two batteries charging right now. So far so good.
Duane
Roy
Thanks for the feedback guys! So which cells are you using?
-Matt
The first set are all charged up. I'm not sure if I'll install the board in a robot or just use it as a charger and only keep the batteries in the bot.
I'll need to find some battery holders for the Lion cells if I'm going to use the batteries separately.
Duane
I'm using the ones you sell.
Roy
Keep in mind, if you ever wanted to need to go with less expensive cells (I've seen some for <$2 each, they should work just fine too. The "protected" types (like the Tenergy's) are not all that easy to remove on a routine basis (although) with the right "tool" you can. The un-protected types are shorter, and hence much easier to remove.
You could always scavenge cells from an old laptop too.
-Matt
I am using the protected cells from Parallax.
My Lion lives inside my Stingray, and it works great! Nice job on the design.
I had an issue last night whereby it quit working (quit outputting power). I am using it with a prop proto board with only a 2x20 VFD display connected. It didn't seem to last as long as it should have in my opinion maybe 2 - 3 hours at best. I used my Fluke to check the voltage on each battery and one of them had 0 volts. I plugged in the charger and both blue led's are solid. After charging overnight I see this morning that both red led's are on solid indicating cell fault. I unplugged the charger and plugged it back in and both blue led's are on solid indicating charging. I am using a 12 volt 1 A regulated wall wart. It measures 11.90 volts on the barrel jack while charging.
There weren't any loose, bare wires or "oopsies" associated with my proto board connections or application so an overload is out of the question. So after I unplugged the charger I again measured the cell voltages. Each one measured 3.80 volts. I've plugged the charger back in and as I said earlier both blue led's are on solid. I'll watch them again to see what happens.
I'm not sure if this is true for the batteries Parallax sells or not. Many batteries don't hold their full charge with the first charging. It takes several charge / discharge cycles to bring the batteries up to full capacity.
I'm not sure which chemistries the above applies to.
Duane
I had a similar thing happen, but thought I was imagining something or missed something.
Both cells were fully charged, blue charge indicator lights were flashing. A day later, when Lion was under load, voltage provided was about 7.6 volts - all is good. I disconnected the Lion, did some work on the application circuit, and reconnected to the Lion, and got 0 volts. Hmm. Thinking that the cells mysteriously discharged overnight, I plugged in a charger. Blue lights started flashing within 30 seconds, indicating a full charge. Hmm again. I reconnected the application circuit and everything worked great. It still works great. It appears that the act of charging "reset" the Lion somehow. I wonder if there is some protection circuit that shut it down unnecessarily. But, I never got the red LEDs indicating a fault.
The chance that I had a short or other wiring mistake in my application circuit is very low - I checked it carefully before connecting to the Lion.
In any case, the Lion works great. I do wonder if the "protected cells" can shut down and reset, and under what condition that might occur.
With the handy Fluke- with charger still plugged in - Cell A- 4.08 Cell B- 3.94 no charger connected - Cell A- 4.05 Cell B- 3.94
While I am writing this Cell A has just gone to flashing blue (charged). I am going to switch the batteries in the holder and see what happens.
Question- If the battery is just freshly charged I wonder if the charger understands that by the voltage and either indicates it's fully charged or shortens the charging time significantly?
I have a question when you did the testing of this board did you test this board with batteries with the portection board or with out them ? ?
This may explane what Don M and Lev are seeing
I found that some protection board are flake at best when the battery is almost fully charge meaning that if the current is a little to high it charge then dose not then charges then it dose not while you have the charger hook to the battery this problem is not as bad when the current is less than 200 milliamps when the batteries are almost fully charged this because when the cell voltage gose above 4.27 on the protection I have work with the charging stops then when the voltage drops below 4.00 then the charging will start agian when you are discharging the battery it work a littile different in that when the battery voltage drop below 2.7 I think it that low on some boaards the voltage will not come back on until the battery voltage is higher than 3.2 volts
I do not know if this helps but this is what I have found using this type of battery
I have alot of these batteries and there protection board and when I first started working with these type of batteries I though that there was some thing wrong with these board but said let me see if the voltage on the batteries them self are going above the 4.27 volts and they where that when i found if you lower the current to less than 100 milliamps the first few time you charge them this problem is not as bad
I was using a power supply that volts and current meters on it when I was testing these batteries and I found this was happing when thay where almost charged
I have one of these boards coming to me in a day or two and I will do some testing on this board my self and let you guys know what I find out
All testing is done with non-protected cells here. It sounds like you might have a bum cell. We're shut down for inventory right now, so I can't pull anything from stock until Friday.
Try draining the cells all the way down to cut-off voltage, and then taking them all the way to full-charge, and lets see what happens.
Since the charger is designed with maximum safety in mind, you may get a "broken cell" (solid red) sometimes because as it goes through its "checkout sequence" if anything seems amiss, it will not charge the cell. If it's a new cell and it's not really broken, simply disconnect power, wait 10 or so seconds and then it should resume normal charging.
On Friday I'll get you out a couple of new cells, if this doesn't correct what you're seeing.
-Matt
Excellent Lev! The Stingray battery situation was the inspiration for the board itself.
-Matt
I though this might have been the case
You may have to this three or four times for this not give you as much trouble
This is a good idea
Matt Can you explane What the "checkout sequence" really is checking for ? ? <... What are the SET point as far as voltages and current and temperature ? ? ?
When you get some time to test the Lion boards with some batteries with the Protection boards in them you will find that this is what is causing the problem as I had posted earlier
I have alot of these batteries and there protection board and when I first started working with these type of batteries I though that there was some thing wrong with these board but said let me see if the voltage on the batteries them self are going above the 4.27 volts and they where that when i found if you lower the current to less than 100 milliamps then the protection board will not turn ON and turn OFF
It has sat unloaded overnight .
One question I have is with all the warnings about proper charging and danger, what about discharge? Does the
protect board in the cell or the Parallax board shut down at discharge. For unattended use do you need to detect
discharge and dissconnect . Is there a danger in having them still connected to a load at discharge or do they just
sit at there min voltage and not get hot for example.
Thank's
Tom
If the batteries have the protection on them here is how it work
When charging these batteries
When the voltage at the cell reaches about 4.00 volts or so you do not need as much current and here is why
The protection board take over and start shutting down the current to the battery when the voltage gose above 4.00 to about 4.25 volt if you drop current to about 100 milliamps or so this dose not happen as much
When you are discharging these batteries
If the current is to HIGH then the procetion board take over and shut down the current from the battery then you have to the battery back on the charger to reset the protection board
If the battery voltage drops below about 3.00 to about 2.7 volts or so the protection takes over and shut off the power coming from the battery and the battery will not have any output power until the battery voltage is higher than 3.00 volts
One note
I have some protection board that do not reset and you fry the protect board be care full about this part
I hope this helps
Hi Tom -
What Sam says is correct, and I'll build upon what he said...
There's always been the "Lion Battery Catches Fire" stories - like laptops igniting, etc. We've probably erred on the side of caution in the warnings parts of our document.
There's all kinds of redundant safeguards built into the charger:
1) We recommend "protected cells" because they monitor themselves for safe discharge rates. The Charger however, works just as well with non-protected cells as well.
2) Each cell is charged independently, so there's no possibility of "out of balance" charging conditions.
3) There's a 2 amp replaceable fuse to limit short circuit conditions, and if this fuse fails, then the protected cell would shut itself down as well.
4) Each cell is continuously monitored for "out of temperature range" conditions. If either cell becomes too hot or too cold, the charger circuit will shut down the charging sequence.
5) The charging chips also test for internal cell damage as well, and will not commence the charging
sequence until the cell is working properly.
All this being said, yes you can safely rely on the Charger Board in the same way that you rely on your Bar-b-ques propane tank. Is propane dangerous? Yes. But with the right fittings, valves, and hoses you're pretty safe.
Is there a lot of energy in the Li-ion cells? Yes. But with internally protected cells, temperature monitoring circuits, an external fuse, and blinky lights, you're pretty safe too.
We provide a 2 amp fuse on the board. And although we can't recommend it (liability!?), you could replace it with a higher value because the cells are perfectly capable of supply more than 2 amps. In fact, non-protected cells can discharge very quickly - much more quickly than our 2 amp fuse would allow.
Bottom line: "out of the box", we've put in just about every protection mechanism we could because we have no idea what knowledge range of customers we may sell it to - therefore, we've tried to strike the balance between "safe", "usable" and "really cool".
-Matt
Thank's for the info
Matt
Do you know if the cells Parallax sells are the ones that the protection boards do not reset
if you over discharge the cells.
Is the indication of discharge the fact that the voltage falls below 3.7 volts
Thank's
Tom
I just got one of these Lions charger
I have a question let say you are charging some batteries and you have a power outage for a few seconds what should happen
I try-ed this and this is what happen the charger would not start charing again until I ether remove the batteries for some amount of time that is if I left them out long enough or leave the power off for at least a minute or so Is it suppose to work this way
If it suppose to work this way then if you loose power you have to have the micro controller know that you use lost power and leave the power to Lion charger off for at least a minute to make sure that are really charing this seem to happen when the battery voltage at about 3.00 volts and where the HOT label is it get real HOT
I have second question for you let say that you have a battery voltage start at 2.50 volts and after about hour you come back and find the RED LED flashing so you power down the board and re-power back up and then it finishes charging and the battery voltage reaches 4.10
Is there a timer on this board that IF it dose not reach a let say a voltage of 3.75 in so many minutes then it time out and shows an error IF there is a timer WHAT are the specs time and voltages
Let me start off by saying I THINK THAT IS A GREAT PRODUCT and if you think I am nit picking it you are right I Just want to know all I can about what it suppose and why it dose it the way it dose it that all folks
I notice this about the Lion Charging board
For the most part it work the way I thought it should how ever
When charging the batteries and they are almost fully charged ...>
The battery voltage is 4.10 volts and the blue LED is flashing.....> IF
You power down the board ....> IF
You power it back up none of the LEDs come back but the green power light is it suppose to work this way ?
IF it suppose to work this way the question why ?
Are any update about the two question that I am asking about
Thanks for any info that you cam give me
I've done some testing here, and it appears that (as you pointed out in an earlier post a while back) that some "protected cells" are very sensitive (a function of their vigilence), and will "trip out" during a "glitch-event" (like momentary power supply dropout). It seems to be re-settable by removing power for a few seconds, and then re-applying (as you pointed out).
So far, I have been unable to duplicate the same effect on the two different versions of un-protected cells that I've used in the development of the board. And not all of the protected cells are prone to this "glitch", as far as I can tell either.
I'll keep you posted on some other cell sources. In fact, we're thinking of carrying a second brand of cells. A much less expensive, un-protected type, and combining it with the Charger Pack itself. I'll let you know when that happens.
Thanks!
-Matt
When I got this glitch is when I have try to charge un-protected cells that there battery voltage is about 2.75 volts or lower and have charging for about 5 to 10 minutes then remove power from the charging ( also when this happen when the place on the the board that says " HOT " and it very HOT ) board them repower back up in less than 5 seconds is when this happen I have try ed the same thing when the battery are all most charged this dose not happen it reset each time