If you are trying to maximise the life of battery by using an under-charging strategy I recommend investing in a charger that is programmable and can do a precise job every time.
Because if you are just using the LCD Screen on the SPACE cell battery it is not very accurate because it is showing a percentage only.
With the Cycle Satiator, you can program your primary profile to
give an 80% charge, and have a secondary profile that does a 100%
charge when you need full range. Then have the best of both worlds,
a battery that lasts thousands of cycles but still goes the distance
when you need it.
Man that chargerās a beast thanks for sharing, although might be a little overkill for my needs. The stock charger is fine with me. I guess my question is - Charging until charger light turns green is best for the Space Cell?
@onloop Iām about to pull the trigger on this but am a little confused. The enclosure that yourāe selling is just the shell that now goes on the space cell pro3 and pro4, correct? For the enclosure, youāre saying it can fit 2 escās as well. So does that mean that the space cell pro3 can also fit 2 escs inside?
@RunPlayBack - Iād assume, you can just stop charging once it getās closer to 100% or right when it hits 100% since it still charges a bit after 100%?
Iāve unplugged right when it hits 100% and have never waited until the charger turns green. If waiting for the charger to turn green has no effect on the health of the battery Iāll do that from now on.
The NEW SPACE CELL PRO3 & PRO4 as pictured above, is a group of cells that is completely integrated with a hard case outer shell, Meaning the Li-ion 18650 cells & BMS get built/assembled directly into the shell during manufacture, the LCD Fuel Gauge, the On/Off Switch & DC charge Port are panel mounted into the shell which should make them more servicable, say if the siwtch fails. There is also room in the end for Twin VESCās & Capacitors.
This is no longer just a battery, its the next generation of DIY electric skateboard building, Its an all-in-one universal electronics mounting solution with integrated high capacity battery, with provisions for VESC.
ALSO, the Shell itself is available seperatly for existing owners of SPACE CELL version 1. You can partially dismantle the original SPACE Cell and panel mount the parts onto the shell however you want. Of course you could also stuff it with LIPO and hobby grade ESC if you wanted too.
when light goes green It just means that the battery is fully charged. so if you are trying to maximise the life of the battery using an undercharging strategy i would use an accurate voltage meter and test the actual resting pack voltage at certain stage throughout the charge process. EXAMPLE: charge for 1hr, take note of LCD %, rest pack 10mins, check voltage. charge for another 30min, note %, rest, check V, charge for 15min, etc, etc
this way you will learn that you need to pull the charger when LCD says (example) ~93% to reach your desired charge voltage.
charger has to go green, when your battery hits 100% the amperage from the charger tapers off so that at complete rest your battery is 100% charged. if you remove it from the charger when the battery says 100% then the battery goes in to rest and shows a lower capacity.
when you charge a battery to its max voltage you then need to hold it at that voltage as you bring the amperage down. you do this so that at complete rest the battery is as close to its max as possible.
well youre charging 30 cells to a max voltage of 4.2V a cell at about .666A a cell it will take a long time to get it to rest from a charge current of .666A
If you never charge it until it turns green, then your cells with slowly become more out of balance with each charge (because you arenāt waiting for them to be fully balanced by unplugging it at red)- so once you decide to finally wait until itās green, it may take a while.
I get that a bms normally balances the cells at the last bit of charging, so under charging will allow cells to become unbalanced and shorten the life of your battery.
But onloop says undercharging to 80% instead of to 100%, improves the life of the cells, and that charging to 100% shortens the life of your battery, which also makes sense.
So what do I do to get the max life out of my space cell?
