PSU - Charger manufacturers and charge curves or policies

ESK8 Electronics
1

Hi,

Dear DIY power users, from which suppliers are you buying your li-ion battery chargers? Do you standard charge curve or you are requesting to factory to implement a dedicated charge curve?

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Which charge policy do you set for your batteries:

  1. 0-100% and you do not care of impacts on lifetime or number of cycles.
  2. 10-90% and how do you manage 90% ceiling values?
  3. Manually, and try to stop to charge before the full charge using vesc/focbox application?

Thx

2

Hola, the majority of China chargers are based on a kingpan schematics, such allow you to adjust the final voltage cut off and amps output. They have 3 potmeter to adjust them as your liking. I’m in 1.

Good luck!!

1 Like
3

Thank you, My current charger is from YEWY, but I think that Yewy or Kingpan are equivalent.

My current charger is a 900W (48V/12A). It is doing a good job but 3.2kg is to heavy into a bag for a long weekend trip without assistance. So I am looking for a 180W or 240W that will do 48V and 3A-4A and it has to weight less than 1kg.

My DC sockect is specific, and I will add it at home except if Chinese charger manufacturer is able to do it for me (manage socket order internally) , but for a unique item order I am not sure that they will.

I know that switching from 900 to 240 will require 3-4 more time to do the job than previously but it will extend battery life also (expectations from my side) and reduce the weight of my bag dragtiscaly.

Do you know yewy? What’s you pov 12s6p and 48V/4A?

4

Let me pick up this 4 month old thread because I have the same question. There are (at least) two more applications for a programmable charger:

  • Forming, Lithium batteries reach the best performance when they are ‘formed’ before first use. For example, one publication proposed for Lifepo: 3 hours with 1/20 C, then 1/10 C until final voltage, then discharge at 1/10 C until 2.5V.
  • Fast charge, Tesla and others nowadays allow fast charging with more than 1C - only between say 30 and 80%. It seems this does not hurt cycle life. - So the charger may use 2C between these values, and fall back to 1/2 C or less at lower and higher values.

Are there any chargers available with a programmable charge curve? Is there anybody out there who can design one and wants to earn a fortune?

5

Cool idea about specific charge curve.

Ive been using hobby chargers but for ease of carrying, YZPower brand chargers are not bad, they even now have 10A versions for 36v batteries and u can request to change termination voltage (eg 41v instead of 42v)

I usually charge to just 4-4.1v.

Charging does start to slow down at 4.1v by itself, depends on charger but it usually slows down towards the end anyway (partly charger related partly battery - constant voltage phase kicking in)

6

Yes one can extend cycle life by reducing the charged voltage.

But let’s look at Tesla - they did their homework about cycle life, because if the battery has to be swapped within the 8 year warranty, the whole car becomes a bad deal. And they came to the conclusion that loading to mere 80% of nominal capacity extends cycle life (or rather: actually keeps it within the ‘1.000’ claim); similar policy in the first Chevi Volt.

And 80% charge lies in the CC part of the curve. So just by restricting voltage this can not be achieved, the charger needs a more ‘complicated’ software.

Then again, folks, the fairy offered a fortune. Candidates?

7

Finally, ordored a YEWY 240L WM4804 that correspond to automatic switch between 110/220V Cc to 48V & 4A. Voltage display is added as an option. Fuse, 1.5m long and 2x2.5mm² Cc cable and plug from cnlinko LP20. 43 USD including taxes. Directly from YEWY China…