Battery Balancing issues
 

Have a fairly new protek 4900 shorty 2s, on my icharger the battery takes 30 minutes to discharge balance and 30 minutes to charge balance. IR less than 2 on both cells, but one cell takes a very long time to balance. One cell we be at 3.4v quickly and 4.2v on the charge, the other cell will still be at 3.6 and 4.0 respectively.

Any ideas or tricks to kick this pack back into shape? Battery has no puffing.

I think that means one of the cells is a little funky if it only happens with the Protek shorty. If they keep discharging to uneven voltages I would contact Protek/Amain and see if they can help you out. I've seen certain packs over time take a while to balance though they usually always discharge at an even rate.

I'm pretty sure there is a "quick balance" mode on the iCharger, try that maybe

What are you charging/discharging at?

30 discharge 40 charge.

i lost faith in protek a few years back went thru same issue with my charger that i could adjust balance charge to 5 amps. Schulze 1450. you could make a single cell plug to do a direct charge as 1 cell to each cell but that will still take longer might do it in under 20 minutes..use a servo extension and your main plug ..

Try charging at a lower amperage and see if that is any better. BTW how big is your power supply?

If youre trying to get the heat in the pack before each run you could try discharging then charging right away so it just finishes before you tech. I had one cell in my protek pack that was doing the same and coming up lot higher on IR's compared to the other in the pack. I put it through 3 cycle runs in the same night at home and brought it back to normal, been good ever since but I only charge at 16amps.

So what am I missing here, the OP said he charges at 30 amps and discharges at 30 amps, then says charging at 40, now I only charge at 10 amps and takes roughly 18 minutes to charge my battery, not that I have timed it, but I have it fully charged just before hitting the track, now logic tells me if I was charging at a higher rate, the battery should be done sooner, as I can even charge a 4s in 22 minutes at 10 amps (balance charge - fast balance) so what am I missing?
My charger is a icharger 308 & 406 and I start charging my batteries 3 heats before I am up.

Only said I charge at 40 amps, not sure what you misread. The battery is taking an exceptionally long time to balance, because one cell is lagging behind in the balance process. Your charger may not provide you this type of info.

Regarding time, my other batteries charge in less than 10 minutes at 40 amps, and that’s from a completely drained state after discharging at 30 amps. If I charge a partially charged battery without discharging, it’s 5 mins or less.

So then it's the battery itself taking forever, compared to your other packs, as I was heading down the road on your charger being the biggest problem, but if your pushing the high amp charge rates, what do you expect from the battery as if it was mine it would be gone, I don't want the fire screwing with a temperamental battery pack

so ur charging a 8.18 c LOL enjoy the fire..a 40 amp charge

Just contact customer service they’ll take care of it.

Keep your ignorance to yourself. Thanks.

Please dont do this, if one cell is at 4.2 and one is at 4.0 it will continune to charge normally. When one cell is out of range always charge with balance and accept that is how this battery is.

Bro, you have balls of steel.

Charging at 40 amps, I aspire to levels of greatness such as this. I'm also not being sarcastic.

You may want to tone it down a little bit with this pack and maybe do 20 amps?

Hundreds if not thousands of people who run at the top level at their respective tracks in 17.5 and 13.5 charge and discharge at these astronomical levels. I agree, it sounds insane and dangerous, but 30+ guys at my track alone do this every race day and have been for many years without issue. A level of care and attention to the condition of the battery as well as a charger capable of monitoring and charging at these rates is necessary. I wasn’t a believer until I stepped up from 20 amps to 40 and started discharging. They also discharge at 40 but I’ve found 30 still gets the IR’s down for a punch that doesn’t fade for an entire race.