Is There something wrong with my Lipo Balancer?
 

I have a Hobbyking Quattro 4x6s Charger. I have had this charger for over two years, just started using it to balance my Lipo packs (before that I used a separate balancer)

Sometimes when I balance a lipo pack it takes a long-time for the balancer mode to stop, it will stay at .01 charge rate for a long time.

Other times, the charger will time-out before the pack has completed balancing. Is this normal? Is The Lipo pack being balanced the problem? :confused:

I have seen the "forever" charge on some packs (older ones usually)
Watch what packs do it & if it is always the same pack.
The internal resistance might be going up in them.

I've seen this on brand new B6 chargers (both genuine and clones) and nearly new lipos... I think there can be times where the system drops to trickle charging/balancing and it is taking out about as much current while checking the voltage on each cell as it is putting back in. So far this is only happening to me on smaller 2s packs.

To be honest, I haven't noticed the problem since I started using a decent hobby style power supply.

Most of my packs are older (2 yrs plus) haven't repeated enough to notice of it is the same pack.

It does seem to me that the charger is going between trickle and balancing, maybe the older lipos cannot hold the charge long enough to register balanced on the charger. It would be nice to be able to set a wider balance range between the cells for older lipos. I do have two high quality power sources, I would be surprised if it has to do with the power supplies. Thinking older Lipo cells.

If this happens a lot and you don't care that it is "perfect" just shorten your time limit on the charger. I'm assuming this is the same as the rest of the "four button" design.

The IMAXX B-6 charger and copies have a known balancer issue that's related to the poor accuracy of its voltage measurement. There's a big thread on RC Groups about fixing the prob - replacing some orig low quality internal resistors with better ones to improve voltage measurement and balancing.


Some of what you're seeing otherwise is prob age related, I haven't seen complaints about the Quattro having inherent balance issues. If it does this with a good lipo, then I'd suspect the charger may have a prob.

Does it happen in all 4 ports?

If I see the charger sitting on .01 charge rate for too long I stop the charge and check it with my stand alone balancer, the balance has been good each time I have done this.

I haven't taken the time to determine any tendencies that may have to do with the charger or it ports. In the coming weeks ahead I will try to determine if it is charger or battery related, right now I am thinking battery.:nod:

I have a few packs that do this on several different chargers, and it is because they are not balanced well or a cell is getting weak. I cant say this is what is going on here, but it has been the case for me. One way to know is to stand there and watch the individual cell voltage. Every few minutes the charger should allow the pack to "rest" for a few seconds while it checks voltage, and at this point you can see one cell voltage shoot up and the other stay the same or even drop, depending on how bad it is out of balance.

I do notice that charging action you describe above as I balance my packs that have the most problems. I will continue to balance the packs see if they balance quicker, or if it turns out the packs are just losing a step and cannot be balanced well.