Trying to understand charging
 

Hello guys,

I have an ICE charger and a 17amp power supply, does it take 2 hours for a 4000 pack to charge @ 4 amps?

Also the charger starts at 4 amps then it starts going down as the pack charges like one amp- every hour, when the battery is almost done it is charging at .18 amps. Is this the way it is?

I was thinking my power supply was bad , got a new one still same. Maybe charger is bad?

thank you for looking

Have you even read the instructions?

A 1C charge is where the charging amperage matches that of the battery. ie, a 4000mah battery = 4 amps therefore theoretically it should take one hour to charge. However the charger is programed to start reducing the current once the battery voltage reaches 4.2v/cell. That is typical of a constant current constant voltage charger.

Usually once the 4.2 volt threshold is detected the battery is 90% charged. The last 10% could take as long as the first as the charger balances each cell if you are balance charging.

Now add to that the fact that you will not be discharging a lipo below 3.0 volts/cell means that the battery has charge left in it so in your example it could hace 1 to 1.5 amps left so you are only putting in less than the total capacity of the pack.

See how easy that is and it;s all in the manual too for your future reference.

yes it takes a while to charge with an ice charger over some other chargers out there..

as for his comments he is just trying to let you know that the manual does cover the things you are asking.. jeremy

personally I.M.O. this charger isnt going to do it in under and hour and my reasoning is odd. This charger does not anywhere that i looked on the site or in the manual declare the watt capability of this charger. what are they hiding or afraid of buyers finding out?? Watts=VoltsxAmp
for your application to get to one hour will need 4 amp x ~8 volts= 32 watts given no resistance or fluctuations.

i use chargers that fit multiple applications i.e. 8s 5000 for a plane, 6s3000 for heli and then cars. to me watts are important on a charger

the charger isnt bad, it just wont cut the mustard regardless of the power supply you get

Jeremy is right, the ICE is considerably slower than most (any?) on the ending CV portion of a lipo charge. At least in part because it doesn't have the advantage of built in balancer cell readings, so it can't compensate for the voltage drop across the charging cables. For this reason it is also very sensitive to charging cable length/resistance, longer cables increase charge time.

It's 120 watts. But not an ideal lipo charger for the reasons above. In addition it's limited to a 4S lipo, a even less suitable choice for your situation.


Cool charger in it's day, and it at least provided for some transition to lipos, but it's heyday has passed.