hitech x2 400 balancing
 

i bought a x2 400 a few months ago. i noticed a couple of weekends ago both of my venom saddle packs were badly unbalanced, but i have 2 turnigy shorty packs which were charging ok, so i used them for both of my vehicles. now, they shorty packs are having issues balancing; essentially one cell charges to 4.2 volts quickly , the other takes a couple of hours to balance. for example:

https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7690/...b126b4b9_o.png


the venom saddle packs are 3 months old, the turnigy shorty packs about 4 months old. I race at most once/week. i always balance change them and always bring them to storage voltage when i am done for the week.

i charge them at 8-10amps depending on time between heats, all batteries are rated at 5C.

is it possible that all of my batteries are going bad at the same time, or can it be something with the charger?

the charger reads version 2.01 when i go through the menus, i know this charger had a recall, i think its not affected though? http://hitecrcd.com/tectalk/septembe...tion-required/

thanks in advance

That much of an inbalance is typical of a dead cell but it's improbable for all your packs to die at once. A quick way to check though is to hook the pack up to someone else's charger at the track - if they show up after a run that imbalanced on a "neutral" charger it's probably the batteries.

Is the issue the same on both balance ports on your Hitech or is it limited to one side of the charger?

yes, it happens on both sides of the charger, but its inconsistent, which is why its difficult to pin point (e.g. sometimes it is fine, sometimes they wont balance - or it will, but takes 2 hours to charge as it trickles off the full cell and balances the low one @ <1amp) , today @ the track i had it happen again, let it balance (almost two hours), used the pack, then charged it on a buddy's charger, and it was fine. speaking to others, someone suggested it might be the balance plugs too (i use deans connectors and leave the balance plug attached to the battery) - but then again i used brand new connectors/blanace plugs when i had the issue happen earlier today (from new lipos i bought this week b/c i thought the venom saddles were toast)

idk... i bought new charge/balance leads off of amain and am going to rewire my vehicles to use bullets and scrap the deans (its been something Ive been wanting to do for some time anyway)

I am going to reach out to hitec support too in the meantime. frustrating nonetheless

You have a 1 year warranty from the date of purchase, so do not hesitate to send the charger in to us for examination. We do not charge to examine any of our products.

So have the recall issues been fixed? Or is there still issues with this charger?

I was told I was on the current firmware but to send it in to address he issue . It was received Wednesday - will report back when resolved in case anyone is interested.

The issue with the recall has been taken care of with firmware v.2.01. The issue that the OP is having is not the same issue as the recall.

I mentioned to send the charger in simply so that the OP does not run out of time for his/her warranty.

Cool, thank you for the clarification, looks like a decent charger for the money.

I received the charger back from hitec and they essentially said that they couldnt reproduce the problem. soooo nothing has changed.

i tried the charger with brand new lipos, new leads/balance cables... and the issue was pretty consistent... the only thing i didnt try differently was the p/s. I am using a hp server power supply which I modded (HP G4 DL360 @ 575W). From what I can tell, this isnt uncommon, and should be a viable power supply for this application. I can try to use a buddy's p/s this weekend, but i would imagine that either the p/s would work or it wouldnt work. (or at least the charger would complain about the source if it wasnt up to snuff?)

for the record while the charger was out for service, I charged the same batteries that were being charged very unevenly on my x2 400 on both on a friend's charger and my old imax $30 knock off charger with no issues, so I am very confident it isnt the leads or the batteries giving me the problem.

to be continued....

(update: it was a bad balance board - easy fix)