High current car charger for P4P batteries...Part III...

[Harleydude]

Wow thanks for the in-depth response. I appreciate it, people like you are why I joined this forum!!

My pleasure. "Sharing knowledge" has been my mantra for a long time. I take as much as I give, that's for sure....

I started in real estate just to get my business up and running.

It's a good place to start. If you're in a good real estate market, you can do well for yourself.

I hope to diversify later so i can retire from my police job lol. However, for now I actually like getting to check out all the listings and houses. Most jobs are 1/2 hour, then I’m off to next one so it’s not boring (yet).

Don't get me wrong. I *enjoyed* the real estate work..well...the flying part. I just don't care for agents. I find that, unless you're actively purchasing a house from them, their communication skills are less than stellar. The irony a person who's buried in their phone 24/7 telling me they "didn't see my text" or "didn't have time to respond." LOL...funny.....

I seldom deplete a battery fully on a job, which reduces its re-charge time.

Yep. I'm working on figuring out an efficiency algorithm for jobs that require back-to-back flights for hours. Seems landing with 30% is good because the first 90% of charging occurs in 50% of the total charge time. So in a pinch we can pull a battery early and it's charged to like 97%. I don't think this will hurt the batteries...I guess time will tell. LiPos are pretty tough if you know how to use and maintain them.

Well if you decide to sell plans or complete kits hit me up.

Thanks

Honestly, the thing is really simple. I didn't actually "invent" anything. It's really just assembled parts and pieces. I could take a photo of the bread board and that would serve has a schematic. My problem is I have multiple projects going. This one is still in the test phase, as I haven't used it in hot weather yet. I want to see how it fares in 90°+ days.

D

 

[Adamborz]

My pleasure. "Sharing knowledge" has been my mantra for a long time. I take as much as I give, that's for sure....





It's a good place to start. If you're in a good real estate market, you can do well for yourself.





Don't get me wrong. I *enjoyed* the real estate work..well...the flying part. I just don't care for agents. I find that, unless you're actively purchasing a house from them, their communication skills are less than stellar. The irony a person who's buried in their phone 24/7 telling me they "didn't see my text" or "didn't have time to respond." LOL...funny.....





Yep. I'm working on figuring out an efficiency algorithm for jobs that require back-to-back flights for hours. Seems landing with 30% is good because the first 90% of charging occurs in 50% of the total charge time. So in a pinch we can pull a battery early and it's charged to like 97%. I don't think this will hurt the batteries...I guess time will tell. LiPos are pretty tough if you know how to use and maintain them.




Honestly, the thing is really simple. I didn't actually "invent" anything. It's really just assembled parts and pieces. I could take a photo of the bread board and that would serve has a schematic. My problem is I have multiple projects going. This one is still in the test phase, as I haven't used it in hot weather yet. I want to see how it fares in 90°+ days.

D

Can I ask where you bought your cables to hook into battery and which pins are the positive/ negative? Save me some time.

 

[Harleydude]

Can I ask where you bought your cables to hook into battery and which pins are the positive/ negative? Save me some time.

eBay.

You'll note that I used banana plugs because I can reverse the polarity if I wish (for things like laptops that might use a tip-negative plug). I own a sound company, so I simply used the banana plugs (female side) because that's what I had lying around and what a lot of chargers use, so I assumed there would be banana/Inspire cables and banana/Phantom cables and even banana/Mavic cables available on eBay, and there were.

The female banana plugs are easily found on eBay, too. They're designed for speakers. Just dumb luck that my sound company and drone company use the same banana plugs...all found on eBay.

D

 

[Adamborz]

Sweet thanks.

 

[jephoto]

I have a couple balance chargers and both demand a balance port connection. Neither are a Triton.





No, not yet. I'm still beta testing this system. It's been used on only one job site, which hardly qualifies as full field testing. I'm really interested in its hot weather performance, as this system generates almost no heat, which leads me to believe it will do well in hot weather conditions. Once I'm convinced it works, I'll probably create a component list for those interested.




If it's the cigarette lighter model, those aren't nearly fast enough for my needs. With my system I can charge 3 batteries simultaneously at full bore. And by "full bore," I mean the battery's capabilities, which far exceeds DJI offerings. For example, the Inspire 1 battery can sink 180 watts. The DJI OEM charger sources only 100 watts. One can purchase a 180 watt DJI quick charger, but that's an AC-only device and charges only one battery at a time. With my system, I can charge 3 Inspire 1 batteries simultaneously @ 180 watts each. BUT...if I have more time, I can back the charger down to a 100 watts, which is easier on the batteries I'm told. It's all about options and efficiency....
D

Are you running this off your car, or ?
Could this multiple battery charger work off a Marine 12v battery?
Has anyone used a small gas powered generator on site? And if so, what’s the smallest available that could work for this?
Since I drive a minivan, bringing a generator is a possibility, if not the most attractive solution.

I’d think some kind of 12v rechargeable battery would be the most attractive solution.
Won’t have to keep the car running or risk damaging your car battery or systems.

Just reread your original post. Answers several of my questions!
Keep us posted please. I’d be interested if you would be able to produce a few of these.
I’d certainly pony up for one...[emoji3]

 

[Adamborz]

Just a thought, I purchased the banana plug to DJI plug on Amazon, cheap and next day shipping. I’m going to try it with my battery chargers. Here’s my thought, since all the balancing is done internally on the DJI batteries, why can’t you use any old 12 volt source? All of my lipo battery chargers have Nicad, nimh, lead acid etc. one of those settings should feed the power to the DJI battery and let the internal BS should take care of the rest?

When I get a chance I’ll try it and post back...

 

[Adamborz]

Ok so I got my icharger 306B (have already due to this hobby flying other RC craft) and was able to make it charge my DJI battery using the cable Harleydude recommended. Here is pic of it charging at 11.6 amps I’ll experiment to see how many amps I can go. 11.6 amps is ~2C charge if I understand lipo battery talk. Sorry to hijack this post

 

[Adamborz]

Just a follow up that the icharger monitors battery temp and I had it sitting on top of my power supply which got warm. The charger dropped the amps down. In this pic I moved the battery to s lipo safe charge bag and off the power supply.