Newbie battery charging question

[occhiso]

Hello,

I'm new to all this, but I just bought a second hand Phantom and it came with 3 batteries:

• 2x Phantom 3s 2200mAh 20c
  1x CarbonBird 3s 2250mAh 45c

I'm using the standard Phantom charger on 3A.
I've been charging these batteries, but they seem to be taking way too long.
For example, I had one of the standard Phantom batteries on charge for well over 4 hours and the light has not turned steady green. Instead, the light alternates between red and green.

From what I understand, this is meant to mean its charging in CV mode, which also means its over 80% charged.
From what I read, it should take about 1.5 hours to fully charge.

Is that normal?

 

[map85086]

It shouldn't take over 4 hours to charge your Phantom battery. Have you plugged in both connectors? I normally find that it takes around 1 1/2 hours.

 

[occhiso]

Yes, I have plugged in both connectors.

I just went for a flight and this is the sequence of events:

• 
  - Flew the Phantom until the light was flashing red and landed
  - Set the charcher to 2A and plugged the battery in
  - The 3 cell lights remained constantly on the whole time
  - The main charge light remained flashing between red and green the whole time
  - 2 hours later, the charger is in exactly the same state (3 solid red cell lights, flashing green/red charge light)
  - Disconnected the battery and used a multimeter on it, which read 11.1v (not sure if that helps)

Any ideas on what is happening?
Open to advice

 

[THell]

with a 3A charger (set to 2A) you will take over just over an hour to charge a 2200 mAh (2.2Ah) battery (1.2 hours on a 2A charger)

Perhaps the cells are badly out of balance....
if you have a smart charger like the Imax B6 or something else there should be an option to balance the battery (it will take a long time but worth it)

 

[occhiso]

My best guess is that the charger is faulty and is not going into constant current mode when it should.
I went to a hobby shop and bought a much more advanced charger and that is working great.

Thanks for your replies.

 

[BallisticPhantom]

Keep us posted if the new charger fixes the issues.

 

[occhiso]

The new charger is great. I ended up buying an IMAX B6AC+.

Charges the batteries perfectly.
It also has a "storage" mode which will charge (or discharge) to a safe voltage.
The screen also gives good visibility of each cell and can balance them.

 

[BallisticPhantom]

So it was the charger and the new one fixed your issues? That is great