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Battery charger for 16s 280Ah Eve cells pack

rickypr

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I was planning on purchasing a charger to balance and test a 16S, 280Ah battery bank. I don't want to spend a lot of money on this, and would like to be able to use it for other purpose later on. The best option I have found is a Riden RD6012W pack with a 70V, 800W power supply. It is a 0-60V power supply with 12A max output and a dedicated battery charge port. Together they amount to about $160 with shipping costs.

Anyone has a better recommendation? Thanks in anticipation.

 
The website for the unit above says It's half the amps when used with 110v in the USA. You need 220v single phase AC to get the full 50amp charge.
 
A better solution is getting a simple DC power supply (like a 24v 1000w meanwell) and feeding that into a cheap solar inverter. It then charges your battery correctly.
 
That power supply looks good, goes up to 120V!

I received the Riden power supply above and I am very happy with it. I really like that it has a separate battery charging port and it calculates how much power it puts into the battery in Ah and Wh. I can connect it to my phone via Bluetooth or my laptop via USB and I can generate a graph of the charge process (could be useful to someone). I know that 12 amps is not much, but for the price I think it is great.
 
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Careful, it won't go that high on the upper end because it comes with an 800 watt PS. You need the bigger PS and your own case to get the full potential (see listing description). Tempting!
 
That power supply looks good, goes up to 120V!

I received the Riden power supply above and I am very happy with it. I really like that it has a separate battery charging port and it calculates how much power it puts into the battery in Ah and Wh. I can connect it to my phone via Bluetooth or my laptop via USB and I can generate a graph of the charge process (could be useful to someone). I know that 12 amps is not much, but for the price I think it is great.
Figures they would release the 18 amp one not long after I received the 12 amp one...lol. But I am happy with mine too. I only wish they would make the charging profile customizable, if they can, with a firmware update. I tested the charging feature yesterday and it did work as advertised and posted the results in another thread.
 
Careful, it won't go that high on the upper end because it comes with an 800 watt PS. You need the bigger PS and your own case to get the full potential (see listing description). Tempting!
That is right, they should release a bigger power supply for the 18A version. I use their 800W for the 12A version.
 
I saw a YouTube video of the Riden RD6012 and he burned up his 800 watt power supply when he maxed it out. It had something to do with the efficiency. But then most of us will be running these well below it's limits.
 
A better solution is getting a simple DC power supply (like a 24v 1000w meanwell) and feeding that into a cheap solar inverter. It then charges your battery correctly.
I like the idea of using a 27V Meanwell (RSP-750-27 for instance) power supply with the RD Riden (if you will be building a 24V battery). They are a company with a solid reputation and the output voltage is adjustable from 24-30V, current is adjustable too, and it has a remote on/off port.

The advantage of this is the power supply could be repurposed as a dumb charger after you are done with your balancing/testing. In fact this is the exact model power supply Dacian recommends to be used with the SBMS0. This won't be exciting for most people, but for anyone using the SBMS0 or any system where chargers are centrally controlled by the BMS or another component, and don't need any intelligence of their own, this could be quite attractive. Of course it only makes sense for people that won't be using their RD Riden on an ongoing basis.

One thing I am not sure about is how much voltage differential there needs to be between input and output for the RD riden. This would certainly not be an issue for single cell or parallel cell testing, but if you wanted to use the Riden with a series configured 24v pack, the 27V Meanwell (max of 30V output) may be too low to allow a full charge up to 29.2V (3.65Vpc) or even 28.8V (3.60Vpc) if a differential of more than ~1V is required.
The only spec I can find in the Riden literature that might touch on that is: "Buck Working Mode: Voltage Drop > 1V and >10%" But I'm not sure how to interpret that.

The idea of putting the meanwell behind a cheap charge controller is interesting.
 
"Buck Working Mode: Voltage Drop > 1V and >10%"
Maybe it means to allow for a voltage drop of greater than 1 volt, and add the additional voltage drop based on the desired output voltage at greater than 10%. So for example for it to work at 30 volts, the voltage of the power supply required would need to be at least 34 volts. Maybe 35.
 
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I bought R-SPS3020 30V 20A. My power supply switches automatically between CC and CV mode, but I can't control it. How am I supposed to top balance my lifepo4 batteries with this power supply?
Initially, I set the voltage to 3.60V (mode is CV). But when I connect to the batteries, the mode switches to CC, and voltage drops to 3.45-3.55(varying). :(
 

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Its normal for the voltage to drop. When the voltage eventually rises to the setpoint, it will switch back to constant voltage mode. It would take many hundreds of amps to bring a discharged LFP cell to 3.6V without fully charging it first.
 
For top balancing you can get a Meanwell 3.3V power supply. They can be adjusted with a potentiometer up to 3.8V, so perfect for top balancing a (parallel) connected cell pack.

For example the HRP-200-3.3 is a 40A powersupply for approx 55 USD
The big boy is the HRP-600-3.3, 120A for 115 USD

They have a bunch of other options as well, only pay attention it needs to have constant current rate limiting, in order to work as a highpower charger. (some other models, primairy intended as power supply) will shut down on overload, but for balancing, you just want it to continue charging at max amps till it hits its voltage setting.

But, especially with high currents, you need proper wire gauges to compensate for voltage drops


If you want something which can be used for other purposes as well, that Riden one is a good option.

Only for the powersuppy I don't know. Generally I'm not really fan of using 'unknown chinese' powersupplies on mains voltage, so I personally stick to Mean Well power supplies.
If you want to save some $$ you can also use a old PC power supply, they generally are able to provide 12V at nice amps too.
In that case, using that RD6012, you're limited to approx 12V output max, but for many usecases that's sufficient.

If you don't need to go up to 60V, I personally would go for the RD6012 and eg a Meanwell 48V power supply, up to 48V power supplies are cheap and commonly available.
 
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For top balancing you can get a Meanwell 3.3V power supply. They can be adjusted with a potentiometer up to 3.8V, so perfect for top balancing a (parallel) connected cell pack.

For example the HRP-200-3.3 is a 40A powersupply for approx 55 USD
The big boy is the HRP-600-3.3, 120A for 115 USD

They have a bunch of other options as well, only pay attention it needs to have constant current rate limiting, in order to work as a highpower charger. (some other models, primairy intended as power supply) will shut down on overload, but for balancing, you just want it to continue charging at max amps till it hits its voltage setting.

But, especially with high currents, you need proper wire gauges to compensate for voltage drops


If you want something which can be used for other purposes as well, that Riden one is a good option.

Only for the powersuppy I don't know. Generally I'm not really fan of using 'unknown chinese' powersupplies on mains voltage, so I personally stick to Mean Well power supplies.
If you want to save some $$ you can also use a old PC power supply, they generally are able to provide 12V at nice amps too.
In that case, using that RD6012, you're limited to approx 12V output max, but for many usecases that's sufficient.

If you don't need to go up to 60V, I personally would go for the RD6012 and eg a Meanwell 48V power supply, up to 48V power supplies are cheap and commonly available.
The HRPG has control leads and sense leads.
Use the sense leads to adjust the charge voltage more accurately.
Use the control leads to allow the bms to disconnect the charger.
 
If you don't need to go up to 60V, I personally would go for the RD6012 and eg a Meanwell 48V power supply, up to 48V power supplies are cheap and commonly available.
The RD6018 has been out for a few weeks. Unfortunately it was released about a week after I received my RD6012.
 
I'm pretty happy with the Riden for charging 48V at 12A.
And also with the Mean Well 3.3 120A for parallel charging.
I only used 120A for a short time when I had 3 batteries connected at once.
For parallel I just adjust it to keep it at about .1 or .2C
I use lower amps when I get over 3.4V.
When I get near 3.5V I can just set the charging to 3.61V and it will keep reducing the amps until it gets to 3.6V at 2A.
Then I stop charging. From 3.5V to 3.6V takes about 10 minutes even using low amps. No sense trying to jam anymore amp hours in.
 
For top balancing you can get a Meanwell 3.3V power supply. They can be adjusted with a potentiometer up to 3.8V, so perfect for top balancing a (parallel) connected cell pack.

For example the HRP-200-3.3 is a 40A powersupply for approx 55 USD
The big boy is the HRP-600-3.3, 120A for 115 USD
Will these behave similarly to a rudimentary CC/CV benchtop supply for balancing (particularly in regards to CV)?
The HRPG has control leads and sense leads.
Use the sense leads to adjust the charge voltage more accurately.
Use the control leads to allow the bms to disconnect the charger.
Useful features, how would one go about using a BMS with a parallel pack or single cell?
 
Will these behave similarly to a rudimentary CC/CV benchtop supply for balancing (particularly in regards to CV)?

It's not as smooth as the Riden. When I let it go into CV it started making clicking noises and I checked the amps and it was sending a few amps then stopping. I won't do that again. Someone else might have had better luck.
 
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