First charge... Not getting anywhere

[ericfx1984]

So I built a pair of Eve cells, 230ah, 4s

I am currently charging them at around 5-6a using my RC car charger... HTRC t240... I am running the charger on A/C power so it maxes out at 150w (75w per bank of batteries)

I have dumped over 30ah into each battery Bank but have not seen an increase in voltage... I am using the LiFe battery balance charge function.

Both Banks seem to have one cell that is a little behind in %

Started charging at 3.295v, currently around 3.3v...

 

[Bud Martin]

230Ah at 50% = 115Ah, so at 6A = 115A/6A = about 19 Hours.
How many hours so far?
Since there is no BMS, so you are the BMS so you must keep close eyes on them.

 

[time2roll]

Normal. Keep going.

 

[ericfx1984]

230Ah at 50% = 115Ah, so at 6A = 115A/6A = about 19 Hours.
How many hours so far?
Since there is no BMS, so you are the BMS so you must keep close eyes on them.

The charger does active balancing... Monitor s each cell and will over voltage disconnect... Really no need for a BMS (well not yet)

At least 5-6 hours in at this point

I could slap the BMS on it tomorrow, hit it with a faster charger until a cell hits disconnect, then finish up on this charger for balance?

 

[ericfx1984]

Normal. Keep going.

It almost seems like the charger might be focusing on balancing the cells more than charging them maybe once it brings the balance of the individual cells to where it needs to be, maybe then we'll start to see some increase in voltage? I know I'm charging at a very slow rate

 

[Bud Martin]

The charger does active balancing... Monitor s each cell and will over voltage disconnect... Really no need for a BMS (well not yet)

At least 5-6 hours in at this point

I could slap the BMS on it tomorrow, hit it with a faster charger until a cell hits disconnect, then finish up on this charger for balance?

So it does the balancing, but does it do the shutdown if one cell has over Voltage?

 

[ericfx1984]

So it does the balancing, but does it do the shutdown if one cell has over Voltage?

Yes sir.. you can even add a temperature sensor to it.. but I think it's limited to about two amps of discharge so if a particular cell is higher than the other cell it could take some time to balance out... and it's programmable for many different battery chemistries, can charge up to two 6s packs individually also if the charger is powered by DC voltage it can deliver up to 120 watts per battery Bank, but is limited to 75 Watts per battery Bank when powered off of AC.. unfortunately I don't have a particularly easy way to get to a 20 amp DC voltage line to power the charger so I'm limited to ac voltage right now

 

[ericfx1984]

So it does the balancing, but does it do the shutdown if one cell has over Voltage?

I guess another way to put it is that's what all the balance leads are doing.. it allows it to sense the individual voltages, shut down if there is a problem.. and bleed off voltage to balance the voltage in the bank

 

[Diesel Pro]

I used a 40 amp auto charger and checked the voltage of each cell periodically. It took hours even at 40 amps, but once I got the voltages coming up I went with my constant current power supply at 10 amps and limited the output voltage.

For my capacity test I used a 185w tester set to 150 watts and it took over 2 days with my 280ah setup.

 

[ericfx1984]

I have made some progress.. One bank is in the low 80s and upper 70s while the other bank is all in the mid-70s