What’s a good inexpensive balance charger that I can get for charging batteries in series?
And could someone tell me what type of connectors are on these battery’s and what harness I would need for putting them in series as well as any other leads I may need?
I don’t recommend charging multiple packs in series but if your going to do that then you will need a series y-cable for the main leads and you will need a series adapter for the balance leads. Basically the charger will need to see your two 3s packs as one 6s pack and your charge settings would be for a 6s lipo at 5 amps for 1C charge rate.
A less complicated way is to get a multi bank charger. I run dual packs in series myself but I charge them separately with a dual back charger. There not very cheap though. I think I paid about $120 for mine.
I use an Imax B6 to charge two 3s 5000mAh packs in series.
relevant thread
The Imax B6 is a 50W 6S charger, at 6S it delivers little over 2A, so it takes me approx 2.5h to charge the packs, which is no biggie because I swap out packs so there’s always a fresh pair waiting.
you are not really charging the full 5000mAh each time are you? If so what is your cut off voltage for your batteries?
I start to charge mine once they hit anything lower than 3.7V per cell in order to keep them healthy - which means I kind of use only half of the actual capacity.
If it takes you 2.5h to charge them you are draining them too hard!
Great thanks! So with this I can charge two battery’s separate right?
Can’t seem to source the imax one mentioned everywhere us out of stock so looks like the more expensive one!
I was bored this winter and ran a few discharge tests which turned op 3.6V as an ideal cutoff voltage. Below 3.6V there really ain’t no juice left.
So for all intents and purposes I am charging and discharging the full 5000 mAh.
My watt-meter confirms after a ride and my charger concurs after charging.
Oh wow did not know that - always just assumed that there was quite some unused capacity in mine. I should start paying attention to the mAh shown by the charger and keep riding them until 3.6V - thanks for the graph!
Charging a 5000mah pack at 1c takes a charger that can do 5 amps at 6s.
A 100 watt charger will do it and will fully charge a 6s/5000 pack in 1 hour or less