I'm looking to do some charging/conditioning of sub pack's and I'm wondering if anybody has suggestions for chargers that will do this.
I have a Triton 2 charger that worked admirably for doing my hybrid Honda Insight pack and I recently used it to get my V back to life after the voltage dropped below minimum turn on voltage. However it has several limitations when it comes to batteries of this size. It's designed to charge a battery with a maximum of 10 amp hours.
I like to find something that will charge a sub pack to the full 30 amps and measure the energy put in and also discharge and measure the total output. I realize that many of the small chargers have a limited discharge rate but what I usually do is add an additional load. Although I don't get a true indication of the Watts produced I am able to tell variations from one pack to another so I can further examined the weaker packs for issues.
Any suggestions?
Well, I've been using an RC charger with pretty decent results for a week now, systematically reconditioning 8 and 9-cell modules from an old NiMH pack. It's not fast, but charging and balancing algorithms have come a long way in the last few years, and the latest bunch are pretty full-featured and inexpensive. There are rebranded versions of the same models with almost identical firmware from Tenergy, Turnigy, and Imax, but the best deal I found was this 50W 5A charger from HobbyKing that lists for only $19.95. Even with the 5A AC power supply that's sold separately, I was able to pick it up at their Seattle warehouse for only $30.
For more context, you might want to check out this thread.
Yep the Triton2 charging I am using is an RC charger. It has a max limit of 9.9 amps it will pump into a battery before it auto stops. Its a protective measure so the battery cannot be over charged. I can reset it and start again but I would really like something that will charge larger cells without stopping.
I can deliver the full 30Ah charge with the $20 HobbyKing charger at a 5A rate, but it's never quite gone that far because it senses when the module is full based on delta-peak voltage. (You can configure the delta-peak sensitivity, but I've always just used the default.) My only complaint is that individual cell balancing isn't supported with NiMH, only Li-ion, LiPo and LiFe. It's not clear to me why they have that limitation, since it can charge or discharge up to 15 NiMH cells in series.