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    Need help using power lab 8

    Hi, recently just bought a power lab 8. And have try to read the manual on line
    And it seem like i don't quite understand the manul instruction for charging lipo.

    Could anyone explain to me
    Example I want to charge a 6s 5000mah battery or a 3 s 2000mah battery
    What should I set?

    There is generic
    Fast charge
    High power
    See liow also blur @_@
    Then got charge and discharge @_@ ( don't quite understand )

    And for storing I know it's around 3.8v
    But how and I able to set it on the power lab that I want it to stop at 3.85 instead.
    And there is setting also. See liow also blur what is the meaning charge discharge?!!

    Would be great if some one could give me advise.
    Please don't send me the revolectri manual link. See 73 pages and still catch no ball on how to charge lipo.
    Thanks

    #2
    I use high power, after that if allows u to set charging current. For multi charging the current is for each pack.
    Too many helis!

    Comment


      #3
      Hi ah liang. Thanks for explaining. But Dont quite get it what u trying to say.
      Possible to give more detail?
      Let say if i want to charge a single pack 6s 5000 mah 50c lipo.

      under generic i see
      for 1c then 2c then 3c.
      Then got 2 setting.
      Im comfuse what to choose.and what in put to key in.

      Comment


        #4
        Use the high power setting
        If you charging 5000mah, 1c is 5A. So you can set up to 2-3C, which is 10-15A.
        I love PAP

        Comment


          #5
          So far under Lipo generic, I only use either one of the first 3 settings:
          1) Accurate charge (max 10A) - after charging, cell voltages close to what you set, take longer time to charge.
          2) Faster charge (max 10A) - charging stops earlier, so cell voltages may not be so accurate.
          3) High power (max 40) - I use this setting for parallel charging of multiple lipos.

          If you want to charge 1 lipo at 5A, you can use setting 1 or 2 (depends on whether you want more accurate or faster charging) since the 10A max is enough. If you change the amp setting to A1.0C, the charger will try to detect (A=Auto) the capacity of your battery (eg. 5000mAh) and then charge at 5A. A2.0C means 10A and so on but I suggest you check the charging current to make sure its not under or over charging. Anyway I think it's best you decide and set the current rather than use the auto mode.

          If you want to charge a lipo, forget about the discharge current, leave it at whatever setting it is at since later on, when you choose "charge only", the discharge setting becomes useless. Vice versa when you do discharging.

          I haven't play with the PL8 enough to know whether you can stop the discharge at 3.85V using the options menu. If you can't, then you need their dongle to connect to a PC and their CCS software to adjust the settings.

          Also when you first use the charger, remember to set the input current limit to what your power supply is capable of.

          Comment


            #6
            Hi thank to all the shi fu for the in put~~~.

            Im not so worried about my power supply. im using a 1300watt power supply.
            im more worried if i charge the lipo and end up my house is on fire.

            So from my understanding
            charging under generic:
            Can i say A1.C is auto mode (auto detect battery capacity)? So meaning i In put any number to the charge or dischage does not make any different?????

            Then i change to 2C is for 10A which is mean the charger will give out 10amp out put?? if im charging 2 pack of 6s 5000mah at one time i will need to set at 10A 2C????

            then 3 C is for 15A charging 3 pack of 6s 5000 mah?
            (because when i use all those normal charger. im told to set to the battery amp. example if the battery is 2200amp. i would need to set to 2.2amp for charging.)


            Storing mode.
            there is discharge and charge setting in it. so the charge mode is useless ??so what ever value i key in is uselss?
            If that is the case. what should i key in if i want to keep a s6 5000mah for storing?
            And if i want to discharge in parrella 4 pack of 6s 5000 mah. what value should i key???

            Hope to get more in put before something bad happen.
            Still new to this lipo thingy.

            Thanks

            Comment


              #7
              Hi Nitrotan,

              Yes, charging using 1C, 2C and so on and so forth in the Powerlab will utilise its auto-detect battery capacity function. This is based on a fuel table chart that is inside the PL8's programming. It's a generic chart, meaning that it is jack-of-all-trades but master-of-none. If you really want to use this auto-setting, it would make sense to buy the computer interface and then generate your own custom fuel tables based on your own batteries.

              Normally, I would set my own charging amperes in my PL8. I try to limit it to a maximum of 2C. So for a 5000 mAh lipo, I will charge at most at 10A. For a 3000 mAh lipo, that would be 6A. It's not very healthy to charge cells at like 5C or 10C for instance, so don't go trying to put 40A into a 5000 mAh cell. Of course, 1C is better, and 0.7C is best, which is what you will notice when you compare your iphone/ipad/andriod's charger to its battery capacity.

              Also, in the PL8 interface there is no way you can set the number in charge or discharge if you have set it to 1C, 2C etc. It's either you directly specify the number of Amperes, or use the auto C function.

              For parallel charging, you can do it this way - let's assume you wan to parallel charge 2 5000 mAh lipos together. You can do 2 things: 1. select number of packs = 1 and set charge current at 20A (for a 2C charge rate), or 2. select number of packs in parallel = 2 and set charge current rate at 10A (for a 2C charge rate). The PL8 will automatically multiply this by the amount of packs that you have specified, to obtain the correct 20A charge rate in this case.

              *WARNING* do not parallel charge packs of different cell counts together. So you can only parallel charge 6S with 6S, 3S with 3S. Capacity doesn't matter too much, though it is normally recommended to only parallel charge lipos of 1. the same/similar capacity 2. the same state of discharge together (that means don't parallel charge one battery that is almost full and the other that is almost empty together).

              Also, as an interesting tidbit, here's how all these 1C 2C 3C things come about:
              Let's say if you have a 5000 mAh battery, this number simply means that the battery can output 5000 mA of current over a time span of 1 hour. After that, it becomes empty. Of course, in real life you don't do that to your lipo or it becomes over-discharged and dies/bloats.

              So if you charge at 1C, or 1 x it's capacity, that's like reversing the process. You will now need 1 hour to put back the 5000 mA back into the battery. If you charge at 2C, you're putting in current at 10A, twice of 1C so now you take half an hour. Put in at 4C and you take 15 minutes. Of course, the time varies due to inefficiencies and heat and losses and all that but you get the gist. The faster you charge, the less time you're giving the chemicals inside the cells to reach equilibrium and stabilize, so an overly high charge rate it not recommended.


              *******
              For storage mode of the PL8, there has to be a charge and a discharge setting. It goes like this: let's say your storage voltage is 3.85V. So you put in an empty lipo at the end of a flight day at 3.7V and set it to storage charge. Now the PL8 will charge up the lipo until it reaches 3.85V. On the other hand, let's say you have a lipo at 4.2V which you didn't get to use because it rained and you couldn't fly. So you plug it in and set it to storage charge and the PL8 will now proceed to discharge it. Charging and discharging in storage charge for parallel is exactly the same as how you would charge and discharge in generic mode, which I have mentioned already.

              *******
              For parallel charging, it is better to use high-power generic or faster charge instead of accurate charge. Here's why:

              At the beginning of a charge, your PL8 will gradually ramp up the amperes until it reaches whatever you've set it to be. If you have used the auto-charge setting, this would take a longer time as the PL8 tries to figure out the capacity of the lipo. If you have directly set the charge rate in terms of amperes then the PL8 ramps up quite speedily. Once it reaches the set point that you have specified, it holds the charge current constantly. This is the constant current phase of the charge (which you can verify on the PL8 screen if you scroll through while charging).

              As the lipo begins to get full and reaches its maximum capacity, that PL8 ramps down the current and switches to a form of "trickle-charging", basically letting the chemicals in the lipo reach equilibrium and balance themselves out. If the cells need a top up, the PL8 does so accordingly. If the cells needs a slight discharge, the PL8 does so accordingly. This phase occurs when the cells are at +- 4.20V, and is therefore called the "Constant Voltage" or CV phase.

              Now lies the key part: if the lipos are at +- 4.20V already, how exactly does the PL8 know when to terminate the charge and declare that the lipos are done? It does this 2 ways, whichever occurs first:

              1. When the time-out limit for the CV phase has been reached. That is to say, it the time-out is set to 30 minutes, the PL8 will cut off after 30 mins of CV phase no matter if the lipo has been correctly charged to full or not. Normally, this hardly comes into play because CV phase is not very long and 30 minutes is ample time.

              2. When the trickle charge current is at a specific value. For generic faster/high power charge, this is at C/10. So if you have set it to charge at 10A, it would stop when the PL8 realises it only needs a trickle charge of 10/10 = 1A to keep the cells happily topped up. For accurate charge, this is C/20, which means the PL8 only stops charging at 10/20 = 0.5A, to ensure that the cells are as close to the specified 4.200000000000V as possible (i'm exaggerating, but you get the gist). Now, if you parallel charge using accurate charge, you may get a pack that has reached 4.2000000000V already but the other one is still at 4.19999999999V and the PL8 realises that it still hasn't hit the 0.5A cut-off point and continues. So it continues and you now get an overcharged lipo, and a lipo that is just nicely done.

              If you have used the high power/faster charge, at 4.20000000V for the first pack and 4.199999999V for the 2nd pack the PL8 would have said "OK, I've reached my 1A cut-off, let's terminate now". So you get a pack that is just nicely done, and another pack which is slightly undercharged, which is always better than an overcharged pack.

              Anyway, this is just extra knowledge FYI-kinda thing, I honestly doubt it makes a big difference to overcharge cells this way because a lipo can theoretically be charged til 4.35V or thereabouts and still be ok.

              *******

              Last but not least, you can always drop by Leo Industries and talk to John. He's a really nice guy and would tell you everything that you need to know regarding the PL8.

              Comment


                #8
                Hi there thanks for such a good information.ok now I understand how to set for the charging

                But as for the storing

                The default setting is charge 2A and then discharge rating is 10A this part I still don't quite get it Maybe I blur sotong king.
                I did try to use default setting on a s6 4400mah and the screen was showing discharging till 3.79 I got panic I press stop was not was not sure should I let it drain out the battery.
                Are u able to explain in that?? So for a s6 4400 mah charging setting I shoul set it to 4.4A? Or can set to 8.8A??
                And for the discharge rate setting. Let say the 6s battery is 4400 4.2v fully charge .so I should set it to discharge rate 4.4 as well??
                I'm more concern on what setting to use. And what amp will the charge tell me that it's complete.or is there any way can I set on the power lab 8 that I want the storing amp to be at 3.8 or 3.85?? As there anyway???and what is the meaning of E fuel?? Is it the percentage balance in the lipo??

                Sorry to ask so many funny question. Did search on line for the powerlab 8 but seem like it's not so friendly user

                Comment


                  #9
                  Hi Nitrotan,

                  For discharge, it's not really crucial because the lipos are rated quite high, you can see on the pack itself, 20C, 25C, 30C, 40C and so on. So you could actually discharge a 5000 mAh lipo at 10A if you wanted to quite safely. Another way to look at it is that our flights are around 3-7 mins before the lipo goes flat, so that's a pretty high discharge rate right there already, be it by using our RC vehicles or by using the PL8.

                  When it comes to discharging, the limiting factor is normally the lipo connector itself - no more than 3-5 amps through the smaller red JST connectors or MCPX type of connectors for instance. The other limiting factor for the larger packs that have EC5 or XT60 connectors is the heat sink inside the PL8 itself. I'm sure you have noticed that when discharging, the fans come on almost all the time? That's because you're removing power from the batteries in the form of heat, which is then dissipated into the environment through the heat sink of the PL8. I can't remember exactly how much power the PL8 can remove through the heat sink, but I do know that for some larger lipo packs you will hit the limit of the PL8 first before hitting the discharge limit of the lipo itself. You can't actually make the PL8 catch fire too by discharging at a rate higher than it can handle, the unit simply goes into thermal shut down and is protected by temperature sensors as such. There's also a software limit that you cannot exceed by inputting the wrong settings as well.

                  Also, when you go to discharge and your lipo hits 3.79V, were you using the storage charge preset, which should be program number 7 by default, or are you selecting discharge *within* the generic charge programs themselves?

                  The generic programs ie. accurate charge, faster charger, high power have a default discharge voltage of 3.3V if I'm not wrong, so that may explain why you're hitting below 3.8V. This type of deep discharge is meant to cycle the lipos, but I have never used them myself to discharge so low so I can't really comment on it.


                  I'm right smack in the middle of my exams now, or I would have made a video to simplify everything. I'm sure once someone shows you how to do it in real life, you'll find the system really convenient to use. It's a little hard to describe with just words; I wouldn't understand half of what I'm saying simply by reading it

                  Comment


                    #10
                    You didn't mention the voltage of your power supply but the PL8 is capable of taking up to 1700W from a 24V power source. So it's recommended to check the current limit to prevent damage to your power supply. Tripping the supply while your batteries are still connected is not a good idea. Also, you don't want to limit the charging unintentionally when you actually want to charge at higher amps - I think the default setting is 25A.

                    Like what YHChoong says, the 1st 3 presets have a discharge end voltage of 3.3V. You need to use the Lipo all brand storage charge if you want to end at 3.86V/cell. You can refer to page 73 of the manual onwards for the factory settings.

                    Not sure if you can set the discharge end voltage on the PL8 itself - I remember looking for it but couldn't find it. If not, you need the PC dongle and CCS software to set it.

                    Comment


                      #11
                      Hi all thanks foe all the chim chim explaination. I believe there quite a number of guys that are like me bought this stuff and end up staring at it and not sure what is going on.

                      Start to understand what is the many of all the C stand for.
                      Well as for the ccs soft ware hmmm I using Mac . Don't think they have the soft ware for Mac. Guess I need to upgrade it to window OS
                      Well if u guys have useful informtantion about power LAb 8 . Please feel free to post here. I'm still at the learning curve. Thanks guys!!!!

                      Comment

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