but he seems to have a misunderstanding or outside his experts of the requirements of battery’s or spec
But
1st yes it’s a LED Driver
2nd Li-ion should not be held at a float voltage. It’s Uber bad for them.
3rd as mosh said it also has a constant voltage stage (a lot of led drivers do)
the only difference from a “charger” is balance charging. We mainly use BMS that do this all ready so no need to double up on this.
Thay work very well for bulk charging at a high quality and minimal ripple supply. Thay are not a all in one charging solution to charge any battery.
As a DIY forum we look for DIY solutions to improve what’s commercially available. When we fined a item designed for driving LEDs having a better quality output and meets the requirements. Why wouldn’t you
I have never seen a li-ion charger that does not stop when it reaches its termination current setting point. Do you mean you have not used a charger that lets you change that current setting?
The termination current specs in the 30Q datasheet you show are merely to describe what settings they used for their standard and rated charge levels. We certainly don’t need to use the same values.
Using a lower value won’t add much capacity to the cell and can even, very slightly, speed up aging of the cell. But increasing the taper current setting, perhaps to a 300mA or even 400mA, will shorten the charging time and even help a tiny bit to extend overall cell life.
Raising the termination current setting will result in slightly less capacity being available though as you are ending the charge a bit earlier. There’s always a tradeoff.
I agree.
As we’ve seen, having “charger” on the label does not make it one.
Well, it doesn’t make it one as far as I am concerned. A standard CC/CV power supply can be used to charge but if there is no charge management (stopping the charge, etc.) then it is not a charger IMO. It’s just a misrepresented product.
But that just perpetuates the, in my opinion, false notion that it’s a legitimate type of charger. Users feel there’s no need to be concerned because it says “charger” on the label. But it’s speeding up the aging of their cells every time it’s used.
There’s a tiny case to be made for the use of “float charger” for li-ion cells but that should only be mentioned alongside an explanation of how it differs from a lead-acid float charger. IMO it’s also a terrible term to use, confusing as hell for so many since lead-acid float charging is completely different from li-ion pseudo-“float charging”.
We’ve had this discussion before though. No good solution as those terms are used by many and no one ever wants to take the time to explain the differences and issues.
Hmmm so I have one 10s charger that charges my board to like 41V, never full. I always assumed some idiot set the potentiometer wrong. Perhaps this is a “float charger” instead?
The rest of my chargers charge to full, turn green, and keep it topped off. What is the mooch word for this kind of not-charger? I try to unplug them as soon as they are finished charging because I thought it made sense.
The voltage it is set to would be independent of whether it turns off or not when the pack is charged IMO.
Normally I would say “power supply”.
But if it signals that the pack is fully charged that is different from a conventional power supply that does not do some kind of monitoring.
When you say it keeps it topped off do you mean it never allows the pack to drop even a little in voltage? Or could it be turning off when the pack is charged and then turning back on to top off the pack whenever it drops a little in voltage (normal for a pack to do this eventually).
I noticed my freshly charged pack will drop a bit of voltage overnight.
Is leaving them on a cc/cv power supply bad because it won’t let it drop that little bit of voltage and “relax”?
this