(dis)charger wierdness

unluckypixie · #1 03-01-2008

Hi all,

I've got a team orion advantage charger which I got second hand from eBay and I am using with some new GP3700 cells.

The wierd thing is that when I set it to discharge at 10A it only seems to level off at about 5.7A. I have tried this with the four sets of my cells and with a friends cells and the reading is always around the same.

I placed some cells on a charge / discharge cycle today and when I came back I was surprised to see that the cells were discharging at the full 10A, I thought maybe it was because those cells had litterally just been charged so I tried another set which were charged yesterday and mostly already discharged and it took the remaining charge from them at 10A too! ...

So now I'm confused. Is there something wrong with my charger, am I just not understanding how it works or is this just a weirdy of the model or something that can be fixed?

Thanks

Dave.

ashleyb4 · #2 03-01-2008

what is your power supply like 12v battery or powersupply as the amage ajusts the the powersupply.

A

DCM · #3 03-01-2008

well, apart from sticking an ampmeter in line with the cells to measure actual discharge, then it is hard to tell. I am sure the Team Orion had a setting of 1 or 10amps and thats it. It could either be false reading or genuingly low, either way, it sounds like a fault.

It should also be stopping discharge too at a certain pont to cool down.

unluckypixie · #4 03-01-2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by ashleyb4

what is your power supply like 12v battery or powersupply as the amage ajusts the the powersupply.

A

It's a car battery. It's the same battery I've been using all along and it just suddenly seemed to be reading 10A ... I'm curious when I try it tmz if it will go back to the 5.7A or if it has somehow fixed itself

unluckypixie · #5 03-01-2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by DCM

well, apart from sticking an ampmeter in line with the cells to measure actual discharge, then it is hard to tell. I am sure the Team Orion had a setting of 1 or 10amps and thats it. It could either be false reading or genuingly low, either way, it sounds like a fault.

It should also be stopping discharge too at a certain pont to cool down.

Yeah, it seems to have only 1A or 10A settings which is why I thought it was odd that it ramps up to 5.7A then stops... It does have a temperature sensor but it doesn't normally seem to pause, the cells are not really warm though < 35c probably. It doesn't actually seem to have a configurable temperature cutoff, so I'm curious to know what the cutoff temp is.

Dave.

Northy · #6 03-01-2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by ashleyb4

what is your power supply like 12v battery or powersupply as the amage ajusts the the powersupply.

A

I'm struggling to understand what you are saying here Ash but I can't see how the amp rating output of any sort of power source would affect the discharge rate.

G

ashleyb4 · #7 03-01-2008

ive noticed that sometimeswhen like your 12v is going flat that the discharger and charge rate decreases before it says check 12v and yes you can ajust the temp cut off..

A

Northy · #8 03-01-2008

Yes the charge rate will, but as long as the power supply can power the unit (only a few hundred mA) then I see no reson for it affecting the discharge rate - unless it's a bit poo.

G