Turnigy Accucel-6 50W 6A Balancer/Charger problem

[Kusti]

Hey

I bought the Turnigy Accucel-6 50W 6A Balancer/Charger from hobbyking to charge the batteries for my bixler that I also ordered from hk, but the charger doesn't really work how it shoud or I am doing something wrong

When I'm trying to charge the batteries, there comes the error "BATTERY VOL ERR CELL CONNECT" and in the manual it's written that "There are bad connection at the individual connector. Please check the connector and cables carefully."

If I get this right, this means that the battery doesn't work but I tested the battery with a friends charger and there was no error and the charging worked and there all the cells have the same voltage and I get the same error when I try to charge one of his (good) batteries with my charger...

I made a short video, just to avoid misunderstandings: Video =D

oh and I am using a 12v 0.8A input, I know that the Amps are not enough to charge the batteries but I don't think that the problem is caused by this because I also tried the friends power source which has more Amps.

I am very thankful if you could tell me if I am doing something wrong or if there is a trick to solve this problem, or if the charger is really not working, then I will order a new one

Thanks for the answers!

-Kusti

 

[bicyclemonkey]

The first cell on that battery is at 0v...that's bad. You have a bad battery. Getting an AC adapter that has more amps will for sure make it charge faster but won't fix the dead cell.

That, and cell two is under volts also...it's showing 1.35v. Anything under 3v per cell is bad for a lipo.

Right there at 1:48 in the video, cell 1 = 0.00. Cell two = 1.35

 

[Kusti]

Thanks for the quick answer and for putting in the video like this!

I don't think that the battery is the problem, because
1. with the working charger of my friend, the cells were good balanced and
2. all the 3 batteries that I have show the same 0, 1.35 and 4.94 Voltage... its very unlikely that i recieved 3 broken batteries from hk

 

[colorex]

Well, it may be a rare case in which the pins on the charger are faulty - do the voltages change if you wiggle the balance plug? Do you have a voltmeter to check the battery voltage?

Sounds to me like your charger is broken.

 

[Kusti]

I checked the voltage with the friends voltmeter and it was ok...
and I just tried to wiggle it but there was no change, also I tried it with a 2 cell battery and it recognized only the first cell and the second one hat 0.00 volt, which is not true...

thanks for the answer, i think i will have to order a new one!

 

[jetpackninja]

Yeah- looks like you have a bad charger.
You could try to do just Lipo Charge and not connect the balance lead.
It would very likely charge fine, but will not balance the battery.
Kind of defeats the purpose of having a balancing charger
I use the Accucel 6 and wish I had a couple more of them.

Looks like you got a bad one

Contact HobbyKing customer service and see if you can do an RMA through their USA warehouse.

 

[pgerts]

You are not supposed to put in the balance connector when LIPO CHARGE on the ACCUCELL.
There is an option LIPO BALANCE where you must have the balance connector in the charger.
If more than one battery seems bad then the wires must be in wrong order inside the charger.

 

[jetpackninja]

Good catch Gerts
Yes- when just doing the Lipo Charge function the balance lead does not need to be hooked up to the charger.
But- It should still read the correct values.
I think we are in basic agreement that there is a problem with the charger...

 

[Kusti]

Ok thanks!

@jetpackninja yes, charging does work fine but i'd like to balance...

@pgerts I messed it up in the video, but with the balancing option its exactly the same and just charging without connecting the balancing plugs works...

Thanks for all, I'll contact hobbyking

 

[Ak Flyer]

I haven't used the balance charge function on either of my accucell 6's. I just use lipo charge and it works great. I don't connect the balance lead, just the charge leads.

If your charger is reading improperly and you've checked the cell's with a meter then it's a charger problem, but I would try a straight lipo charge first.

 

[jetpackninja]

Ak- do you use a separate balancer? Or do you just never balance your batteries?

 

[pgerts]

My first years with lipo was without any balancer - chargers didnt use to have built in balancers and the batteries had no balance leads.

 

[jetpackninja]

Yeah- I don't balance every charge- But i do do a balance charge every once in a while.
Usually just charge at the field, balance at home...

 

[jetpackninja]

Yeah- I don't balance every charge- But i do do a balance charge every once in a while.
Usually just charge at the field, balance charge at home...

 

[Brian fred carr]

I concur with the opinion that you have a bad charger...as for the balancing chat..i run each pack 5 or 6 times on just a normal charge then balance charge

 

[Ak Flyer]

I don't usually balance them. I have a voltage checker that tells me if all the cells are equal, and I think soon I might balance them once just for maintenance but so far so good.

 

[Webcrowd]

I had an iMAX b6 do exactly the same thing. No matter what battery I connected it gave that error. Turned out the balance board was blown. My hobby store replaced it, and then that one did it again. Took the second one back to the hobby store along with all my batteries. They tested everything, and it looks like one of my batteries was faulty, and it kept blowing the internal balance board. They replaced that one again, so now I am on my 3rd one, but I had to ditch my batteries and by a new one.

We couldn't tell which battery it was. All the cells tested fine, but best guess is that one of internal circuit boards inside one of the batteries was faulty.

To get around the problem, if you don't want to ditch the charger, you can balance through one of the other ports on the charger and then use an external balance board to connect your battery.

The error given was exactly the same, makes me think that Turnigy and iMax use the same software / circuits for their chargers.

 

[Kusti]

Thanks for the answers again!

I recieved a new one yesterday and it works fine, so it really was a bad charger

thanks for the help!

 

[Non Action Man]

You are not supposed to put in the balance connector when LIPO CHARGE on the ACCUCELL.
There is an option LIPO BALANCE where you must have the balance connector in the charger.

But there is also a screen to show each cell voltage during a charge. If you're not to have the balance lead in while charging, then why the cell voltage screen?

NAM

 

[Ak Flyer]

So that you can balance charge.