Hota S6 400 watts on AC power!?

[KnowAir]

Alright I just did some quick googling on the topic and it seems to mean something a little different than what you're stating. At least with the information I found.

The trickle charge feature activates when a cell's voltage is low, not once the charging cycle is complete. It is intended to carefully/slowly bring low cells into a safe range before pumping the requested amp rate during the charge process.

I couldn't find anything from Hota though. And I don't know how credible these sources are, so take this as you will.

https://chinahobbyline.com/blogs/news/staged-charging-of-1300mah-22-2v-6s-lipo-battery

https://oscarliang.com/choose-lipo-battery-charger-power-supply/

That makes sense to me. I know with lower grade chargers, if cell voltage is too low they throw an error message and won't charge the pack at all.
To circumvent this, after accidentally overdischarging a pack(I turned off LVC), I plugged the pack into said charger without the balance lead connected. Let it charge at normal rate for a few minutes to bring up the low cell, then stop charge, reconnect balance lead and restart charge cycle..all good.

 

[RCnoobfastlearner]

How can you even turn that off? I don't remember seeing an option for that. I like my lipo to stay full and not auto discharge while it's sitting though.

Hold ok, click task parameter, trickle off.

It's not discharging but rather maintaining peak voltage in the pack. I think there was something lost in translation from Chinese to English..
Trickle charge without cutoff would surely make zero sense with ANY battery chemistry.
What I see happening with my S6 is the charger maintaining peak voltage..some industries refer to it as "floating" charge as well.
I'm not concerned about it, I'm confident Hota knows what they're doing.

Floating, trickle whatever you want to call it you're over charging of you leave it on there. Turn off trickle. If you're falling far off 4.2v charge at a lower amperage or lower the end current %.

Hota know what they are doing but you need to turn off trickle charge like lipo manufacturers reccomend.

Like I said previously these are multi use chargers and trickle is on by default. Do what you want with your batteries. I am just trying to save you some money and possibly a fire, haha.

Happy bashing!

 

[KnowAir]

Hold ok, click task parameter, trickle off.

View attachment 271466

Floating, trickle whatever you want to call it you're over charging of you leave it on there. Turn off trickle. If you're falling far off 4.2v charge at a lower amperage or lower the end current %.

Hota know what they are doing but you need to turn off trickle charge like lipo manufacturers reccomend.

Like I said previously these are multi use chargers and trickle is on by default. Do what you want with your batteries. I am just trying to save you some money and possibly a fire, haha.

Happy bashing!

Thanks, I do appreciate the info
We can agree to disagree?

 

[RCnoobfastlearner]

Thanks, I do appreciate the info
We can agree to disagree?

Where do you think the energy goes just curious? You can't just keep putting energy into the battery. Lipo's are exactly like my bucket of water analogy. If you keep dripping in water you're over flowing. This isn't a agree to disagree thing.

 

[KnowAir]

Where do you think the energy goes just curious? You can't just keep putting energy into the battery. Lipo's are exactly like my bucket of water analogy. If you keep dripping in water you're over flowing. This isn't a agree to disagree thing.

The charger only puts out power if the cells are less than peak. You can see on the display what the charger is doing, whether it's putting out power or not. Also, how much voltage is in the battery. If you fully charge a battery, it begins losing voltage as soon as the charger shuts off. Otherwise charged batteries would stay full indefinitely, which they don't.
After the S6 finishes, it stops outputting power but monitors the battery. If the battery goes below peak, it starts charging again, until peak voltage is reached.
The older and weaker the battery, the more often the charger will keep topping off the battery.

 

[RedOctobyr]

Disclaimer: I have never used my LiPo trickle function because I don't need/want it. I'm not trying to "completely" fill my packs. I actually reduced my charge-termination voltage to 4.15V to go a bit easier on them.

But I always interpreted it as the trickle-charge function applying a very small current, after the main charge finishes, to keep charging slowly, while staying at/below 4.20V/cell.

As we've probably seen, the higher your charge current, the faster you hit 4.20V. And then the current tapers off until the threshold you've selected (such as 10% of your selected current; a 5A charge would continue until the current drops to 0.5A). But because of internal resistance, when you stop charging, you will likely see the cells drop back slightly, say from 4.20V to 4.17V or whatever.

Say you're charging at 5A. If your charge terminated at 2A, maybe the cells drop to 4.10V (making up numbers) after the charge finishes. But if your charge terminated at 0.2A, maybe they only drop to 4.18V. It's spent more time gradually supplying a smaller amount of current, which has less resistance to flow, and therefore gets you closer to "really" being at 4.20V.

That resistance is a bit like filling a tire with high-pressure air, though a restriction (the valve stem). While filling, your pressure gauge on the filling hose might show 30 psi. But a bunch of that may be measuring restrictions through the valve. Stop the flow, and maybe you read 20, which is what's actually in the tire.

If the trickle charge merely lets the charger supply, say, 0.05A after the main charge, while monitoring voltage to ensure nothing goes over 4.20V, then it's not over-charging. It's just reducing the impacts of internal resistance, filling very slowly, and getting closer to 100% charged. But wouldn't go over, since it's not exceeding 4.20V.

Again, this is how I've assumed it works. I have no need to fill my batteries to 100%, so I don't bother. If I've misunderstood how this works, I'm happy to learn! But I'd be surprised, for safety reasons, if it was able to actually over-charge, past 4.20V.

 

[KnowAir]

Also, everything qualifies as an agree to disagree thing.

 

[chilly81]

Where do you think the energy goes just curious? You can't just keep putting energy into the battery. Lipo's are exactly like my bucket of water analogy. If you keep dripping in water you're over flowing. This isn't a agree to disagree thing.

Technically at a really low charge rate, it just goes off as heat just like the efficiency losses(charger consumes 6Ah to end up with 5Ah in the battery). That's why a high IR bad cell typically gets warmer than the rest of the battery.

That said though, I'd never be in a situation where my batteries were left on a charger for any reason for an exended period of time while I wasn't paying attention to them except maybe in the field, so trickle charger isn't really an issue for me.

Those 1000W chargers you linked to are cheaper than I had found though - maybe it is worth doing. Just need a 3 wire plug to connect them to 110 right, nothing fancy? One thing nice thing with the D6 and a 24V 1000W behind it, you can do 500W for one channel if you combine two. That could do a 6S 10Ah battery at 2C would be nice. Normally on my charger I put 2 6S 5Ah batteries in parallel on one channel that is limited to 210W and it can't reach even 1C initially. With this it could - or even better, it would let me stop using the balance board for my big scale batteries that I normally just do in 2 parallel. Always better to leave that board out of the equation if you can.

Like I said - so many good options these days! I've changed my mind like 5 times.

 

[KnowAir]

I'd be surprised, for safety reasons, if it was able to actually over-charge, past 4.20V.

Thisis exactly why the charger does not trickle charge in lipo mode. If it was actually continuing to push volts into the battery, it would surely result in disaster. It's not. I've left fully charged packs hooked up for hours..the voltage does not continue to climb..it stays at 4.2 or near..

 

[RCnoobfastlearner]

Also, everything qualifies as an agree to disagree thing.

Facts are facts.

 

[RedOctobyr]

Those 1000W chargers you linked to are cheaper than I had found though - maybe it is worth doing. Just need a 3 wire plug to connect them to 110 right, nothing fancy? One thing nice thing with the D6 and a 24V 1000W behind it, you can do 500W for one channel if you combine two. That could do a 6S 10Ah battery at 2C would be nice.

If the power supply is for voltages including 110V (just double-check, when looking recently, some listings were for higher voltage ranges), then yeah, I think it would just be 3 wires, Hot, Neutral, and Ground.

If you're currently (accidental charging pun) power-limited, it would be hard for me to NOT upgrade the supply Knowing that the potential is there, but you can't use all of it, and so instead have to wait longer, that's no fun! I built my setup so the PS (1500W) is sized larger than the charger can use (1300W), so there are no "artificial" limits.

 

[KnowAir]

Technically at a really low charge rate, it just goes off as heat just like the efficiency losses(charger consumes 6Ah to end up with 5Ah in the battery). That's why a high IR bad cell typically gets warmer than the rest of the battery.

That said though, I'd never be in a situation where my batteries were left on a charger for any reason for an exended period of time while I wasn't paying attention to them except maybe in the field, so trickle charger isn't really an issue for me.

Those 1000W chargers you linked to are cheaper than I had found though - maybe it is worth doing. Just need a 3 wire plug to connect them to 110 right, nothing fancy? One thing nice thing with the D6 and a 24V 1000W behind it, you can do 500W for one channel if you combine two. That could do a 6S 10Ah battery at 2C would be nice. Normally on my charger I put 2 6S 5Ah batteries in parallel on one channel that is limited to 210W and it can't reach even 1C initially. With this it could - or even better, it would let me stop using the balance board for my big scale batteries that I normally just do in 2 parallel. Always better to leave that board out of the equation if you can.

Like I said - so many good options these days! I've changed my mind like 5 times.

Any charger designed for lipos will not over charge the battery unless something is wrong. I'm not advocating anyone to do anything. I assure you, I have left batteries on the charger for hours and hours..more times than I can remember. No issues. ✌

 

[RedOctobyr]

So, sidestepping anything about trickle-charging, if you want to fill your packs closer to 100%, you can, assuming your charger has this setting. Set the termination current lower. One of my chargers defaults to a 10% termination current. Charge at 5A, and once it drops to 0.5A, the charge stops.

Without needing to enable/disable trickle charging, if you simply lower that percentage, it will put a little more energy back into the pack. Lower it to 5%, and now your 5A charge continues until the current drops to 0.25A. Maybe a few extra minutes, and will safely charge the pack a little more-completely. Maybe the cells drop to 4.19V instead of 4.18V, for illustration.

Nothing else to mess with, and uses the same exact charge process you're always using.

 

[KnowAir]

Facts are facts.

Yes,agreed. The Hota S6 will not overcharge my lipos unless something is wrong. The charger monitors the voltage, it shuts off when full. Fact. If voltage dips below peak while still connected, charger will charge to peak. Fact.✌

 

[chilly81]

Any charger designed for lipos will not over charge the battery unless something is wrong. I'm not advocating anyone to do anything. I assure you, I have left batteries on the charger for hours and hours..more times than I can remember. No issues. ✌

That is true when everything is working right. But for whatever reasons the universe could possibly dream up, a battery connected to a charger is many times more likely to blow up than one that isn't. Only you can decide what you're comfortable with in the situation you have. I'll charge 7 little 4S 1.3Ah batteries off one parallel board at 2C in my garage, but I won't leave batteries unattended on trickle charge. I understand how it all works and made an educated decision of what level I'm comfortable with.

My house has never burned down, I've never been in a car accident, and I've never had prostate cancer. That doesn't mean they don't happen to people.

 

[RCnoobfastlearner]

I think everyone is missing the point here. Any energy placed into a lipo is cumulative. Spending hours on the charger receiving a small current after full isn't good. Doesn't matter if it still reads 4.2v.

The bucket of water is overflowing.

 

[KnowAir]

Well, what can I say. We all do things differently. The Hota S6 is a fine charger for the money, no, I won't be turning off the trickle charge and I won't leave my batteries on the charger when I go to bed..

 

[RCnoobfastlearner]

Yes,agreed. The Hota S6 will not overcharge my lipos unless something is wrong. The charger monitors the voltage, it shuts off when full. Fact. If voltage dips below peak while still connected, charger will charge to peak. Fact.✌

And when you shut off trickle it stops at 4.2 and doesn't keep adding. Like the lipo manufacturers reccomend.

 

[KnowAir]

I think everyone is missing the point here. Any energy placed into a lipo is cumulative. Spending hours on the charger receiving a small current after full isn't good. Doesn't matter if it still reads 4.2v.

The bucket of water is overflowing.

I understand that, what I'm saying is it is not trickle charging lipo batteries. If it were, we would see the battery voltage continue to climb while connected. It's just not happening. Of course the best practice is to disconnect a battery when it's full. I'm just not gonna babysit every time I charge a battery. You use yours however you see fit. I'll use how I see fit.

 

[RCnoobfastlearner]

I understand that, what I'm saying is it is not trickle charging lipo batteries. If it were, we would see the battery voltage continue to climb while connected. It's just not happening. Of course the best practice is to disconnect a battery when it's full. I'm just not gonna babysit every time I charge a battery. You use yours however you see fit. I'll use how I see fit.

Adding more because of voltage drop is trickle charging. Charge at a lower amperage or lower end current %.

Beating a dead horse at this point.