SkyRC D100 v2. Quickstart

[PaulEden]

Guys, thanks for the advice I received here. I've got this charger here and have managed to import a pair of cables.

But the manual and the menu is a bit above my paygrade. I have run out of talent. I have sat down with the manual and tried to take it in but many of the words are bouncing off my eyeballs.

So I'd be grateful if someone could give me a list of basic settings for charging, balancing, discharging and storing these batteries using this charger. The missus doesn't lknow how much I spent on the charge and cables yet - imagine how annoyed she's going to be if I use them to burn the house down

 

[DoomMeister]

Charge your batteries at no more than 1C (charge current setting) which can be figured by taking the mAh capacity of your individual batteries and dividing by 1000. So a 5400mAh battery should use a charge current of 5.4A or less.

Since you are posting n the H Plus forum I’m assuming you are using the LiHV batteries for the H+ so be sure to select LiHV in the battery type and not LiPo. LiHV charge t 4.35V per cell instead of 4.2V like LiPo cells. Your full charge voltage will be 17.4V for the LiHV packs.

I’ll find an online manual for your charger and try to be more detailed later in the day.

 

[PaulEden]

Thanks DM!
I've got the manual here - it's just that it assumes a basic knowledge of battery charging that I just don't have.
Yes, it's for my H Plus. You say use LiHV and this charger does support that, but the battery itself has Lithium Polymer written on the label.
Also, is a 'balance' actually a charge? Will using balance eventually give me a fully charged battery?

 

[DoomMeister]

When you charge your batteries for flight always use the Balance charge option and you connect both the main and balance leads to the charger. Set the charge current to 1C (the mAh/1000) or less (I use 0.8C most of the time).

When the batteries will not be in use for more than 24 hours use the Storage charge mode. This will charge/discharge the batteries to the proper level and balance the cells.

If you have specific questions feel free to ask. I’ve got the manual downloaded and should be able to help guide you.

 

[PaulEden]

Thanks again, mate. I've been battering youtube and google with requests for insight all day and I've come up with this. I'd love your thoughts;

For charging, use balance charge at 3.5A. It seems to work out the voltage for itself.

For storage, I've set it to discharge a 2A. That's the maximum it will allow. It stops at 3.8v which I read is the best storage voltage.

So, if I charge at 1C, I'm charging at 5.2A. That seems a lot considering the supplied Yuneec charger says it has a maximum output of 4A. Is it really advisable? Is this the sort of thing I should be doing only when required, for example when I need to recharge quickly after a flight when the days work exceeds the available number of batteries?

Thanks again
PS, Did you have any thoughts about my query regarding LIhV charging a battery that is marked as a LiPO?

 

[DoomMeister]

The LiHV is a lithium polymer cell, but takes a higher charge voltage than the standard LiPo cell. 4.35V vs 4.20V.

Storage charge can vary just a bit from one charger manufacturer’s defaults to another, but most are set to 3.85V/cell for LiHV. This would be 15.4V for the 4S packs used in the H+.

1C should be the maximum for charging. If you have the time charging at 0.5C is advisable but can take up to 2 hours to fully charge the battery and balancing can take a bit longer (this varies by how much difference there is between the internal resistance [IR]of the individual cells that make up the pack).

The discharge amperage setting will make very little difference on this charger as it can only discharge at 10W and will self regulate the current. For safety you could set it to 10W/17.4V=0.57A so 0.6A on discharge. Try to avoid using the charger as a discharge device for these fairly large packs. It takes a long time at 10W and the fans will run a lot trying to keep the charger cool.

 

[Ty Pilot]

If I am not mistaken this charger is pretty much the same as my X2 AC charger, and if it is - it is a 100 watt (total) charger - if two batteries are plugged in, it is 50 watts per channel or 3 amps. However that is on AC power, I think if you use a DC power source it will then give you the full 100 per side.

Also as @DoomMeister has said, the discharge feature is not really the best way to get to storage. If I have a battery that I charge but do not use in the field I just do a quick hop in the back yard and hover until the battery is showing about 48% then land and let the battery cool for a bit. Then I will put it on the charger in LiHV 'Storage' mode and typically it will sound of in a few minutes and be done. On the other hand if you use the battery for a full flight, just do the same thing and it will bring the pack up to storage levels. For normal charging use the 'Balance' charge setting. I found that from storage level it takes about 1 hour and 10 or 15 minutes to fully charge 2 packs. On the other hand if you want to charge just one, you can go into the menu and set one of the outputs to the full 100 watts and charge in under an hour.

The menu of these chargers is a little awkward at first but once you get the hang it gets pretty easy. Good Luck.

 

[PaulEden]

It looks remarkably similar to your X2, yes.
We had 3 fully charged batteries and we floew until the first two were exhausted, but the pilot didn't want to fly anymore so we did a 'storage' on the third battery and yes, it took ages. We didn't use discharge function, we used 'storage'
There's a smartphone app but the PC application to control the charger is the most intuitive so we used that.