Russian T-90 battery options

[keilau]

Are you using your SkyRC iMax B6AC V2 connected to your home PC using the 'Charge Master' program? The maximum voltage shown for the Li-Ion 2S battery is 7.2 volts and can not be raised any higher than that. Does your charger show the same? I'm new to using this charger and it is not a off-brand model. Can you provide me with all the settings for the following: Charge, Discharge, Fast Charge, Balance and Storage including current ratings for each setting that you are using to maintain and extend the life of the batteries. If you wish to send me a private message - I'm good with that.

Call SkyRC technical support. They are very good. If you cannot charge 2S Lithium Ion battery to higher than 7.2 volts, your charger is defective or the program messed up. Is your charger new enough to be returned?

The skyRC charger manuel is very good. All the questions you ask can be answered there. My off-brand B6 did not come with a manuel.

Conventional wisdom advises not to charge Lithium Ion battery over 4.2 volts per cell. I use only high end Li-Ion and find SkyRC's recommended 4.1 volts to be a prudent approach. I use EBL 18650 battery mostly because they are still reasonably priced (not cheap to be sure). I typically get more than 2800 mAh from them. The new 18650 pack using NCR18650GA cells from AliExpress seems to top off at 1800 mAh when charged to 4.1 volts per cell. If they do not fail prematurely, which I mean 500 charge cycles or more, they are very good deal considering the price. Most importantly, they can sustain a good constant current discharge for more than 2.5 hours.

[cmdrcody]

Call SkyRC technical support. They are very good. If you cannot charge 2S Lithium Ion battery to higher than 7.2 volts, your charger is defective or the program messed up. Is your charger new enough to be returned?

The skyRC charger manuel is very good. All the questions you ask can be answered there. My off-brand B6 did not come with a manuel.

Conventional wisdom advises not to charge Lithium Ion battery over 4.2 volts per cell. I use only high end Li-Ion and find SkyRC's recommended 4.1 volts to be a prudent approach. I use EBL 18650 battery mostly because they are still reasonably priced (not cheap to be sure). I typically get more than 2800 mAh from them. The new 18650 pack using NCR18650GA cells from AliExpress seems to top off at 1800 mAh when charged to 4.1 volts per cell. If they do not fail prematurely, which I mean 500 charge cycles or more, they are very good deal considering the price. Most importantly, they can sustain a good constant current discharge for more than 2.5 hours.

No, the charger is not defective and as I told you before I'm new to using these new tech balance charger/dischargers.
All I was asking is for the exact settings YOU are using.
And I'm not ready to make an international phone call for SkyRC technical support.

[keilau]

No, the charger is not defective and as I told you before I'm new to using these new tech balance charger/dischargers.
All I was asking is for the exact settings YOU are using.
And I'm not ready to make an international phone call for SkyRC technical support.

I use SkyRC program default settings and did not change anything.

If not defective, your SkyRC charger should default to 8.2 volts for 2S Li-Ion battery. Can you follow the SkyRC instructions for your charger? No need to make international calls. You can email or chat on line with SkyRC support if you have any questions after reading the instructions.

https://www.skyrc.com/Charger?from=nav

Can you show a picture of your SkyRC iMAX B6 charger? We can help you to determine if you had been sold a knock-off.

[cmdrcody]

I use SkyRC program default settings and did not change anything.

If not defective, your SkyRC charger should default to 8.2 volts for 2S Li-Ion battery. Can you follow the SkyRC instructions for your charger? No need to make international calls. You can email or chat on line with SkyRC support if you have any questions after reading the instructions.

https://www.skyrc.com/Charger?from=nav

Can you show a picture of your SkyRC iMAX B6 charger? We can help you to determine if you had been sold a knock-off.

Here ya go:
And it did come with the manual and all the accessory battery connecting cables. Also ordered and received the battery temperature probe.

[keilau]

[QUOTE=cmdrcody;n364263]

Here ya go:
And it did come with the manual and all the accessory battery connecting cables. Also ordered and received the battery temperature probe.
[UOTE]

You are ready to contact SkyRC. They are 13 hours ahead of you if you want to chat online. If you use email, it doesn't matter. Let us know how it goes.

I got the mini version instead because I like that it had a cooling fan for the discharge resistor. I built a 60 watts supply for it from an auto battery charger. It was a while ago, the charger came with only the Dean's plug. I built my own XT-60 and Tamiya plug adapters.
Amazon.com: SKYRC iMAX B6 Mini Professional Balance Charger / Discharger for RC Lipo Battery Charging : Toys & Games

[keilau]

We do not need a scientific experiment to know our battery. We all have smart charger that has enough features to simulate real world use to allow us to make the best out of what we have. The pack you referred me to uses 30C cells that allows quick charging. Starting from 6 volts, I can charge the 2S1P pack to 8.19 volt at 3A to 1700 mAh in 40 minutes before the charge current started to drop off. The discharge demonstration will take much longer at realistic HL tank usage current.

I ran the discharge test again and got the same result as yesterday. I set the discharge current to 0.7A to simulate the HL tank. 2.7 hours later, the discharge stop when the battery drops to 6.2 volts and the capacity reads 1811 mAh. It is safe to conclude that the Kluosi Uav Lithium-ion Battery pack had 50% bigger capacity than the latest HL 2S pack. I guess that the NCR18650GA was home grown 2200 mAh cells. Typically, imported NCR18650B from Japan or Taiwan was rated 3000 mAh.

I tested the latest HL pack that I received with my Sherman 2 months ago for reference. I set the discharge current to 0.7A to simulate the HL tank. 1.6 hours later, the discharge stop when the battery drops to 6.0 volts and the capacity reads 1188 mAh. All tests were done after the packs were freshly charged to 8.2 volts.

I am done with testing for now. You can digest my data and decide what battery pack is best deal for you.

[cmdrcody]

I have made a modification in the T90 tank battery compartment to give more room and make it easier to plug in & out my batteries that have the XT60 female connectors. I carefully installed a XT60 male screw-held connector into the left top rear to the compartment and used the same OEM wires that were on the OEM connector soldered into it. Since I replaced the blown OEM speaker with two smaller (and better) speakers to the rear of the chassis in front of the gear boxes, I had the extra room to make this modification.

[keilau]

Are you using your SkyRC iMax B6AC V2 connected to your home PC using the 'Charge Master' program? The maximum voltage shown for the Li-Ion 2S battery is 7.2 volts and can not be raised any higher than that. Does your charger show the same? I'm new to using this charger and it is not a off-brand model. Can you provide me with all the settings for the following: Charge, Discharge, Fast Charge, Balance and Storage including current ratings for each setting that you are using to maintain and extend the life of the batteries. If you wish to send me a private message - I'm good with that.

Most of the time, I just charge the single battery pack using the loaded program. Yes, I use the 'Charge Master' program when I have a bunch of packs or want to do some testing of a new brand. I have the B6 iMAX mini which has 20 preloaded, but editable, programs. Program #6, 7 and 8 are for Lithium Ion batteries.

I use an edited Program mostly for 2S1p or 2S2P balance charge. I changed the end voltage to 8.2 volts or 4.1V per cell. Program #6 and 8, the default end voltage is 4.2 volts per cell.

A typical balance charge process is like this: For this one, I started with a partially charged pack from storage.

If your battery charge end voltage is 7.2 volts for 2S Li-Ion packs and not editable, your charger is NOT working properly. Hope this helps.