Opus battery tester charging rate?

John

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May 4, 2017
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I just realized that the battery tester has 3 charge/discharge rates: 500ma, 700ma, and 1,00 ma.

Pros and cons of the different rates? It is taking a long time to process batteries at the default 500 ma rate. Any reason not to use the higher rates?

Thanks for sharing your knowledge and experience,

-John-
 
I would charge at the lower rate initially. but I do the discharge testing at 1000 ma setting on the digital charger 4s, which is similar to the opus
 
Probably the only main difference between the 500mA and 1000mA testing, is that the 500mA is closer to real-world application of what the packs will output. Where-as testing at the 1000mA shows you what the "potential" the cells can do in a worst case scenario.
 
mike said:
I always use the 1000ma setting. I think that's kindof the standard for testing cells. I see no problem using 500ma either since it's closer to what our powerwalls will actually be doing, it just takes twice as long to test your cells.

Yay! Taking a whole day for one set of batteries is really slowing me down.

-John-
 
John said:
mike said:
I always use the 1000ma setting. I think that's kindof the standard for testing cells. I see no problem using 500ma either since it's closer to what our powerwalls will actually be doing, it just takes twice as long to test your cells.

Yay! Taking a whole day for one set of batteries is really slowing me down.

-John-

Yea, tell me about it... I have 2 OPUS and it seems like a Discharge Refresh takes a little more than a day. I am going to start using my IMAX B6AC to charge 16 cells at a time then throw them in the OPUS for a discharge.
 
RobertBaumer said:
John said:
mike said:
I always use the 1000ma setting. I think that's kindof the standard for testing cells. I see no problem using 500ma either since it's closer to what our powerwalls will actually be doing, it just takes twice as long to test your cells.

Yay! Taking a whole day for one set of batteries is really slowing me down.

-John-

Yea, tell me about it... I have 2 OPUS and it seems like a Discharge Refresh takes a little more than a day. I am going to start using my IMAX B6AC to charge 16 cells at a time then throw them in the OPUS for a discharge.

That's what I do. Speeds up the process quite a bit. Doesn't "discharge refresh" cycle them 3 times? Shouldn't you be using "charge test"?
 
John said:
I just realized that the battery tester has 3 charge/discharge rates: 500ma, 700ma, and 1,00 ma.

Pros and cons of the different rates? It is taking a long time to process batteries at the default 500 ma rate. Any reason not to use the higher rates?

Thanks for sharing your knowledge and experience,

-John-

Actually I believe you can do 1.5 and 2 in slots 1 and 4.
 
I use 1A always. If they do not work with that they dont go into my powerwall. They need to be able to cope with full load or else they are not worth using in my eyes.

Opus can do up to 2A if you only charge 2 batteries.

!a test takes just below 12 hours so it suits me just fine. Ie i do 80 cells per day in my rig :) More than enough for me.
 
I put a small fan on my chargers to keep air moving and they don't warm up as much. It keep the opus charger from cycling on and off and keeps a constant 1a draw. They don't get hot without it but it seems the opus is sensitive to heat so at slightly warm to the touch it will drop the discharge rate to 0 for a minute or 2 and then continue. It only takes me about 4.5 hours now to cycle with the small fan keeping the air moving.
 
How do you cycle a battery on 4.5hours?

For instance many of my batteries are empty. So lets say I have 2.5Ah batteries. It will then take 3-4 hours to charge. Another 3-4hours to discharge and then another 3-4 hours to charge :)

I have not seen my charges shut off due to heat but on the other hand i have it pretty cold where i test.
 
My cells are already charged. They are usually discharging within 10 minutes of putting them in the chargers. I don't let them charge again fully to 4.2v I pull them out at about 3.8v. It will probably be more than a year before they will be put to use and I've heard it's not good to leave them that high for that long.
 
Ok so I got an Opus hoping it's faster than the 4S, it seemed to be at first and now I'm not so sure.
Does this make sense? And yes current is at 1000

image_mepkuc.jpg

image_vgghtu.jpg
 
mike said:
RobertBaumer said:
John said:
mike said:
I always use the 1000ma setting. I think that's kindof the standard for testing cells. I see no problem using 500ma either since it's closer to what our powerwalls will actually be doing, it just takes twice as long to test your cells.

Yay! Taking a whole day for one set of batteries is really slowing me down.

-John-

Yea, tell me about it... I have 2 OPUS and it seems like a Discharge Refresh takes a little more than a day. I am going to start using my IMAX B6AC to charge 16 cells at a time then throw them in the OPUS for a discharge.

That's what I do. Speeds up the process quite a bit. Doesn't "discharge refresh" cycle them 3 times? Shouldn't you be using "charge test"?
Did know anything about the charge test, I have been using the discharge refresh and it is taking forever....Let me try a charge test....
 
Next set of cells, these numbers don't jive
Over an hour at 1A, only about 600mah pulled?

image_kxdbtt.jpg

image_evbwkv.jpg

image_mchdnw.jpg

image_lsdvrs.jpg


Ok...wtf, it seems stop discharging for some period of time and starts again, it's barely warm

image_vbbero.jpg


At 2 hours, it's at 1000mah pulled, so it seems to avg 500mahdischarge even at 1000 setting? Is mine broken or is this how it's supposed to behave? With the 4S I would see 1000mah pulled at the 1 hour mark
 
Dont mix mAh and mA. :) You discharge with "A" and over time you get Ah :)

Neither less people have seen issues doing the tests and that it took twice the time. Discharge in general at 1A can be tricky since it need to get the heat somewhere.
I run the full test in roughly 12hours. that give me 4 hour per phase aka charge - discharge - charge. So that would most likely be somewhere around 5-600mA continuous current.
 
I think I'm gonna stick with the 4S. I feel for the purposes of testing possibly bad cells, the intermittent discharging could let some undesirable cells slip through, cells that on the 4S would certainly heat up more. Capacity rating is also inflated because of this.
 
Scepterr said:
I think I'm gonna stick with the 4S. I feel for the purposes of testing possibly bad cells, the intermittent discharging could let some undesirable cells slip through, cells that on the 4S would certainly heat up more. Capacity rating is also inflated because of this.

i have been charging with the opus. I have 2 in useand 3 on order.I charge at 1 amp but check every couple of hours. if the batteries feel hot, I drop it to 500 ma and wait for two more hours. Usually it is a red or greensanyo that is heating up. What's strange is that they don't really heat up at the one amp charging rate until they get to 4 Volts. Then from 4 to 4.2, they are too hot to touch. So I back off. Heat kills lithium ion batteries. I suspect thats why charging to 4 volts instead of 4.2 makes them last longer. Google Jeff Dahn's talk from 2013. Its very enlightening.

if they don't reach full by the 4 hour mark, I take them off the charger and put them in a box. If they are self discharging, I will find out in a couple weeks. I mayuse them in applications with a lot of cooling and have a short delay between charge and discharge.

i bought some tp4056 boards to charge with and when I get time, I will use them to charge and the opus to discharge. (If you have more than one opus are they called OPI?). I am expecting some cell holders to go with them, but they must be on the slow boat from China.
 
(If you have more than one opus are they called OPI?).

Yes I believe thats the technical term.

scientific name Opii Chargii.... :D
 
After next round of testing, at 1000mA setting Opus takes about 8hrs, where the the 4S takes about 5.5hrs on a 4400mah charge or discharge
 
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