Hi all
I have a new 42 ah 6s lipo battery that I want to power an M500 motor with. I am having trouble finding a charger that can plug into the wall on normal 240v power to charge such a big battery with. I have an older BR charger that maxes out at 20 ah and I am wondering if the H6 Pro can handle the 42 ah charge needed.
if not, does anybody have any suggestions?
John
Hi @johng,
Ah is a comparative metric used to describe a battery’s total energy capacity relative to other batteries with a similar voltage (i.e. it is derived from total energy (Wh) / nominal voltage (V)). I’m not aware of any chargers that have an upper limit on the amount of energy they can charge into a battery, but they do often have charge current (A) and/or power (W) limits that mean large amounts of energy can take a long time to charge up (e.g. the charging may be faster with a higher power charger, especially during the peak charging period at the start).
Our H6 Pro charger can charge at up to 26 A on wall power (when using its unlocked firmware), which should be able to give some decent charge to a 42Ah battery within a couple of hours (but likely not a full charge, because safe battery charging rates reduce as the voltage approaches maximum).
Have you tried charging your battery with the charger you have? It would take longer, but should still work fine.
Hi Elliot
Thank you for responding. i have phrased what I meant incorrectly. i have previously charged a 35 ah Li-Ion battery I had on the older BR charger but as it is that limitation of only being able to charge up to 20A (or 26A with the unlocked firmware) that I want to exceed. To be able to only charge a 42 ah battery to that lesser level means that I am lugging around a lot of untapped potential in terms of operating times of the M500 it powers so that is something I really want to avoid given the remote locations I intend to use it in and the difficulty of getting it there..
When I do google searches for a charger with this capability, chargers with dual 20A charging ports come up that would supposedly do the job. I am likely barking up the wrong tree to think i might to be able to use both ports with a BlueBoat Battery Splitter Cable to do this?
thanks
John
Hi @johng -
To clarify the difference between amp hours and amps - you can charge a battery at 10a or 20a, this is like how far you pump fuel into your gas tank. The size of the gas tank is measured in amp hours. Therefore a larger battery capacity just takes longer to fill. I’m not sure what you’re referring to by referencing m500 run times and untapped potential…
The standard firmware can charge any supported voltage, and any capacity battery, larger batteries just take longer!
A BlueBoat charging cable simply lets you hook up more batteries to charge at once- it will not result in charging any faster, and because the “gas tank” increases in size when you do this, charging will take longer!
Hi Tony
if I understand you correctly, it should be no problem to charge my 42 ah battery to full capacity using the H6 Pro or my older BR charger.
The reference to M500 run times was based on thinking I could only charge my 42 ah battery to 20 ah on those chargers and that therefore limiting how much operating time i would get from my battery.
thanks for you help.
John
Hi @johng -
That’s correct! It may take longer to charge, but it will get there! I like seeing how many amp hours go into the pack after a long charge - the display typically shows this (at least until you disconnect the battery / stop the charge.)