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Making charger quieter


Seba

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Very interessting attemp to calm down the hell-of-a-noise type fan :w00t2:. I would like to follow your idea and apply it for my similar brick chargers as well. Do you know why the replacement fan is much more silent? In my opinion there could be mainly 2 reasons:

  • Better fan design
  • Lower RPM at given voltage

Do you know if the resulting airflow rate would be the same? Or should it be enough even if lower than before?

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On 2/8/2020 at 10:04 PM, Mimetic Polyalloy said:

Very interessting attemp to calm down the hell-of-a-noise type fan :w00t2:. I would like to follow your idea and apply it for my similar brick chargers as well. Do you know why the replacement fan is much more silent? In my opinion there could be mainly 2 reasons:

  • Better fan design
  • Lower RPM at given voltage

Do you know if the resulting airflow rate would be the same? Or should it be enough even if lower than before?

I concur to you about causes of fan silence. I would only add maglev bearing to this, creating a small air gap between stator and rotor. 

According to datasheets, original fan has airflow at 23.7 CFM while new fan has "only" 13.8 CFM. But these parameters cannot be considered in isolation from static pressure. With airflow resistances causing a pressure of only 2mm H2O causes air flow of the original fan to drop to about 11 CFM. This is the same as for the Sunon fan at the same static pressure, so in fact they provide the same cooling efficiency.

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I have another charger that is actually not so loud, but I wouldn't mind it being even quieter. Did you have that fan in there too? 

20200212-075326.jpg

The original fan has seven blades and the Sunon only five blades. Maybe that's just the reason why it's quieter?

I find different pictures of this fan. Sometimes it has five blades then again seven blades. What's right?

Edited by buell47
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49 minutes ago, buell47 said:

I have another charger that is actually not so loud, but I wouldn't mind it being even quieter. Did you have that fan in there too? 

They are all more or less the same. Yours is almost identical to the one I've replaced.

50 minutes ago, buell47 said:

I find different pictures of this fan. Sometimes it has five blades then again seven blades. What's right?

It has seven blades:

http://portal.sunon.com.tw/pls/portal/sunonap.sunon_html_d_pkg.open_file?input_file_name=7264646F632F3230313631312F3234313838332F28443036303737343930472D3030292D312E2E706466

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Thank you, then I will order this fan as well. Even if it has a little less power, there should be no problems, because I don't run the charger with a full 12 amps, but only with 8 amps. :thumbup:

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 2/8/2020 at 4:32 PM, Seba said:

It serves me well, helping me during my various long-distance tours.

I'm thinking more and more about doing longer tours, but I don't dare to go higher than 5A charging on the 16X. I was thinking about using the fast charger on the road and the standard charger overnight, for balancing.

My question is, do you charge all the way with the fast charger when on the road. Or do you stop at say 90% to minimize strain on the battery?

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37 minutes ago, Lefteris said:

Can you do the same "ninja-math" for the Nikola Plus 1800Wh with the 21700 cells? I'm getting a 3amp charger that they peg it as "fast-charger". 

Is it?

AFAIK Nikola+ has 4P24S battery and is based on Panasonic NCR21700A cells. Standard charge is 1500 mA per cell, so standard charging current will be 6 A. In no way 3 A charger can be considered "fast" while providing only half of standard charging current. Of course it's still twice as fast as original 1.5 A charger.

Edited by Seba
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5 minutes ago, Lefteris said:

Then off do buy a 6amp one :P

care to suggest any? ;) 

I don't know of any 100 V chargers I could recommend you Bro :(

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19 minutes ago, Lefteris said:

Then off do buy a 6amp one :P

GX16 charge port max amperage is 5A. And Gotway's charging cabling is flimsy, too (they doubled it on the MSP at least). 4.5A to 5A is the max recommended for Gotways, you want more, you need to mod in more charge ports.

3A (standard charger) is probably a nice compromise between charger size and weight (not too massive) and charging time (short enough). If you need more, get an extra 2A or 1.5A 100V charger and use a charge doctor or Y cable to connect both. Or a 4.5A charger.

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Link the pins on the stock charge port if you are that concerned. Its fine.

And even the 'old' gotway charge wiring is 20g silicone, which is good for 12A.

Been running 6A chargers on the Z10 and MSX for some time. No problems with either. And yes they were both temp probed on the first charges just to check.

 

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2 hours ago, Seba said:

I don't baby my battery. Charge fast and to 100 %. Be a man, take her hard - she'll love it, trust me :laughbounce2: Just avoid charging in elevated temperatures (above 30°C) and make sure your charger outputs no more than 84.5 V when idle (use good multimeter).

Perfect! :D

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2 hours ago, Seba said:

This means that charging with 6 A will have the same impact on battery life as charging with 1.5 A. Of course there are other components that have its own current rating like wires, connectors and BMS circuitry. Still, 5 A is safe current for charging KS-16X using single charging port.

Both KingSong and 1RadWerkstatt told me that the wires in the KS16X are rather thin and therefore they wouldn't recommend more than 5A, which is why that was my limit. I'll have to check in practice if it is enough for what I want to do. :)

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  • 11 months later...

Thanks Seba!  I can now fast charge in my Office.  Its a bit hacky looking right now but it works.

FYI anyone attempts this on the fast charger from ewheels

even though charger looked like same one from Seba's post, the part recommended HA60251V4-1000U-A99 is actually a tad size larger than the original fan in my unit.

Original fan @ 2" , HA60251V4-1000U-A99 @ 2.25"

No matter, instead of ordering and waiting for another I ran the wire through the grill and mounted on the outside of the unit.

Right now I have it taped, but I'm going to epoxy it after I'm sure I'm going to keep it like this.

I can say though... the (HA60251V4-1000U-A99) is night and day to the sound of the stock fan!!  I'm so happy.  I can fast charge in my office now and not have it sound like a helicopter is landing!

IMG_20210219_153805.jpg

Edited by Rich Sam
formatting
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On 3/3/2020 at 4:33 AM, Tazarinho said:

KingSong and 1RadWerkstatt told me that the wires in the KS16X are rather thin

I'm betting that the limit is in the square/rectangular Lenovo connector's wires, which were probably sized based on the connector pin. The only 'replacement' I could find has pictures that show very small gauge wiring... I've ordered one so I can use a more generic faster charger so when it arrives I'll check how thin they are. If they look too thin, then I'll probably get the Gotway-Lenovo adapter that eWheels sells and go that route, hoping the adapter has heftier wires than I can find as a replacement part.

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It begs the question though.  These premium fast chargers cannot pony up for a quality fan, I purchased this brushless 5 dollar fan with free shipping without any bulk discount.  Makes me wonder where else they cut corners, surely someone has to have said... dang that is a loud fan.

 

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  • 10 months later...
6 hours ago, siffleur said:

can you each say which revision ewheels smart charger you have? I’m trying to understand the discrepancy in size of fan before I order some for myself and friends. Thanks!

The fast charger eWheels sells changes fairly frequently (pretty sure its a commodity charger). For example, mine doesn't have a 110/220V switch (removed upon request evidently, due to customers blowing them up by having the switch in the wrong position). Since the fire, I'm guessing what eWheels has is likely different again, so it'll be a bit of crap shoot on what you get... but you can always replace the fans if they're too noisy. Just be sure to get replacements that have at least as much CFM and static pressure as what's already in there. Proper cooling of the charger is important! DigiKey, Mouser, and Grainger are all good US sources for parts.

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