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Battery charger overheating


Simon Lovell

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IMG_20151031_170409.thumb.jpg.68ae5a3cfbLast week my charger blew up......see photo below..... the green thing bottom right overheated, expanded and burnt the case.

I had left the wheel to charge over night......I don't know if this is a good idea or not.....I don't think I will do that again though! What is the recommended advice as the Chinese to English translation on the instructions is impossible to determine!

The importer replaced the charger....however I noted that it gets hot in the same place.......so is there a better charger I could use? Maybe one with a fan? 

Also I am not clear on how the charger works. Does it just step down the voltage or is it cleverer than that and actually do the balancing?  IE is the clever stuff on the battery itself or the charger?

Could the charger have gone up in flames and burnt the shed down.......so that we then all blamed the batteriess?

IMG_20151127_154457.jpg

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I had almost the same issue. My kingsong charger always was super hot to the point that the plastic melted and deformed.  ( see pic). It never blew up but its so hot that i dont put it on any flat surface any more. I almost hang it now in such a way that there is nothing around it on all sides.

image.jpeg

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The charger should be fine as long as you do not leave the unit unattended while charging and placed in a well ventilated area. The charger should be plugged to the mains first then to the EUC. Once the green light appears then it is  about 96-99% charged and it is time to unplug the charger from the EUC. There is no need to charge the batteries to 100% capacity all the time since it will just reduce the battery life. A small fan on top of the charger will help in keeping it cool. Unattended charging is the main cause of fire in the news.

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8 hours ago, Simon Lovell said:

Also I am not clear on how the charger works. Does it just step down the voltage or is it cleverer than that and actually do the balancing?  IE is the clever stuff on the battery itself or the charger?

I'm not 100% sure on this, but I think the charger is just a "dumb" switching-mode power supply (or even just a transformer with rectifying?), and the actual charging process (constant-current / constant-voltage -phases) are controlled by the BMS(s) inside the battery pack(s). At least the actual balancing is handled by the BMS in our wheels (otherwise there'd be a lot more wires coming from the charger).

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IMG_20151127_154457.jpg

The large filtering capacitor on the lower right corner does not look too healthy... the top looks like it's already bulging. Can't tell from the picture if the residue around it is molten plastic from the cover, or if it has already leaked some electrolyte. Could be faulty or just low quality, although if the top of the case is touching the tops of the capacitors, that could be a factor too. It should look like the one above it, totally flat top. Maybe you could try replacing that, if you can find similarly rated (voltage / capacitance) capacitors somewhere? If you decide to do it, do note that electrolytic capacitors have polarity (the black stripe on the side marks the negative side).

If you have an unneeded old computer power supply, there could be similar capacitors there. Here's a couple of 680uF / 200V filtering capacitors I salvaged from over a decade old PSU, both seem to be still just fine (at least from the outside ;)):

AgVXTdK.png

 

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