Charge Doctor for INMOTION

[hobby16]

I have added INMOTION to my list of wheels compatibles with the Charge Doctor.

A summary of the specifics of Inmotion wheels, especially concerning fast-charging, is on my blog. Cut & paste of the blog's thread below:

 

INMOTION unicycles have 20S batteries (nominal voltage 72V, charger voltage 84V)  instead of the 16S classic topology on most other electric unicycles. Models V3 and V5 use the “square Lenovo” connector and model  V8 uses the GX12-3 pin connector (same connector and same wiring as hoverboards). Charge Doctors for IMMOTION wheels are now available, in single-input or double-input versions.

Warning, IMMOTION battery packs have less capacity than Gotways or King Song’s. So when using the CD-double-input, check that your setup does not charge at more than 1C (see article on “charge currents“). The CD’s usefullness is not only in allowing fast charging, it is mostly in the autocut function to automatically stop charging at 80% or 90% to preserve the the battery and considerably extend its mileage.

INMOTION (72V nominal/ 84V charger)	Connector	Wh	Ah	Charge* at 1.5A (1 charger)	Charge* at 3A (2 chargers in //)
V3	Lenovo	144	2	0.7C	1.5C to be avoided!!!
V5	Lenovo	288	4	0.4C	0.7C
V5+	Lenovo	460	6.4	0.2C	0.4C
V8	GX12-3	460	6.4	0.2C	0.4C

*For a 2Ah battery,  1C charge corresponds to charging at 2A. On LiIon batteries, a <0.5C charge is considered a soft charge, a >1C charge is not recommended.

Charge Doctor double input with Lenovo connectors, for INMOTION V3 & V5

 

Charge Doctor single input with GX12-3 connector, for INMOTION V8

 

 

[vladmarks]

Sorry, haven't been following the topic. 

Is this device allowing to keep the storage charge of the wheel, or restore dead batteries?

[HEC]

16 hours ago, hobby16 said:

I have added INMOTION to my list of wheels compatibles with the Charge Doctor.

Have you also increased the cut voltage? As on the last version (2.03) I've got from you (for which I've made my own adaptors for GX-12 and Lenovo Turn Square plugs and sockets) I can set maximum voltage only to 79 or 80 V. Also V3S have 20S2P battery pack to complete your list which can then be fast charged as well  

[HEC]

1 hour ago, vladmarks said:

Sorry, haven't been following the topic. 

Is this device allowing to keep the storage charge of the wheel, or restore dead batteries?

For the "storage" you can simply set the lower cut off voltage. There is no direct "battery refresh" function though you can also set the discharge cut-off voltage (if used with external load) and use it to cycle battery couple of time.

[hobby16]

23 minutes ago, HEC said:

Have you also increased the cut voltage? As on the last version (2.03) I've got from you (for which I've made my own adaptors for GX-12 and Lenovo Turn Square plugs and sockets) I can set maximum voltage only to 79 or 80 V. Also V3S have 20S2P battery pack to complete your list which can then be fast charged as well  

Good point. Yes, in the lastest version (2.04), the max cut voltage has been ported to 85V.

Charge Doctors after october 2016 are with version 2.04. Most users prefer the autocut by current though, so it doesn't change much for them.

[hobby16]

1 hour ago, vladmarks said:

Is this device allowing to keep the storage charge of the wheel, or restore dead batteries?

Yes. No.

To store a LiIon battery, charge it to 30% (even 50% if stored for more prolonged periods, eg >1 year , to avoid reaching down 0% by autodischarge).

For a 20S battery (Inmotion's battery), 30% corresponds to 72V so set the Charge Doctor to autocut by voltage ans set the threshold to 72V.

For a 16S battery (most other wheels), 30% corresponds to 57V.

[hobby16]

40 minutes ago, HEC said:

There is no direct "battery refresh" function though you can also set the discharge cut-off voltage (if used with external load) and use it to cycle battery couple of time.

Discharging may refresh a battery only if it's NiCd or NiMH, not lithium batteries (LiIon, LiPo, LiPoFe...). When a lithium battery is dead, it's dead, unfortunately.

I have implemented the discharge cut-off mode not for battery-refresh in mind but rather for testing purposes (for example for safely discharging to 0% without killing the battery in order to determine the exact capacity in Wh).

[nomad]

Nice! I want one for my V5F+. Is it ready for ordering, can't find it on the buy page?

[hobby16]

@nomad

It's all sold out. I'll have some again only in 1 week or 2. Please, send me a MP so I'll remember to let you know when it's available. I'll also tell you the price and how to pay.

[em1barns]

@hobby16, just ordered for v8 . What's the recommended setup for 80% or 90% charging?

[em1barns]

58 minutes ago, em1barns said:

@hobby16, just ordered for v8 . What's the recommended setup for 80% or 90% charging?

My bad, RTFM , it's all on your website. 

[Bram]

Looking awesome, dropped you a PM

[FreeRide]

Hi, have you ever thought of making this device with Anderson Powerpole connectors?  Then you could supply adapters for multiple devices for those that have more than one device to charge, or that later switch devices?  Or maybe cheaper you could use a deans connector if the power pole connectors are too big.

[abinder3]

So, if I was to get the Charge Doctor for my Inmotion V8 and use the same charger that came with my V8, the main thing I'd be able to do is charge it to 80% - 90% when the Charge Doctor is in series with the charger.  I'd have to get a different charger to run the Charger Doctor if I wanted to charge the V8 near a 1C rate.  Correct?

[US69]

35 minutes ago, abinder3 said:

So, if I was to get the Charge Doctor for my Inmotion V8 and use the same charger that came with my V8, the main thing I'd be able to do is charge it to 80% - 90% when the Charge Doctor is in series with the charger.  I'd have to get a different charger to run the Charger Doctor if I wanted to charge the V8 near a 1C rate.  Correct?

correct....or you get a CD with double input...and another charger of the same kind!

[Mono]

3 hours ago, KingSong69 said:

correct....or you get a CD with double input...and another charger of the same kind!

If I am not mistaken, there is currently no CD with double input for the V8 available, but maybe it's just out of stock.

[abinder3]

6 hours ago, KingSong69 said:

correct....or you get a CD with double input...and another charger of the same kind!

I think Jason at ewheels.com has or is going to have a fast charger for the V8. Maybe that along with Charge Doctor would be the way to go ?

 

Also, in parts of the R/C flight/car world, I've heard that it's recommended to fully charge the Lipo/Lion batteries about 15 times before they will reach their full capacity.  Do you think this should also been done before using the Charge Doctor to limit charging to 80%-90%?

[Chriull]

19 minutes ago, abinder3 said:

...

Also, in parts of the R/C flight/car world, I've heard that it's recommended to fully charge the Lipo/Lion batteries about 15 times before they will reach their full capacity.  Do you think this should also been done before using the Charge Doctor to limit charging to 80%-90%?

According to http://batteryuniversity.com/ fully charging liIon batteries a couple of times does not change anything (just reduced life time compared to 80-90% charging). Just some battery gauges need some full load cycles of the cells to show the correct capacity - they assume this "rumor" originated in because of this...

[Mono]

12 hours ago, Chriull said:

According to http://batteryuniversity.com/ fully charging liIon batteries a couple of times does not change anything (just reduced life time compared to 80-90% charging). Just some battery gauges need some full load cycles of the cells to show the correct capacity - they assume this "rumor" originated in because of this...

It has been suggested here, that only fully charging balances the cells, hence it should be done once in a while, say every other week or month. I don't know whether it's true (or relevant) or not. 

[HEC]

9 hours ago, Mono said:

It has been suggested here, that only fully charging balances the cells, hence it should be done once in a while, say every other week or month. I don't know whether it's true (or relevant) or not. 

Correct, full charge is needed to allow cell balancing.

[Chriull]

6 minutes ago, HEC said:

Correct, full charge is needed to allow cell balancing.

Ihmo thats only almost true -   if the charger is adjusted to less then 67,2V or the 84V to reach for example only 80-90% balancing imho still occurs ( ?once the charging current gets low enough?)

just by stopping the charging no balancing occurs.

[Bram]

I just used the charge doctor to charge my inmotion v8 for the first time. The app was showing the battery at 19% before the charge, and weirdly enough 100% after the charge. I didn't change any of the settings, so the cutoff is still at 1 A, I'm  wondering if the app is just wrongly showing 100%. Also I don't know why the amps started fluctuating near the end of the charge, any thoughts on that?

For some reason KST is not producing the graph for me even though I followed the instructions (http://hobby16.neowp.fr/charge-doctor-graphic-display/), do you why that is @hobby16? I'm running windows 10, don't know if that makes any difference... Since KST wasn't working I decided to plot the graphs in Excel:

 

[hobby16]

1 hour ago, Bram said:

I just used the charge doctor to charge my inmotion v8 for the first time. The app was showing the battery at 19% before the charge, and weirdly enough 100% after the charge. I didn't change any of the settings, so the cutoff is still at 1 A, I'm  wondering if the app is just wrongly showing 100%. Also I don't know why the amps started fluctuating near the end of the charge, any thoughts on that?

The apps are not at all reliable, their soft are always sloppy. They take no data from the BMS (like eg the coulombmeter), only the voltage and deduce from it the % of charge, no wonder it's not a consistent value.

As to the amps fluctuating, I have the same thing on one of my battery packs and it's a pack with a defect cell! Maybe your pack has the same problem, maybe not, hopefully (because 20S packs may have another behavior).

As to the grapher KST, I don't know what's is wrong but I can say that Win10 is not the culprit. The problem may come from the config file, the path to the ascii datafile...

KST may be hard to set up (some happen to get it work first time) and the interface is nightmarish but once it works, it works flawlessly.

[Bram]

Thanks Hobby16, I'll look into the settings file maybe that'll work. @HEC, I noticed in the other thread that you are also using a charge doctor, could you post a charge cycle or send me a log so I can compare it to mine (I'm still scrolling through the huge thread on the V8, so if it's in there later please forget the request). If anyone else has charging graphs for the v8 I'm really interested. Should there be something wrong with my battery pack I want to contact my vendor asap .

[US69]

2 hours ago, Bram said:

I just used the charge doctor to charge my inmotion v8 for the first time. The app was showing the battery at 19% before the charge, and weirdly enough 100% after the charge. I didn't change any of the settings, so the cutoff is still at 1 A, I'm  wondering if the app is just wrongly showing 100%. Also I don't know why the amps started fluctuating near the end of the charge, any thoughts on that?

For some reason KST is not producing the graph for me even though I followed the instructions (http://hobby16.neowp.fr/charge-doctor-graphic-display/), do you why that is @hobby16? I'm running windows 10, don't know if that makes any difference... Since KST wasn't working I decided to plot the graphs in Excel:

 

Hy Bram..

i also got a CD....

You have to know that even if you change nothing...there is an on off setting!

Only when the "1.00" amp is blinking before you start charge...it will work!

if "0.00" is blinking you are in the "autoshutmode" OFF setting.....