NEW HOTA D6+ "Too high balancer port voltage!" error message - HELP!

[Nitro2Electric]

Any idea what would cause this? The charger is only a few weeks old.

I took my Kraton out and used my 4S battery for a normal amount of run time and until the battery was depleted.

I tried charging it today and am getting a "Too high balancer port voltage!" error message.

Could it be that the battery is toast? I hooked up a smaller 2S battery with no issues (tested both balance ports/boards and charging ports) - no issues.

 

[jkflow]

Do you have a small lipo checker and see what the cell voltages are? If not get one ASAP, should be standard equipment and they are cheap.

Connect only the main cable without the balancer. You should be above 13.2V or you do have a lipo issue but even that could be solved.
You can try charging for ~ 10 min without the balancer at normal 1C charge. Stop the chareg and reconnect with balancer cable.
I'd do it somewhere safe with the state of the Lipo being unknown i.e. outdoors or somewhere where smoke and fire doesn't matter.

I couldn't find any info on your error, my GUESS is that the voltage difference between the cells is too high. That would be the case on a 6S Kraton and stock ESC, you will kill your Lipo running until it 'stops'.
Could also be that the charger is bad, check for bend pins on balance plug and charger.

 

[Nitro2Electric]

Yikes.. I didn't know that. How am I supposed to know when I should stop running the battery in the Kraton? I thought it had a safety to cut off at a safe voltage.

 

[nino]

My BLX185's LVC usually works fine, but you can always get a lipo alarm/checker and hook it up to the balance port when running. It'll beep when you drop to a preset voltage.

If you have a multimeter you can check individual cell voltages (between wires on the balance plug), just take care you don't short anything out with the probes

 

[Outcastblxnut]

Maybe the balance board. If you have another one plug it in and try it

 

[olds97_lss]

Maybe the balance board. If you have another one plug it in and try it

Or try plugging the balance plug directly into the charger without a board. Kind of weird to see "too high" vs "too low". Especially on a depleted pack. Unless for some reason it's giving you the warning because the difference between cells is too great. Like one is 2.9V and the others are 3.4V, so the charger throws that error instead of something useful.

 

[jondilly1974]

Or try plugging the balance plug directly into the charger without a board. Kind of weird to see "too high" vs "too low". Especially on a depleted pack. Unless for some reason it's giving you the warning because the difference between cells is too great. Like one is 2.9V and the others are 3.4V, so the charger throws that error instead of something useful.

I e had some small 1000mah 2S packs have issues where one cell says ERR and the other says 4.6v. I pulled off the wrapper and checked the wiring and it all looked good. Checked it again and it showed 3.2v and 4.1v. Weird pack. My charger wouldn’t even allow me to NiMH charge it before I unwrapped it. After rewrapping it in gorilla tape it now balance charges fine. I have no way to explain what I did to fix it. None of the solder joints were bad. Wires looked good. ??‍

 

[Nitro2Electric]

Update. It appears that it is an issue with the balance wires coming out of the battery. If I apply a small amount of downard pressure on the balance wires coming out of the battery, the charger registers each cell with no error. Is it possible to fix this battery? Side note, it sounds like there are some rocks or dust inside the hard case, which cannot be a good thing.

 

[olds97_lss]

Hard case can be more difficult to fix as the case halves are usually ultrasonically melted together or glued. So opening it up destroys that completely and you have to wrap it with tape to keep the halves protecting the cells. I've taken many hard case lipo's apart. It's tedious, but you can use a dremel with a cut off wheel on a relatively low RPM and gently work your way around the case without going so deep as to damage the skin of the cells underneath. I've done that to 10 or 12 of them to tear them apart to make 3S packs out of 2 2S packs.

Once open, the ends of the cells are usually wrapped in polyimide tape you have to peal back, then you can desolder/cut off the balance tap and solder a new one on. I had to do that to a buddy of mine's 3S soft packs because he kept ripping the balance tap off, or they would work harden the wires over time because he didn't strap them down and they would break inside the insulation or right at the solder point.

This is one I made out of 3 cells after taking apart 2 2S hard case packs:

That's how they looked after soldering. I bought my own polyimide tape and put it under the balance tap wires so they didn't touch bare metal of the tabs and a layer or two over the top of the wires to keep them from vibrating/wiggling and breaking the solder joints over time.

They were SMC 2S2P 7200mah packs, 4 cells total with 2 pairs of 2 in parallel. When I was done, they were 3S2P.

Then I took the case halves I cut off the 2S pack and put them over the 3S pack, there was a gap in the middle, but I wrapped the whole thing with nylon reinforced tape:

I ran those in my 3S trucks for a year or so, then the cells started dropping off. They were old/used packs I used in my big trucks when I ran 4S.

 

[jondilly1974]

Update. It appears that it is an issue with the balance wires coming out of the battery. If I apply a small amount of downard pressure on the balance wires coming out of the battery, the charger registers each cell with no error. Is it possible to fix this battery? Side note, it sounds like there are some rocks or dust inside the hard case, which cannot be a good thing.

This is similar to the issue I just had with a small 2S pack. I ended up unwrapping it and that fixed it. I wrapped it back up with gorilla tape and it’s working now.