Spektrum S2200 charger storage charging issues

[brapsquatch]

Hey all, hopefully this is the right forum, forgive me if not. I'm still new to the site. And new to Arrma and LiPOS in general. I'm hoping someone out there has run into this issue and knows what's up. I'm feeling kind of down on Spektrum at the moment.

I've purchased the S2200 charger and a couple of batteries. It was this bundle specifically I picked up at the same time I purchased an Arrma Infraction v2.

All is good with those. I've since purchased 6 more batteries. Of those 6, 2 have had this problem where storage charging doesn't complete. It gets pretty close then the amps drop way down .1A and then it eventually times out.

I opened a ticket with Horizon Hobby and they replaced the one battery but I just purchased two of these and one the of the batteries is doing the same as the other one.

I should note, I've updated the version on the charger and I've updated both batteries. Spektrum has this thing that you can update batteries directly from the charger which is what I have done. Odd thing is that once you update them, you can continually update them over and over again. It's like there isn't a flag that gets set in the battery letting the charger know that it has the latest update.

Anyways, these batteries have 0 cycles, no fault records but one them will not storage charge to completion. (~60%) It gets to about ~56% then the amps peter way down and it doesn't complete.

I was hoping someone out there has had this problem and fixed it.

This thread isn't a thread to bash Spektrum and I understand why people use other brands and systems and I'm contemplating switching myself but I'm new and the idea of all the smart stuff working is pretty appealing honestly. It's nice getting telemetry info, simple charging, storage charging and having means to set defaults within the battery it's self like charging at a 2c rate and all that.

Thanks!
Lalo

 

[Senton_Prime]

I wonder if you charge it up to full charge then run it down in your rig and try to storage charge it again.. see if the 1 cycle parameter changes anything, just guessing!? What did HH say about the one you returned?

 

[RedOctobyr]

Just for understanding, are you trying to charge up to storage, or discharge them down to storage? I don't have any Smart batteries, but it still seems worth clarifying.

Have you asked Horizon about replacing the charger? If the same problem is happening on the additional battery, that sounds like the common element is the charger.

Does it happen on both channels of the charger, or just one them?

Edit: I'm realizing I need to stop thinking about these as standard-style chargers. With only a single communication wire, all balance discharging is presumably done by the packs themselves, sort of "commanded" by the charger. Presumably using the same mechanism that auto-discharges the packs after they've been sitting around for the set time.

On a normal charger, balance current travels over the 4 wires, 7, etc, and is dissipated within the charger. But that seems tricky with just a single wire that's mainly doing communication. So the inability of a pack to bring down the voltage of a certain cell may point to a problem with the pack, rather than the charger (in a typical setup).

 

[djrahbee]

I wonder if you charge it up to full charge then run it down in your rig and try to storage charge it again.. see if the 1 cycle parameter changes anything, just guessing!? What did HH say about the one you returned?

What he said. I've had this happen before and I'm pretty sure charging them up and running them back down should fix it. I've also had to change the time settings in charger( I have an Onyx) so it wouldn't time out early.

 

[brapsquatch]

I wonder if you charge it up to full charge then run it down in your rig and try to storage charge it again.. see if the 1 cycle parameter changes anything, just guessing!? What did HH say about the one you returned?

They didn’t really say anything. They just shipped me a new one and told me to keep the wonky one. The other battery I was having problems with at least had one fault recorded and would charge and empty ok but it wasn’t balancing particularly well and got much hotter than the others. I ended up dishcharging it all the way and discarding it.

I’m not conifident charging it and emptying it will do much but I’ll give it try.

What he said. I've had this happen before and I'm pretty sure charging them up and running them back down should fix it. I've also had to change the time settings in charger( I have an Onyx) so it wouldn't time out early.

Interesting. I haven’t seen any time settings in any of the menus I’ve checked and I’ve checked them all but I’ll look again. Thanks for the reply.

Just for understanding, are you trying to charge up to storage, or discharge them down to storage? I don't have any Smart batteries, but it still seems worth clarifying.

Have you asked Horizon about replacing the charger? If the same problem is happening on the additional battery, that sounds like the common element is the charger.

Does it happen on both channels of the charger, or just one them?

I’m charging up to storage. Not discharging. It seems battery and not charger related as the I get the same behavior on both channels with that same battery.

 

[RedOctobyr]

What he said. I've had this happen before and I'm pretty sure charging them up and running them back down should fix it. I've also had to change the time settings in charger( I have an Onyx) so it wouldn't time out early.

Only guessing, since I don't have a smart charger or anything. But given how clever they've tried to make things, I'd be somewhat surprised if there were time-limit or capacity-limit settings (which would often be found on traditional chargers).

I’m charging up to storage. Not discharging. It seems battery and not charger related as the I get the same behavior on both channels with that same battery.

OK, that's interesting. Please see my edit to my previous post, as well.

Do you only have this problem when charging up to storage? But is fully charging them (for use) working ok? Does the charger have a setting to control whether the cells are balanced when storage-charging?

 

[brapsquatch]

Saw your edit. You’re exactly right about the single wire.

I haven’t fully charged this brand new one yet. But the other one that was having this same problem would charge and discharge kind of fine. I say kind of fjne because I ended up discarding it since it was replaced with a new one. It was running much hotter than the others and wasn’t balancing as nicely as the other batteries as well.

The charger handles all of the balancing and outside of the battery I’ve discarded, has worked solidly at doing that.

I’m tempted to contact HH again but man I hate interacting with support and try to avoid it if I can. Haha.

 

[djrahbee]

Only guessing, since I don't have a smart charger or anything. But given how clever they've tried to make things, I'd be somewhat surprised if there were time-limit or capacity-limit settings (which would often be found on traditional chargers).

OK, that's interesting. Please see my edit to my previous post, as well.

Do you only have this problem when charging up to storage? But is fully charging them (for use) working ok? Does the charger have a setting to control whether the cells are balanced when storage-charging?

Mines not a "smart" charger so yeh it does have the ability to alter those settings.

 

[brapsquatch]

Mines not a "smart" charger so yeh it does have the ability to alter those settings.

This one may as well I just haven’t seen anything the settings thst resemble that.

 

[brapsquatch]

Well I'm going to charge them up, use them and try the storage charge again. I'm not confident but we'll see. I guess if it has the issue, I'll contact HH.

 

[Senton_Prime]

Damn idk sounds wonky.. whats the battery anyway?

 

[brapsquatch]

Damn idk sounds wonky.. whats the battery anyway?

I put a link to it but it’s a Spektrum G2, 6800mah, 11.1v 120c.

Just charged them and ran them for the first time. Rips pretty good! Scratched the itch if you know what I mean. Except the curb kiss.

 

[Senton_Prime]

Sweet.. let's us know how its charging

 

[brapsquatch]

Sweet.. let's us know how its charging

Yeah it’s not working. The other battery storage charged just fine in about ~25 minutes. The bad one has been going almost an hour, got to 55% and has hit the wall. The remaining time keeps bouncing between 1.5 to 3 more hours.

I bought these through Amazon this time. I’m gonna test their return policy on these. They’re usually pretty good with returns but curious how it’ll work with lipos.

 

[djrahbee]

Yeah it’s not working. The other battery storage charged just fine in about ~25 minutes. The bad one has been going almost an hour, got to 55% and has hit the wall. The remaining time keeps bouncing between 1.5 to 3 more hours.

I bought these through Amazon this time. I’m gonna test their return policy on these. They’re usually pretty good with returns but curious how it’ll work with lipos.

I don't buy batteries from amazon so I don't know. They'll probably just send you another one and tell you to keep it.

 

[brapsquatch]

I don't buy batteries from amazon so I don't know. They'll probably just send you another one and tell you to keep it.

yeah it's the first set I've bought from there and it looks like the return process is directing me back through HH. I doubt they want me shipping a lipo but it gave me a return shipping label. Oh well.

 

[Senton_Prime]

Yep send that to the warranty dept.

 

[brapsquatch]

Just to close this out, they're shipping me a new one, told me the other one is probably fine for use and is fine to store at 55% charged and to just keep it.

Sometimes I wonder if they do this as a ploy to get me to buy more stuff because I'll end up having 3 of these batteries, I am now going to buy a 4th. hahahah. It'd be nice to have 2 full sets of these. They're much better than the 5000mAh 50c ones that I have.

So long story long, they're replacing it, told me to keep the "bad" one and now I'll be buying a 4th so I have 2 full sets.

One final thought. I guess I could just charge it to 60% and call it good, but that requires baby sitting. The other thing I can do is set the battery to auto storage discharge after 24 hours and just fully charge it when I'm done with it and let it storage discharge on its own. Not ideal but a probably a good workaround for now.

 

[RedOctobyr]

I'm glad they're at least helping. I didn't think to ask, what happens if you run the storage cycle again, after it fails?

 

[brapsquatch]

I'm glad they're at least helping. I didn't think to ask, what happens if you run the storage cycle again, after it fails?

It does the same thing. Just basically nothing. The Amps drop to 0 and the estimated time remaining goes to infinity. Yeah the support has been pretty good to me so far. It was pretty painless. Send a couple pics, send the receipt and that was it.