Simple, cheap, versital, battery conditioner

[theremart]

After getting my battery swapper going and seeing the real need to get conditioned batteries it hit me we are making this too complicated. All we need to do is turn the load off when we apply power to the charger. So I put a relay in parallel to the charging battery and put a common timer to the charger. The result is a battery conditioner that is scalable, easy to setup and automated.


Things that would be good for safety is to add a fuse. As well running this for several hours to check for any part that heats up too much is a very good idea. But into my 3rd day of this running, and so nice not to do this manually anymore Video coming shortly.

[theremart]

Here is my video...

I have been running this for the last 2 days, and I am very happy with how it works. You can fine tune it to your setup very easily.



YouTube - Video 81 Easy Battery conditioning

[blackchisel97]

resting time

Hi Mart,

Nice idea however, there is one thing which is important - resting time. After each charge or discharge cycle battery should be left alone for a period of at least 1hr, to let the ions stop their movement in one direction or another. If I may use an analogy to shifting gears from forward to reverse we usually come to full stop first. If another timer could be added, to provide this, say - 1 hr resting time before switching cycles - charge>>>stop-timed rest-discharge>>>stop-timed rest and so on. What do you think?


Vtech

[theremart]

RE: resting time.

Hi Mart,

Nice idea however, there is one thing which is important - resting time. After each charge or discharge cycle battery should be left alone for a period of at least 1hr, to let the ions stop their movement in one direction or another. If I may use an analogy to shifting gears from forward to reverse we usually come to full stop first. If another timer could be added, to provide this, say - 1 hr resting time before switching cycles - charge>>>stop-timed rest-discharge>>>stop-timed rest and so on. What do you think?


Vtech

Hi,

If I was going for free energy, yes I would consider that, however, if you look at the graph of the Radiant charger there is ZERO resting time. Rick Fredrick does recommend a resting time, but again it is something their commercial units DO NOT use as I am aware.

If you want resting time that is simple to add another latching diode ,or a delay timer to the load. This is doable. ( An idea just hit me, on the load use an inverter with a timer set to 30 min on 30 min off or what ever ) so the load would only be the timer and the inverter thus giving the batter a rest if you so desired it.

But since in looking at the graphs of what the radiant chargers do, there is zero resting time on them so I see no need for a resting period, as the radiant chargers that Bedini sells do not use them. My target is a battery that will give a longer load time, this method as shown is a proven way of doing that.

I think one could do a test and compare batteries that had a resting time built in to ones that did not and see if there is a difference.

From Peter insight here on the board, he stated that if you stopped one day of cycling then you can loose all the momentum built up in conditioning the batteries, I believe that, as in my testing I have done hundreds of hours of running and if I stopped the charging for only a few minutes it seemed to take a long time to build up the momentum that was achieved before.

I am willing to look at what others have tested in battery charging if someone can show resting is a better method, I am all for it. But looking at the real world use of the chargers I don't see it to be beneficial, with radiant type chargers with they type of batteries I have used.

Thanks for your insights!

[Sephiroth]

Damn... I thought the OCD was simple, but you can't get simpler than just plugging the power supply into a wall timer!

Epic win for Mart!

Great idea!

[blackchisel97]

Hi,

If I was going for free energy, yes I would consider that, however, if you look at the graph of the Radiant charger there is ZERO resting time. Rick Fredrick does recommend a resting time, but again it is something their commercial units DO NOT use as I am aware. Yes, and this is confusing for me, unless there is built in controller which slows down charging process almost to "0" before switching to discharge cycle I don't know.

If you want resting time that is simple to add another latching diode ,or a delay timer to the load. This is doable. ( An idea just hit me, on the load use an inverter with a timer set to 30 min on 30 min off or what ever ) so the load would only be the timer and the inverter thus giving the batter a rest if you so desired it. Yes, that's what I thought, instead of relay, first timer could trigger another timer set for rest period. Of course better way would be voltage controller which will stop at two preset values; high, say - 14.5V and low 12.50 (for example, depending of battery type) as time of charge and discharge may vary between batteries

But since in looking at the graphs of what the radiant chargers do, there is zero resting time on them so I see no need for a resting period, as the radiant chargers that Bedini sells do not use them. My target is a battery that will give a longer load time, this method as shown is a proven way of doing that. Well, I always like things being simple and working

I think one could do a test and compare batteries that had a resting time built in to ones that did not and see if there is a difference.

From Peter insight here on the board, he stated that if you stopped one day of cycling then you can loose all the momentum built up in conditioning the batteries, I believe that, as in my testing I have done hundreds of hours of running and if I stopped the charging for only a few minutes it seemed to take a long time to build up the momentum that was achieved before. Yes, I did notice that too.

I am willing to look at what others have tested in battery charging if someone can show resting is a better method, I am all for it. But looking at the real world use of the chargers I don't see it to be beneficial, with radiant type chargers with the type of batteries I have used.

Thanks for your insights!

Vtech

[theremart]

Thanks man!

Damn... I thought the OCD was simple, but you can't get simpler than just plugging the power supply into a wall timer!

Epic win for Mart!

Great idea!

Thanks Seph, I believe conditioning batteries the OCD/ my simple battery charger is much better than the battery swapper as it works on a battery one at time. The battery swapper is good at testing for free energy / attempting to get greater 1/1 charging. But looses energy with time with batteries that are not conditioned. Thus the need for a good conditioning tool.

I am so happy now that I have a system that should yield batteries that are properly conditioned. I really like the way yours are looking at 17V.

Mart

[sucahyo]

After getting my battery swapper going and seeing the real need to get conditioned batteries it hit me we are making this too complicated. All we need to do is turn the load off when we apply power to the charger. So I put a relay in parallel to the charging battery and put a common timer to the charger. The result is a battery conditioner that is scalable, easy to setup and automated.

Is it safe to discharge using timer? what if the discharging time is too long and over discharge and ruin the battery?

I ruin some battery by over discharging it. Never experience over charging since the battery never got hot while charging.

[theremart]

Safety Safety Safety !!!

Is it safe to discharge using timer? what if the discharging time is too long and over discharge and ruin the battery?

I ruin some battery by over discharging it. Never experience over charging since the battery never got hot while charging.

Nothing in life is safe Inherent in all things there is some danger the key is to limit that danger with wise things as FUSE FUSE FUSE, and going slowly and reading the specs of your battery by the battery manufacture. You can often find the PDF of your battery online, it is one of the best starting points to know the limits of your battery.


My suggestion is to learn your battery, if you start with the C-20 rule you are very safe.

But I have learned best to run this several several hours watching it, looking for heat or flaws in your circuit before letting it run for many hours. Turn off your circuit and touch all resistors, transistors and look for excess heat. That is a major warning sign that helps to spot danger.

If you look at the chart that is used on the Renaissance chargers they take the battery down to 8V. The key is not to leave it down at that voltage, also note that 8V I am betting is using a heavy load because the battery bounces right back after it has had that load.

The key to learning if you load is too great is to check for battery heating. If the battery gets too warm you are in the danger zone either for charging or for loading. On the BIGGER chargers yes batteries getting a little warm is normal like with the Jetijs charger, but you have big enough batteries that they can take it. Small batteries if you try the same trick they may just explode on you if you are not careful so always start small and slowly work up.

Always use a fuse. You can look at my video of my coil that was ready to catch fire. Large batteries carry a LOT of power and they need to be carefully watched, they are no toy. You don't want your house to end up like Tesla's lab.

I have recently killed a battery, not with the radiant charger but I left it on my solar charger at 2 amps. It does not have the same power as it did before so that is why solar charge monitors are a GOOD thing. I learned the hard way so hopeful you don't have to learn the same way.

As always check the level of electrolyte in your batteries low electrolyte is very dangerous as hydrogen gas can build up inside. Exploding sulfuric acid is a bad thing....

Be careful out there, we need our experiments alive

[sucahyo]

Thanks .

Yes I agree that constant monitoring is required before running the circuit continuously for months.

Where should I place the fuse? at source and charged battery minus?

I find the PDF can be useless when charging with radiant. Sanyo 1700mAh nicad manual mention that in order to fully charge battery in under an hour we need to charge the battery with 2600mA, 170mA for under 14 hour. Using radiant we only need to use 150mA to charge under three hour.

I think using 8 volt discharging voltage is too low. I ruin my battery by discharging up to that voltage and now the battery only have 9V charge. I have seen recomendation to 10.5V and 12V.

Nicad or nimh is the best battery for checking the heating aspect of our charger. If they heat up 1.2V nicad in an hour with only 300mA then there is radiant impurity problem on our circuit. My record is 350mA charging for two hour without heating (less than body temperature). I only dare to charge alkaline or zinc carbon for two hour top with 150mA. More than that will heat the battery up more than body temperature.

It is scary experience to know that our coil is about to burn. I experience it too a couple of times when experimenting duty cycle and frequency. I use same formula now for every 555 circuit. I use low output current for circuit with 50% duty cycle.

Edit:
Problem with fuses:
If our coil draw 2 Amp at 100% duty cycle and the fuses rating is 2 Amp, the circuit will the fuse broke everytime we use 100% duty cycle. But would the fuse not broke if we use 50% duty cycle for 24 hours?

Another problem, if we use 3Amp fuse for longer fuse live.
If the transistor broken and the coil powered at 100%, wouldn't the coil still heating up without breaking the fuse?

I think the fire happen not because the coil shorted out, but because the coil being powered 100% and become hot enough to lit the paper, plastic, wood or anything around the coil?

[wwdotme]

I run a resistor on my relay when running load test. it shuts my relay off
on the load around 12.5v
that way I don't have to babysit my load test. plus I got a relay on
a wall clock to see how long the load runs.
simple and works

[theremart]

Where to put the fuse?

I have been putting my fuse on the source battery. Each time I broke out in a very bad case of STUPID ( removing the charging battery lead while the charger was energized ) the transistor blew. then cause the circuit to go over 5 amps draw on my Jetijs charger. I use a restable fuse I can just push the button and replace the transistors cry a little bit, then go on.

The real problem I had was when I had a neo wheel. The wheel had a problem and stopped turning and stopped right where the coil was. This forced the transistor to stay on and thus continued to heat up my coil to carbon. Smoke filled the room and was not a pretty site. Since then I have bought 3 5 amp breakers and put them at the source battery. I think Jetijs has a great idea with a type of zener diodes ( see the solid state thread about those ).

[theremart]

Thanks for your input wwdotme.

I run a resistor on my relay when running load test. it shuts my relay off
on the load around 12.5v
that way I don't have to babysit my load test. plus I got a relay on
a wall clock to see how long the load runs.
simple and works

Can you give us a diagram or a video of your setup? Would love to improve this setup.

Thanks for your input!

[sucahyo]

I run a resistor on my relay when running load test. it shuts my relay off
on the load around 12.5v
that way I don't have to babysit my load test. plus I got a relay on
a wall clock to see how long the load runs.
simple and works

That is a nice trick. I think this can also be applied to the automatic charge and discharge based on voltage with additional relay.

[theremart]

Duh.

That is a nice trick. I think this can also be applied to the automatic charge and discharge based on voltage with additional relay.

Now I get it..

You put the exact value of resistor needed to shut the relay of your primary battery at the voltage you want. Since it takes X amount of power to trip the relay you simply adjust right under that.


As for the wall clock you have an Electric wall clock ( not an digital one) but an old fashioned one with hands ) that you hook to load. When the Relay kicks off you just look at the time on the clock.


Sweet!