My Charger, a Vislero A6 will not read the batteries correctly.

[David Davis]

I have not flown an electric model for the past six months. The last time was in the summer. I was flying my Foam-E WOT 4 on a buddy lead and was so impressed by the progress of my pupil that I allowed him to continue flying until we appeared to run out of electricity and the model crashed! That's my excuse but it was probably good old pilot error! That was the last time I used my Vislero A6 battery charger.

I am currently converting my venerable Junior 60 to electric power. I plan to power the motor with 3S batteries. I had two Loong-Max Tipple 3000 25C LiPos in stock for several years which I had never used, so this morning I soldered XT60 terminals to each of them. I have also bought two Sigma 3300 3S 45C Lipos from a French supplier. These arrived yesterday and came ready fitted with XT60 terminals.

I plugged one of these into the charger and connected up the balance lead. Instead of displaying "LiPo" I got "NiMh." I was not unduly worried as in the past, LiPos with very little charge in them display NiMh and the drill is to charge the LiPo with a low current for a while then the charger recognises the battery as a LiPo. Pushing the buttons to get alternative batteries only gave me the choice of NiMh, NiCad or PB batteries. I set the charge to 1.3 amps and after a few minutes the charger started to bleep continuously and showed, "Current Err" on its display panel.

I tried all of the other batteries and got the same result. In desperation I got hold of one of the 2200 3s Gens Ace batteries which I had used in the Foam-E WOT 4. The charger had always recognised these batteries as LiPos but I got the same result, NiMh, low charge, continuous beeping after a few minutes and "Current Err."

I checked the charge state of all of the batteries. The Sigmas showed 39% and 42% charge, the Loong Maxs 28% and 44% and the Gens Ace 2200 96% charge. Room temperature 13C, input voltage 13.7V.

What's going on?

[Denis Watkins]

The balance lead pins in the charger need checking for misalignment or folding back or missing from being broken off

Also the output leads for continuity on a meter, and zero resistance.

It is very unlikely that a charger of this quality is faulty

If on mains, check the wall plug for loose internal connection, and check inside the plug top that all connections are tight and earthed

If powered by 12v battery, then the supply volts could be fluctuating, failing, or just not fully charged

[David Davis]

Thank you for the advice Denis.

The first thing I did was to check the balance lead pins. They were all there but one of the pins was dirty so I cleaned it with methylated spirit. Once dry I tried it again. It made no difference. Then I noticed that there was a second port for a 3S LiPo alongside the one I had always used. Connecting the lead to that port gave the same results.

Then I checked the wall plug and even plugged it into another wall socket. Again, no difference.

Then I tried to charge a 4S LiPo, connecting the balance lead to the 4S socket. This time it did recognise the battery as a LiPo but after a few minutes it switched itself over to NiMH and immediately gave me the "Current Err" routine again.

I'll swap the interconnects and let you know how I get on. I checked the resistance on the existing interconnects and found it to be less than 1 Ohm.

[Piers Bowlan]

Have you tried charging from a 12v DC supply rather than the Mains A/C supply, incase there is a fault with the internal transformer/rectifier? Can you change the battery type; LiPo, LiLo & LiFe? Can you select Auto or Man for the charge regime?

[David Davis]

Firstly Piers, I'm not very good with technology. I find that the instructions, especially the fault finding instructions are written in an impenetrable jargon rather than clear concise English, so I don't know whether I am able to select Auto or Man for the charge regime. I have had this charger for several years and to date it's always been very reliable and I've always just plugged in the LiPos and charged them.

As to selecting battery type I was limited to Nimh, Pb or NiCad with the 3S packs. As stated above, the charger initially recognised the 4S LiPo I tried to charge as a LiPo but later changed its mind.

If I can find the appropriate leads, I'll brave the weather and try the charger powered by the van's battery.

[Denis Watkins]

Forget tech for a moment David. You are trying to to shove a large amount of energy through very thin tubes

Into a big open empty barrel ( the lipo ), using a valve unit that is pressure sensitive, allowing flow this way and that way, for an amount of time, sensing how full the barrel is

At the same time, as the barrel fills, air escapes allowing the energy in. If there are any leaks or resistance

The valves can be confused into switching the other way, as the weight in the barrel increases

Or if there is an interruption on the valve supply, then the wrong switching of valves can take place.

This is all nonsense, but can you see a small thing is supplying energy into a big place.

As Piers says, now try 12 volt DC in your van.

[Dave Bran]

Firstly, I'm a little surprised that chipset is being used in a charger that has auto battery type sensing, they do not normally include that option.

Also usually that chipset not only is manual battery type choice, but also manual battery choice between LiPo balance and non-balance charge. Suggests to me the maker was pushing the thing harder than most case packagers.

Secondly, there is easily found info from enough users on the Internet which suggests this charger has a habit of failing to "Current Error". (And with some dating back ages with no solution found)

For the price of a charger of that similar amount of features, I'd bin it before it bit me.

[Dave Bran]

Further, Gens-Ace of the age of yours have a history of high impedance/internal resistance failure, they look OK, they appear to charge OK, but try getting current out of them for more than seconds!

I have some Loong-Max Tipple still in use, but they are old now and in your case, four years unused is unlikely to have helped them.

Get them on another known working charger, there must be someone nearby who can help.

[David Davis]

I've just tried the charger using the van's battery as a source of electricity. Same problem.

DB I don't think that the age of the LiPos is the problem. I get the same problem with the brand new Sigma 3300 LiPos which I bought earlier in the week but I will take your tip and have some of the batteries charged by my pal Gerard this afternoon.

I have been looking at replacing the charger since this problem first occurred. This one appeals at the price **LINK** but I am open to suggestions. I don't think I'll ever use more than a 6S LiPo.

[MattyB]

Posted by David Davis on 19/01/2018 10:33:59:

I've just tried the charger using the van's battery as a source of electricity. Same problem.

DB I don't think that the age of the LiPos is the problem. I get the same problem with the brand new Sigma 3300 LiPos which I bought earlier in the week but I will take your tip and have some of the batteries charged by my pal Gerard this afternoon.

I have been looking at replacing the charger since this problem first occurred. This one appeals at the price **LINK** but I am open to suggestions. I don't think I'll ever use more than a 6S LiPo.

I second the poster above - given reading the manual has not helped so far get the batteries you have onto a known good charger and check their status. If they are ok you know it's the charger - bin it, it is not worth the risk of operating in it's current state.

Re: a new charger, I strongly suggest you go with a brand that is well supported and has a long track record of success. The Junsi iCharger range have this and are relatively affordable - I still have a 106b+ that is going strong after 8 years of use. The other advantage is that it's 250W, allowing you to get into parallel charging if you wish to go that route. Alternatively HK do rebadged iChargers as their Reaktor range, and all the people I know with them seem happy. Having said that they seem to have dropped in price recently down to "too good to be true" levels, so I would tend to stick with iCharger in case HK have started sourcing them from another lower cost provider. YMMV.

Anyway, pair a quality charger with a long record in the marketplace with a converted server power supply and you have a reliable setup you can trust that will give many years of safe, efficient service. IMO this is a far better solution than buying cheap chargers repeatedly every year or two.

[David Davis]

Thanks for all of the advice gentlemen. I have been given a Imax B6 by a club colleague to try out. It has successfully charged three batteries but seems to take a long time to charge them. They are quite big batteries mind at over 3000mAh.

I may buy something a little more sophisticated in the future.

[David Ovenden]

David

I use the Reaktor charger (actually have 4) from HK and have found them fantastic to use. Simple, reliable and versatile.

You could also look at the Antimatter chargers by Charsoon (from Bangood) which seem to be identical to to Reaktor charger but re-badged. I have just bought their mains & or 12vDC 300W charger for £60 delivered. I am very pleased with it and the operation and function are identical to my Reaktor chargers so nothing new to learn!

[Paul Marsh]

I would resign the charger to charge non-Lipo batteries only. Even if it suddenly starts to work on Lipo batteries again, you mentioned it does then resumes non lipo charging.

THIS IS DANGEROUS!!

Best thing is dump the charger and buy another one(which you have - but don't be tempted to "have a another go", or else you will have yourself a nasty fire...best thing is put a label on it "Do not use for charging Lipos's".

Chris has a charger that doesn't work properly, it doesn't see cell #1, but puts 8v into cell #2, he only found that out when checking the charge voltages. Now he uses it for charging Nicd/Nmh batteries only.

You know it makes sense.

[David Davis]

Next time I go to the dump the Vislero goes with me!

I have a seperate charger for charging rx packs. I only use NiMh cells for these.

I am trying out the Imax B6; it seems to suit my purposes and a chap from another club is keen to sell me one of his old chargers! I may buy something more sophisticated in future but I'm mainly an i/c flyer.

[MattyB]

Beware there are lots of fake Imax B6s out there of variable quality. It might be fine, or it might not. As someone who charges large batteries in parallel I want something I can trust, so personally I would not use one unless I was absolutely certain it was the genuine article.