ZIPPY 4200/8200mAh LiFePO4 battery supply?

These ones went on fine, I did not trim the cable at all, but I was using the crimp tool. Glad this helped, good luck fitting yours.

1 Like

I just did it.

IMG_20200704_003954418_01_cr

It did not click-in, same problems as 2 years ago on the blue pack:

IMG_20200704_004016068_01_cr

Finished 45A PP in place:

Thank you agn for your post. Re-crimping was the trick.

2 Likes

Same as mine initially, the crimp tool I have required two crimps, one at each very end of the contact. Once the entire contact is evenly crimped it just slides right in as expected.

Glad my issues helped to solve yours! PowerPole directly on the pack seems the best option to me.

Need to make up a short lead for the KX3, I might try some of the silicon flexi wire that seems to be all over amazon these days, even basic 10A black & red is a bit chunky and not flexible - got to watch the grams :grin:

1 Like

Well for that very reason, LiPOs no longer feature in the power pack for my FT-857D. The new LiFePO4 packs (yellow) are now packaged with my two other packs. A 16.8AH capacity allows several hours of running and have been proven over several days use with gentle 1.5A recharges between. Bring on the next S2S Party!

1 Like

I charged my new 4s2p 4200mAh cell up for the first time after three activations. Looking at my logs suggests 240mins activation and the charger said 58% full when I connected it. Now 30mins of that time was low power 70cms driving my 13cms transverter. The rest is a mix of SSB/CW on an ageing 817. But I’m happy with that performance.

That looks very neat, I assume the meters on the front are voltage and current, what are the BNC connectors for, and not using powerpole for the power outlet?

Went to stick my under a month old pack onto charge today to find it’s bulging.

Claim going in, but that’s spoilt my plans for portable working next week :-1:

image

Bummer. What current did you charge it at? I charge both my 4S1P and 4S2P LiFePo packs at 1Ah which is 0.25C. Yes, it takes a long time at a low current. Before I got a super intelligent charger (Imax B6) I had a charger that only charged at 800mA via the balance port. So my old LiPos (4000mAh) were also charged slowly too.

1 Like

Only charged once since I got it and maintained properly since, which is poor.

Charged at 1C (with a B6 as well). Was planning to use a lower charge in the future - typical :man_facepalming:

Just for reference I have always balance charged my 4200 mAH LifePo4 Zippy Flightmax batteries at 3A and have had one for several years, no ill effects. I think you have just been very unlucky :cold_sweat:

2 Likes

Yeah, I was very surprised it gave up so quickly!

I’m (just) within the 30d window for Hobby King battery warranty so I started that yesterday. Hopefully they’ll just replace without the faff me having to send it back - think the pictures tell the story well!

In the meantime I’ll be restricted to car based /P.

I am sorry that I am so late to the party … I have just resurrected my Turnigy 8400maH Zippy battery which has been stored for a while. I have the Imax B6ACv2 charger and the Charger Master v1.08 software.

I want to condition my battery then use it with my KX2 and IC-705.

I do not know what my charging voltage or current ought to be!

Can someone please advise?

I also want to buy another battery so that I have one in use and one ready to go. Should I buy another the same? Should I buy a Graphene Battery (so-called) from Hobby King? What about their 20000maH offerings? Any advice welcomed!

Thanks and 73, David G4NRT

If it is the LiFePO4-type mentioned above, I would set 3.6 V as maximum charge voltage. This is the “LiFe” preset of the Imax chargers.
Regarding current, I prefer charging at moderate currents which gives the charger a better chance to balance the cells. I also always use the balanced charge program.
About C/2, i.e. 4 A works well for me. So charging time is 2 - 3 hours including the CV-phase for a fully discharged 8400 mAh pack.

I like the LiFePO4 chemistry as the 4S-configuration very well matches the voltages used by typical amateur radio gear, i.e. 12.0 V - 14.4 V. Additionally the LiFePO4 batteries are more safe, as they should not end up in a fire in case of failure.
For the LiPo technology, the Hobby King Graphen should belong to, pack voltage of 3S is too low and 4S is too high for typical gear.

73 de Michael, DB7MM

1 Like

Thank you so much Michael.

I will now try to save the pack although I think that I may have left it laying around for too long. I will try a discharge and then charge cycle and see what happens.

I will just have to wait for the Zippy to come back into stock at Hobby King. I cannot find anywhere else that sells this type of battery pack!

73, David

As long as the single cells did not drop too much in voltage, it should still be fine.

Measure the single cell voltages before using the Imax B6 and if they differ siginficantly, try balanced charging at low current. The B6 balancer is not very powerful and has problems when the cells drifted apart too much.

I do not know a supplier in the UK but the German supplier Eremit also has nice packs, even with internal BMS.

73 de Michael, DB7MM

I am not sure if it is good or bad quite frankly, The cells are showing 3.35, 3.35, 3.72 and 3.35v but the capacity fully charged (or at least when the B6 says it is fully charged) is only around under 100mAh … I cannot but think the battery is defective … I will try another discharge cycle followed by a balanced charge and see what happens.

I had a look at the Remit site. Most of their batteries seems to be quite low in capacity (apart from the huge 50Ah one).

73 de David, G4NRT

Why do you need such a large capacity pack?

Endurance without too much weight to carry. Initially bought for my KX3 but now I am using either my KX2 or my IC-705 and the longer I can keep going when I am out /P the better. I’d probably be quite happy with two batteries of half the capacity - as long as I can charge one while using the other!

73 David G4NRT

Well I can’t comment on how long a 705 will last but a 4200mAh LiFePo drives a thirsty 817 for a hell of a long time. I’d expect it to easily outlast 3x 1.5hr activations.

I assume this is after a finished charge cycle? So in fact the balancing has failed and cell 3 with a significantly smaller capacity (worst case about 100 mAh) was full before cells 1,2,4 could reach a fully charged state. You can try to get the pack balanced, again. Selectively discharging cell 3 via the balancing connector and balanced recharging the complete pack with a current of 0.1 to 0.2 A might do the job. In the worst case you will find out, cell 3 has lost capacity down to a rest of 100 mAh.
The 8200 mAh is a 4S 2P. So you could try to cut it down to a 4S 1P with 4200 mAh. I do all my KX3 activations with a 4200 mAh pack and after 3 or 4 hours other factors than battery capacity limit the operating time.

So this is the last post in this thread before it is automatically closed. I really cannot understand the benefit of this “feature” - propably the largest mistake ever made when setting up this nice platform.
@G4NRT feel free to open a followup thread - the typical workaround to deal with this problem.

73 de Michael, DB7MM