sky-holic lipo balancer?

[tallyram]

is anyone using this balancer? i'm having trouble with it. please help!

[MetalMan]

What's it doing?

[tallyram]

the directions are pretty vague. i'm going to discharge the battery more and then balance it again to see what happens. i'll post again later.

[MetalMan]

It's not going to help to try to balance when the cells are below 3.8v, just in case you are planning on going that low.

[tallyram]

i went to 3.2v, i didn't see this post. same result as before. i'm using three cell packs, so when i plug the balancer into the battery three lights turn on. at the end of the charge/balance all three lights should light up solid when the pack is balanced, and then cut off completely when charged. that doesn't happen. the lights continue to blink and then the red error light comes on when the pack gets to 12.6v. i'm lost. here's a link:http://sky-holic.com/shop/step1.php?number=352

[MetalMan]

According to the instructions, if the error LED flashes, then that means that a cell has reached 4.30v, which can only happen when there's a large imbalance. All three cell LEDs shouldn't be on at the same time (besides when the pack is first plugged in), only two of them max. to indicate that it is lowering the voltage of those two cells. Does the "full" LED ever come on?

[tallyram]

only when first plugged into pack, showing number of cells recognized. after that just 2 at a time all the way to 12.6v, then the red comes on. i discharged the pack to 11.65v and its charging/balancing now at .3a. no lights are on or blinking. does this mean the pack is fully balanced? this sucks. these could be my last lipos!

[squeeforever]

Why not check it with a volt meter?

[tallyram]

i don't have one. tell me how and i'll get one tommorow.

[squeeforever]

I get them from Harbor Freight. When there's a sale, there usually like $3.00 but Walmart, Autozone, ect. should have them. You just check it through the taps. Thats actually how alot of people balance there packs. Just one cell at a time.

[MetalMan]

If no lights are on and you're charging then that means that the cells are in balance. You can increase the charge rate (you might have to stop the charge and then restart it), and then watch the cells' LEDs. What might have been happening before is that there was a large imbalance with one cell at a high enough voltage (4.30v) that it caused the balancer to stop.

[miniGranis]

Would be happy if someone can help out a bit since I am new to LiPo.

It this a good balancer for the MaxAmps 2S2P 8000 LiPo's ?
Is it a direct fit on the MaxAmps packs or do I need an adaptor ?

I will be using the MRC 977 and charge two LiPo's at the same time on separate channels, can I alternate the balancer between the packs, ie balance pack A on the first charge (pack B charged without balancer) and the next time balance pack B (and charge pack A without balancer aso.
Or would I need two balancers ?

I will probably switch to the Triton ICE in a while and then charge the two pack in series at 8 amps in the future. The MRC 977 will only do 3 amps on LiPo...

[tallyram]

i could never figure out if it worked right, so i got the flightpower balancer. the directions for the sky-holic didn't make sense next to what the balancer did!