SP140 (Founders Edition) - charger specs / which charger will be included?

Hello!

In the “Includes” section of the SP140 shop description a battery charger is mentioned as “fast charger (charges in 2.5 hours)”.

  • May we please get some details what charger is included?
  • Does it support 220 Volt (Europe) or only 110 Volt (US) input?
  • Does it charge the 2 kWh or the 4 kWh battery in 2.5 hours?
  • Is it by any means specific to the battery shipped with the SP140?

…I guess not, thus:

  • What are the biggest batteries it supports? (=> is it also suitable for other projects e.g. 14S LiPo)

Thanks!

I’m struggling to believe that the charger could fully charge a 4kw battery in 2.5 hours on a 110 volt outlet as that could take upwards of 18 amps with transformer inefficiencies and most house breakers are around 20 amps, but I guess it could be possible. I personally think it’s more likely that they are using a 220v outlet, but this is all speculation

As for charging other batteries, this charger is basically a glorified power supply. The paramotor battery has a built in BMS so it doesn’t need to balance the battery or even have a cut off built into it. With this in mind, I doubt that it could charge your other batteries.

Yes bob is correct, the charger is a 10a 100v power supply basically. So that would be equivalent to a 1kw so for a fully discharged 2kwh battery it would take 2 hours. And same with the 4kwh if it was fully discharged, it would be 4 hours.

We could do a 20a charger, but it might be a problem for some as you can use a 110v outlet, and some don’t have the 20a outlets, 15a is pretty common in the US. But if some of you guys want the 20a faster charger they are sorceable as that is what i used for awhile. Id did have a tendency to trip my breaker if I open the garage door. But i like this newer charger better as my routine is bacily fly in the evening, either plug it in over night or if i see the weather is looking nice the flowing day i plug it in after lunch. Or i leave it charged. Also this newer charger has a screen that show the voltage,amps, and indicating lights to show when its charged.

The charger is just a slightly more intelligent power supply, but you could use any 100v power supply as the battery does have its bms built in, and its rated for up to 80 amps of charge current. So you could charge the batteries up in 20mins for the 2kwh pack and 40mins in the 4kwh pack. But that wouldn’t be safe for the 2kwh pack as that would be over the max charger rating for the cell (which is 6A), So if you did have a very beefy power supply, the max time you could charge up the 4kwh pack would be 40mins will still being under the manufacturer’s safe rating. (you can see specs here https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0697/3395/files/samsung-40t-datasheet.pdf?6001754416888422053)

Now I wouldn’t recommend that as that would decrease your cycle life a lot, so that is why i think the 10a as a sweet spot, as it maintains battery health, and isn’t too slow as to get annoying and is compatible with most households.

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For a lithium chemistry battery without active cooling it’s unwise to exceed 0.5C charge rate.

Is it supporting 110 Volt (US) only or also 220 Volt as commonly used in Europe?
Many modern power supplies will support both out of the box, but getting a confirmation from you would be good.

Thanks!

Ya depends on the manufacture and chemistry, “lithium” is a broad category. I would look at the datasheet on the cells. But generally the slower you can charge the better. I have charged at 1c and didn’t measure a significant temp increases without any active cooling just depends on the cells specs.

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Can you also share the datasheet/specs of the BMS used in this battery? I’m figuring out a solar-based DC-DC charging system for these batteries and need to know BMS limitations (voltage spike protection, current, cutoff, etc)

Founders Specs that I know so far:
Battery
ABS construction shell
24S - 2170 cells
8.0mm antispark connector
8 Gauge wire?
100v 10A charger

ESC
ADP UHV 28S 300A? - https://shop.powerdrives.net/?product=uhv-28s-120v-300a

Motor
MAD M50?

My guess is that they are using these ESCs
https://www.ebay.com/itm/APD-HV-Pro-24s-100v-200a-ESC-30kw-Ultralight-Aircraft-Large-Drone-ESC/254683634385?_trkparms=aid%3D111001%26algo%3DREC.SEED%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20160908105057%26meid%3Da9534cee83cf4130a38f7aa92b2bc3ef%26pid%3D100675%26rk%3D2%26rkt%3D15%26mehot%3Dnone%26sd%3D193668671095%26itm%3D254683634385%26pmt%3D0%26noa%3D1%26pg%3D2380057&_trksid=p2380057.c100675.m4236&_trkparms=pageci%3A348ef052-fa03-11ea-b74a-74dbd1805f2d|parentrq%3Aa37594d61740a9e846968a2afffa1166|iid%3A1

24s 200A

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looking at the video it’s a screw terminal as well the first three letters on it says UHV.

May I ask where you go the battery specs from?

2170 / 24 = 90,416…
I might not be up to date with the latest battery tech when it comes to things like spare cells in large blocks, but I would expect an even number, e.g. 24S-90P = 2160 cells.

Also I expect less cells in total based on the weight of the single cell. If I read the SAMSUNG SDI specs of INR21700-40T correctly that is 70g each. 2160 cells would weight 151 kg / 333 lbs.

We would have a hard time doing any kind of launch launch with that weight :wink:
For the perspective check out the launch of Lauri Kadakas with 70 litre of fuel (18.5 gallons) on his
1130 km / 702 miles distance record flight. It is doable, but hard.

The 2170 is the size of the cell. Most people write it as 21700 but some do it as 2170.

Assuming the cells are comparable in spec to the Samsung 40T, I would expect it to have 240, 264, or 288 cells.

Thanks for the clarification @Bob27. I got it wrong as @tatawaki did not write it is the cell count.

Hopefully I don’t need this Ultra High Voltage ESC
https://shop.powerdrives.net/?product=uhv-28s-120v-300a

since I bought the HV-Pro
APD-HV-Pro-24s-100v-200a-ESC

@Pdwhite
Brining up my question from Sep 16th again:
Does the charger you plan to ship with the SP140 support 220 Volt input?
If this is not the case we cannot use it in Europe.

Does the charger offer controls or logic for measuring the battery status and turning off when the battery is fully charged, or do I have to monitor it?

“the charger is a 10a 100v power supply basically” does sound very basic and that is would require manually interrupting the load process right after reaching the target load level.

Please share some more details about the charger.
An example / some pics would be nice as you probably already have a bunch of them ready for shipping with the rest of the pre-ordered SP140 units.

Thanks!

There are 2 different models i have got the 110v for the US guys and 220v for the EU guys.

The charger is automated so you just have to plug it in and it will do the rest. It is set from the factory for the cell curve. Then also the bms is there for backup and it also shuts off for max voltage.

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So the BMS built-in to the battery has some sort of MOSFET that shuts off the charger completely if the max voltage is exceeded? Does this happen at >4.2V at any cell or >100.8V total?

yes 4.2 per cell so it totals 100.8. It will discharge a cell if it goes above 4.2.