Are Phantom Batteries special?

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Howdy,

I have two of the Phantom branded 2200 batteries that came with my Phantom.

For all my other planes and 'copters where I use 2200 batteries, I use a Triton Jr with an Equinox LiPo cell balancer to charge. My other 2200 packs are all Zippys and I have to trouble charging them.

When I try to charge the Phantom packs, they seem to charge and about the time when I expect the charger to beep, telling me that the charging is done, instead I get an error beep and a message that the battery has an open circuit. I get this on both of the Phantom battery packs. Are the balance leads of the Phantom packs wired differently than other LiPos?

I have also tried the charger that came with the kit but I believe it to be faulty. The cable with the banana plugs has not been removed from the charger so there is no chance of reverse polarity there. When I have tried to use the DJI charger, I plug it into the AC, plug the batteries output cable into the charger and then plug the balancing cable into the charger. The only then that happens (again this is for both packs) is that the charger will alternate lighting between the 2s led and the charging led (both being red). I can leave a pack on for 24 hours and this pattern of blinking red from charge and 2s led doesn't change.

Also in all my years of RC and LiPos, this is the only charger I have ever seen or used that requires the LiPo pack to have both the output and the balance leads to be connected. Why is that?
 
machead said:
Also in all my years of RC and LiPos, this is the only charger I have ever seen or used that requires the LiPo pack to have both the output and the balance leads to be connected. Why is that?

That's how the charger balances the charge between the cells, and if you've been using LiPo chargers and not doing that, that could be your problem with the other batteries as well. It's also best practice to connect the battery's balance plug to the charger before the power leads to insure all current fed to it is balanced.

The blinking light pattern on your stock DJI charger is probably an indicator that the internal fuse has been blown. I know you said that the banana plugs have never been removed, but reversed polarity is the main cause of that fuse blowing. You might want to double check your wiring to insure that the Pos(+) lead from the batt traces to the Pos output on the charger.
 
Thanks for the reply.

Yes I have checked, rechecked, double checked, checked until I can check no more the polarity of the charging cable and there is no problem there.

I really don't care to use the DJI charger anyway and so I would like to find out why I'm getting an open circuit error when using my Triton charger. I would expect that if there is indeed an open in the pack, my charger is going to tell me about when I first start the charging cycle.

As far as charging using my Triton charger, I have no problems charging non-Phantom branded packs with that charger when connected to the pack via the balance connector. That is the way the Triton charger and the Equinox LiPo cell balancer function together. The output of the Triton plus into the Equinox cell balancer which is then connected to the balance connector on the battery pack. The Equinox is placed into Interface mode and the battery settings are adjusted on the Triton (battery type, size, charge rate, etc). I then start the charging cycle on the Triton. The battery output lead is never connected while charging.

I looked at the owners manual of another charger that I have that came with one of my Parkzone planes. It charges the same way, only through the balance lead of the pack. Like I said, this DJI is the first charger that I have used that requires both packs leads to be connected.
 
Phantom batteries (at least for Phantom 1) are not special in any way, very basic actually.
I have been using my Turnigy Nanotech from my planes in Phantom and they lasted longer and gave better results.
Never used the DJI charger as I'm just using my Pro-Peak Prodigy II with external balancer.
i do have an open circuit beeping now and then when the battery is full, but that automatically stops the charging anyway.

So in few words, NO they are not special.
 
MacHead,
I have a triton charger, I use to charge all my lipos with it about 5 years ago and never sold it. If I wanted to charge the proprietary Phantom2 Batt pack. Can I still do this? Have you found any help with that? I agree the junky Phantom Batt charger is silly. I understand I will need to chnage connectors and stuff, I read something about a PS mode? Any thoughts?
 

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