It’s just a safety option to ensure the cell will not be overcharged or if you deliberately intend to restrict the amount of energy charged into a cell. According to the (German) manual a 20% surcharge to the expected/nominal capacity is a reasonable value to work with. I assume this option can also be set to “OFF” if not needed.
Thanks a lot for sharing your experience! I still have to figure out what values for TERMINATION and D.REDUCE (which seems to be the counterpart of TERMINATION in the discharge process) are the most appropriate in order to measure the cell’s capacity.
I.a.w. the manual I just learned that very low values will ensure that the maximum amount of energy is being charged into the cell at 4.20V cut off voltage (=TERMINATION) and the maximum amount of energy is being discharged from the cell at 2.50V cut off voltage (=D.REDUCE). Using higher values will let the idle voltage rise faster on discharged cells respectively will let the idle voltage drop faster on fully charged cells. The down side on using low values is a much longer charge/discharge process and the battery’s lifetime may be reduced due to more stress.
Makes sense, thanks. Have to look and see if the 20% surcharge can really be set to off or not in my manual.
I went to the MC3000 website and asked them if the rated battery capacity is the number I should enter where the menu askes for capacity and they said "You should set it according to your battery type and charger charging current range. Generally lower than the battery capacity"
So I then asked them if there is some type of calculation I can use to figure that out as their manual says as an example to enter 20% more or 4200mAh for a 3500mAh battery under the capacity info. Opposite of what they just told me. Confusing.
I just turned the capacity limit to off (I wonder if that’s safe) since I used to keep on getting “capacity cut” message (and the heretofore recorded data is inaccessible when that happens) — happens on NiMh, or on old high-resistance Li-ion batteries, where the input (charged) capacity will be much higher than the discharged capacity. So now I just turn it off. I just use the high-temperature limit to prevent batteries from overheating though (some of the old laptop-pulled batteries will overheat, and charging refuse to go higher at around 4.05v — so when this happens, it stops the operation once the old batteries overheat) I set the temperature limit to 45 deg C, not sure if this is OK or too low though. So far, on good batteries, it doesn’t seem to reach that temperature threshold though under normal operation.
If a charge is terminating on capacity, turning off capacity is not a good idea. That 4.05V stall you are seeing is an indication of a bad battery. I have seen that symptom many times with old laptop pulls, the battery is done throw it away. Can you give me some info about the NiMh batteries that are terminating on capacity, size, brand or anything else? That would help determine why it’s terminating on capacity.
Frank
I noticed in the setup menu you can change the backlight to Always On, which I did. I like it that way better.
I got in contact with a guy named Damien from the MC3000 website. Sent him an email and he said he will give me the info about capacity soon and how that works. His first reply on the chat was capacity is normally set to lower that what the battery is rated at. If we take the Protected NCR18650B from Panasonic, it is rated at 3400mAh, but "typical" capacity is rated at 3350mAh, so I'm guessing maybe that is what he is talking about.
For anyone Interested in how the options look in the advanced menu of the SkyRC MC3000 charger for making a program, I copied the settings I have stored in my text file for storage mode, but these options also display in Charge mode etc with some set to off for obvious reasons. Once you actually see all the settings, it seems way simpler. I just entered some basic info in the program and will start to read up on each option for tweaking. I initially chose 5100mAh for Capacity of the Keeppower 26650 even though it is rated at 5200mAh as the people at SkyRC said Capacity entered normally is lower than rated capacity but they said they will give me more info soon. Text in brown is what you can actually enter in the program.
PROGRAM [03] “Advanced” for Protected Keeppower 26650 5200mAh
BATT TYPE: LiIon
MODE: Storage
CAPACITY: 5100mAh manual says ok to add 20% value which is 6240mAh and tech says to put it under!
C. CURRENT: 1.0A
D. CURRENT: -1.0A
C: RESTING: 0min
D: RESTING: 0min
CYCLE COUNT: OFF
CYCLE MODE: OFF
TAGET VOLT: 3.80V
TERMINATION: 0.01A
RESTART VOLT: OFF
D-REDUCE: -ZERO
CUT VOLT: OFF
CUT TEMP: 45C
CUT TIME: OFF
SAVE TO: [03] <--- Just the program # you choose to save all these settings.
I just have a couple of programs for different batteries stored for storage, discharge, charge etc saved in a text file and after that, you just need to choose whatever program you have and hit the start button.
BTW, the PC link software shows capacity as the "charged" value and the SkyRC LCD alternately shows both charge & discharge capacity.
With NiMH, there can be a bit of difference. Threw me at first, and I illustrated this in a CPF thread HERE.
Was also discussed HERE
Thanks for the links! Time for me to start reading again.
Got the info back from SkyRC regarding how to set Capacity and below is what they said.
"The setting capacity is not forcibly stipulated and can be set or not set; it is only one of the auxiliary protections
When the set value is greater than the battery capacity, it will delay or not work
When the setting value is less than the battery capacity, charging will end prematurely, causing the battery to be not fully charged.
The final decision is whether the charging will stop or continue for the charger's own intelligent charging control circuit.
It is generally recommended to set a value equal to or greater than the battery capacity.
Thanks for doublechecking klrman! So, SkyRC‘s response is in line with the instructions in the manual, i.e. 20% surcharge to the cell‘s nominal capacity is a good way to get some extra safety but setting the value lower or equal might result in a not fully charged cell.
However, if I summarize the common user‘s experience on the TLF (German flashlight forum) and over here, this setting can be turned OFF for lithium ion cells for there are enough safety means in the MC3000 to prevent overcharging. For NiMH cells this CAPACITY option might make more sense as those cells sometimes have difficulties with their termination current, especially when charging at low currents.
I think you're right FlashTom, it's really more useful for NiMH cells than lithium since there is so much protection in this charger anyway. I charged some eneloops on my VC4 the other day and they seemed to get too warm for my liking, so will play around with the MC3000 and see how it goes with the eneloops. At least I can read what heat is coming out of the eneloops with the MC3000 and I think with the C4-12 too.
I find the default end voltage of Eneloops to be high (1.65v default). If the Eneloop is still a good working one, then it will likely terminate via negative-delta-v (-dv/dt).
But if the Eneloop is old (several hundred mOhms), then it just gets warm and won’t reach 1.65v (and doesn’t seem to reach negative delta v termination?). For now, I manually adjusted the end value to 1.53-1.55v (I think most other chargers are set to 1.48v), I wonder if it’s alright or not…
So much for my favorite "reliable" charger! My SkyRC MC3000 is failing badly. A few weeks ago bay #1 failed and now Bay #4 is failing. I had three MC3000's and sold two of them to my friends, which are still working fine, and I got to keep the crappy one! On a good note, GB is sending me a new one. I went over my battery logs and it shows I've used this charger 34 times so far.
I'm starting to question the long term reliability of the mc3000 as others have noted that the IR readings are starting to go all over the place. This is how it started with bay-1 with totally out of the park IR figures and then it failed and now starting with bay-4.
When you mentioned bay #1 and #4 failing, can you describe in more detail what failed?
It’s not charging properly, or not showing correct discharge capacity test?
or IR test is now “unreliable”?
My MC3000 (just exactly 1 year old now), have did capacity testing on a lot of mostly 18650s by now, and I frequently use the IR test (press UP & DOWN arrow keys simultaenously).
I’ve noticed some things: the IR testing seems to be higher than before, and I have to do a lot of tries to get the “lowest” values (which is not as low as before) — for instance, my VTC5s used to read 20+ mOhms, now they are more like 30mOhms. I thought this could be my VTC5 becoming “old” and develop higher resistance, but then I bought several new VTC5 again and they also register the “higher” IR readings than before. I think the higher IR readings are for all my batteries (I have some that I kept in storage condition and barely used — I have recorded their IR readings before, and checked again on the MC3000 and they appear to have slightly higher IR reading.)
I think my MC3000 is now giving slightly higher IR readings than before. I have cleaned the contacts (positive & negative) of the terminals but they didn’t seem to improve the IR readings. (ie. slightly higher readings than before, maybe 10-15mOhms higher than my previous jotted-down-notes for batteries I’ve tested).
Another thing: slot #3 & #4 capacity discharge test appears to give lower capacity readings than my slot #1 & slot #2. Something like a variance of 50-75mAh difference in capacity test for the same batteries tested.
(eg. if slot #1 & #2 give reading of 2650 & 2670mAh, then slot #3 & #4 may give something like 2585 or 2595mAh for those same battery…
I have yet to do a more controlled testing though, but the above are my informal observations… I wonder if my MC300 is also failing…
My MC3000 is the single-fan version. Is yours the dual-fan version already?
In bay #1, not charging at all but mAh keeps going higher. Voltage doesn't move as tested with dmm and giving false reading with mAh. Sometimes voltage starts going in reverse on the screen too. Crossed tested on other slots with several batteries and no problem, just bay #1. Bay #4 has not fully failed yet but almost. It's giving ridiculous IR readings and when inserting a 3.6V drained battery, often it will right away jump to 4.1V reading. Slowly going screwy like bay-1 did and I need to keep an eye on it to make sure it's working right when I can get it to.
Your IR readings are still not bad at all, mine were waaay off, I'm talking a 30 IR battery displaying 358 IR and taking endless amount of attempts to bring it down before charging if I ever can bring it down. Bay 2 and 4 still doing ok.
Mine is the dual fan mc3000 that I got in Feb of this year from GB.
So have another MC3000 question. Sorry if this has been answered but I couldn’t find it.
So bought it from Amazon. Newer two fan model. It came with FW 1.13 and everything worked fine, including Bluetooth and the Bluetooth LED on the side. After a day I upgraded it to 1.14, and again worked fine. About a day later the Bluetooth LED is now no longer on and no Bluetooth connectivity. I try a power reset, turning Bluetooth Off, then On, and then a reset to factory settings. Still no Bluetooth. So I return it to Amazon and get another. I receive it, and sure enough, Bluetooth LED not on and no Bluetooth. The setting for Bluetooth is On.
Are these things just faulty or am I doing something wrong?
Make sure you don't ALSO have the MC300 hooked up to your computer at the same time. As I recall, this will disable bluetooth.
The PC software does work, but the Bluetooth LED has never been on with this MC3000, even without the PC connection. Not the end-of-the-world but is nice to have.