A123 for ALL

[Pale Rider]

	Quote: Originally Posted by decoy26
	I want to thank Dick Hanson and Pale Rider for the help on the double battery connector for the Cellpro 4S. I got it all hooked up and she works like a champ. I cannot believe I waited this long to use it like that. NICE!!! Thanks again!

[cadconversions]

	Quote: Originally Posted by Zeeb
	...A123 DOES NOT manufacture batteries for model airplanes either.... The "2300 mah" packs we're using are made from two cells of a DeWalt 36 volt cordless drill pack. The guys who started playing with these cells are basically the ones who came up with the 2300 rating and you can get that much out of them, but the last 5 or 10% drops the voltage real quick. Not an issue with a cordless drill.

It's a small thing but the website is down right now.... However, A123racing was for "Hobby" use for model airplanes and vehicles and listed the capacity at 2300 for us. It was after this release that it was discovered that these were the same batteries in the dewalt packs.

Haha, I started this reply early this morning and just realized I had never hit the submit button!

[Zeeb]

Well okay, the 2300 mah rating is specified on the website. However I'm not sure of the timeline when all this stuff took place as the first I saw of these batteries was up at Dick Hanson's house in mid-winter and he was tearing apart DeWalt packs.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but.....

While A123 Racing does have a website that is currently under construction, when it was up it indicated a USA presence with an address and so forth. But if you sent e-mail to A123 Racing, you get a reply from Enerland in Korea. Been there, done that;

http://www.enerland.com/

If you look at Enerland's website, you see that they manufacture and sell Li-Po batteries and super capacitors. If you dig around a bit on the website, you see A123 Racing as a division of Enerland.

Enerland is a wholly owned subsidary of A123 Systems;

http://www.a123systems.com

If you go there, there's not word one about model airplane batteries but there is a section on cordless and if you click on that, you see a pic of a DeWalt cordless Sawsall. It also talks about the Chevy Volt and a number of other things.

How, why or when A123 Systems aquired Enerland I don't know, but it was that aquisition that led to marketing to the RC community.

So while A123 Racing does have stuff for us, it's an adaptation of the products from A123 Systems and they were NOT looking at the RC community when they came up with the Lithium Iron nano-phosphate battery technology.

Okay, off the soapbox and now back to our regularly scheduled forum....

[dick hanson]

There are now a few "Just Like -or almost like or sorta like -or kinda like the A123 cells on th market and they will work -for many --just fine.
Just to be succinct tho ---
They AIN"T like the A123
The chemistry is very similar
They are , in the same church but not the same pew---
The big difference? the ability to discharge huge amp loads with little or no problems . Does this matter in receiver batt setups ?
For many ?
No
These "lookalike" cells should NEVER be mixed with genuine A123 as impedance (what's that?) is different.
I don't work for or with A123 - just thot the info was worth knowing.

[cadconversions]

	Quote: Originally Posted by Zeeb
	...But if you sent e-mail to A123 Racing, you get a reply from Enerland in Korea. Been there, done that; http://www.enerland.com/ If you look at Enerland's website, you see that they manufacture and sell Li-Po batteries and super capacitors. If you dig around a bit on the website, you see A123 Racing as a division of Enerland. Enerland is a wholly owned subsidary of A123 Systems; How, why or when A123 Systems aquired Enerland I don't know, but it was that aquisition that led to marketing to the RC community. So while A123 Racing does have stuff for us, it's an adaptation of the products from A123 Systems and they were NOT looking at the RC community when they came up with the Lithium Iron nano-phosphate battery technology. Okay, off the soapbox and now back to our regularly scheduled forum....

Ok, it's a little fuzzy from my memory but this is how I think it happened. Not that it matters in the end...

Enerland actually acquired A123 not the other way around. Originally, A123 was the sole company doing their own stuff. A123 was first used in the car hybrid / electric market but was then marketed through horizon hobby using the a123racing division. That brought the attention to the RC market first. Then dewalt announced it's Lithium packs in 36v - it was discovered that they were using the A123 cells which then made the cells "affordable" for more hobby use vs the $20+ / cell that horizon was selling them at. In fact, before many people knew you could pick up the dewalt packs for around $80 and now most of them are all over $100 now.

You are correct, the A123 was never really intended for the RC market but they realized as we did that this technology is very appealing for RC use. However, there is more money for them in the tool market and hybrid/electric car market then they will ever make in the RC market. However, no one is ever going to turn down sales where ever it comes from.

BTW, I think you can find the entire history spelled out on the Rcgroups.com website...

[Kevin B]

	Quote: Originally Posted by dick hanson
	here are 4 matched packs I made for a friend -- plus two CellPro 4 adapters the dual adapter will do two packs (4 cells) at a time . the singe -one pack(2 cells)The JR plugs are 3 active wires. a switch mod is req'd. pretty simple ,very inexpensive (sorry about that ) and yes ,you do have to unplug one pack from the model when charging two packs - the setup allows packs to swap around in any quantities- to any JR RX

Dick, I made the 2 pack adapter, what is the switch mod you are talking about?

Thanks for all your help,

Kevin

[dick hanson]

	Quote: Originally Posted by Kevin B
	Dick, I made the 2 pack adapter, what is the switch mod you are talking about? Thanks for all your help, Kevin

Cut the "signal" wire from the switch harness so that you never apply other than th + - leads to the rx.
the 3 wires from the batt, are, of course, needed for the Cel Pro charger .

[Kevin B]

I am not sure I made the pigtail correctly even though it looks like the hand drawn diagram. I have a cell pro pigtail with wires R W W W B. I crimped male connectors onto the R W W B leads. I attached a red and black wire to the center W wire on the cellpro pigtail. I then crimped 2 more male connectors onto the R and B wires I added. I put all the male pins into standard servo connectors like this.

Cellpro Pigtail
R W W W B
con1 R+B con2
R W B|R W B
O R B|O R B
bat1 |bat2
I guess my concern is that the colors dont match up to what I see on the JR leads coming from the batteries. Standard polarization is from (left to right) Brown(-) Red(+) Orange(signal)

So the way that they wold join together battery to cellpro pigtail is <Brown(jr) to black(pin1)>< Red(jr) to white(pin1)>< Orange(jr) to red(pin1)> <Brn(jr) to black(pin2)><Red(jr) to White(pin2)><Orange(jr) to red(pin2)>.

Has this confused you? Its setting right here in front of me and it has me confused...

[dick hanson]

	Quote: Originally Posted by Kevin B
	I am not sure I made the pigtail correctly even though it looks like the hand drawn diagram. I have a cell pro pigtail with wires R W W W B. I crimped male connectors onto the R W W B leads. I attached a red and black wire to the center W wire on the cellpro pigtail. I then crimped 2 more male connectors onto the R and B wires I added. I put all the male pins into standard servo connectors like this. Cellpro Pigtail R W W W B con1 R+B con2 R W B|R W B O R B|O R B bat1 |bat2 I guess my concern is that the colors dont match up to what I see on the JR leads coming from the batteries. Standard polarization is from (left to right) Brown(-) Red(+) Orange(signal) So the way that they wold join together battery to cellpro pigtail is <Brown(jr) to black(pin1)>< Red(jr) to white(pin1)>< Orange(jr) to red(pin1)> <Brn(jr) to black(pin2)><Red(jr) to White(pin2)><Orange(jr) to red(pin2)>. Has this confused you? Its setting right here in front of me and it has me confused...

Here is another picture
the JR connectors ar NOT arranged Plus-com- Neg but Neg-Pos- common
follow the colors
either pack ADAPTER starts from the left - PLUS- then common- then NEG
combined -- the center plus and Neg goto the center white wire of the thre cellPro leads which leaves red to plus and brown to neg (shown in green on this picture.)
You have , simply, a 4 cell pack once connected.
You just use the two std female connectors and connect outputs by color as shown

[MR G]

Hey Dick,

That is an excelent diagram!! Thanks for posting.

MR G

[Kevin B]

Edited for content

[Kevin B]

Maybe ignoring my above post might be good. I look at my pigtail/jumper/wiring harness what ever you want to call it and it looks like your diagram. The part that is missing to me is the connection to the JR leads coming from the battery. Last week I bought materials from Hansen Hobbies and Servocity to make my own custom extensions, so I have plenty of male and female metal pieces, and plenty of the little black plastic pieces(connectors) and the little sleeves that go over the connectors. I assume that since I was able to charge to batteries to capacity with the simple harness I made, I understand the pin configuration needed to charge a single pack and that the jr leads on the battery packs are correctly configured to balance the packs.

Please, in as simple as terms possible, tell me the wiring order from the servo connectors to the JR leads on the battery, knowing that they are fixed as either brown red orange, or the inverse of orange red brown.