Topic: Microcat charger nearly burnt my kitchen down!!!! (Read 11205 times)

ray t · « **on:** June 19, 2011, 07:13:54 pm »

Any Microcat users out there had any issues with the battery chargers??? I have just purchased a Microcat which came with a few accessories, including the adaptor that enables you to charge both batteries out of the boat. I have charged two sets of batts in this way over the last 24hrs, however, I have just gone to charge my third set and within 20secs of plugging them in, the leads started to smoke and before I could unplug the charger and unplug the batt leads, they had set on fire.

Thanks goodness it was only 20secs before it happened. If it had been a minute or two before anything went wrong, my wife, baby and I would have left the house. God knows how that would have turned out.

Roadrunner · « **Reply #1 on:** June 19, 2011, 07:47:23 pm »

I've not had the problem in the past.... however i always charge my battery's in an Ammo Case (you can pick these up in some ex army supply stores)

Drill a small hole on one edge of the case so you can slip the charging cable in and close the lid with battery's inside, be sure the hole drilled is a tight fit to the cable without cutting into the charging cable!!!

Put the charging box on the floor preferably a concrete floor, if you have one, away from anything combustible, like gas lines, (ovens) curtains etc...

Although it won't stop a fire breaking out it can seriously reduce how quickly it burns out, as the smoke will fill the case and suffocate the flames after a short period of time, This method of charging will not stop a fire if the transformer catch fire but that is less common then battery's going poof, especially lipos if not charged correctly, there bleeding lethal!

3 things to do ... check your house insurance policy's to make sure there up to date, and they cover fire ( you won't believe how many policy's are out there that don't cover fire!)
Make sure all fire alarms work!, and a nice strong word of complaint the manufacture providing that you can prove you did not do something silly like short the wires or anything to void the guarantee, some type of compensation, full refund of the product or at least a written appoligy should be make to you.

Me.. i would go all out and see what i can get, but im like that anyway.. something for nothing is always nice

tobyker · « **Reply #2 on:** June 19, 2011, 11:21:16 pm »

It looks as if there was a bad connection in that Tamiya connector - was there some corrosion inside it? I don't think it was the battery or charger.

Roadrunner · « **Reply #3 on:** June 19, 2011, 11:53:57 pm »

I doubt corrosion may have been the cause in new wiring, old possibly, perhaps if the current is arcing to complete the circuit maybe broken strands, hard to tell now since the damage is done, very little evidence to the untrained eye.

Only thing that occurs to as to why.. would be the connector or the wires around the wrong way creating a short that level of burning in only one section would be the sparks or heat build up in the cable/connector with such force, with a constant supply of 300mha-500mha for 20's is enough to cause such a problem, however if that was the case i'm surprised your charger didn't blow the fuse or trip the main house fuses.

I'm perplexed by what caused it i can only offer advice on what to do to reduce the risk next time. Check the connection is the right way round, get a charging box of some type, and check the cables for damage, normally you can feel breaks in the wire with the tips of your fingers while gently bending the wire while sliding it through your fingers, feeling for very faint dips or gaps.

treeboa · « **Reply #4 on:** June 20, 2011, 12:14:21 am »

using a y lead on the batts carries a risk if ones considerably more discharged than the other

malcolmfrary · « **Reply #5 on:** June 20, 2011, 10:25:34 am »

The actual charger should not be able to deliver enough current to cause a problem at model battery voltages, and generating heat requires a lot of current. A poor connection should have fizzed and maybe arced a bit to the point where connection was lost and the thing just stopped working in the manner of a badly designed fuse. Unless there was a fault on the charger (i.e. letting mains through to the output side) the only source of the energy is the battery. If the Y lead charges the two batteries in parallel, and two batteries at a large difference in charge are connected, they will try to even out their charge by passing a lot of current between themselves, via the harness. When rebuilding the harness, a fuse in each leg might be a good idea.
On the other hand, if the charger source is another battery, then the only limits are those imposed by the source battery, the charger circuit, or, as in this case, the capability of the connector, by design or circumstance.

ray t · « **Reply #6 on:** June 21, 2011, 03:53:17 pm »

Well I am using a charger with a 12v 500ma output to charge two 6v 7ah, 10ah and 12ah batteries for my boat. The charger a has a male phono lead on the end.

Would anyone be king enough to knock up a little diagrams for something I could make to plug between the charger and the two batts please. I do like the idea of incorporating fuses also.

Many thanks angain for your help so far

treeboa · « **Reply #7 on:** June 21, 2011, 05:38:12 pm »

dump the charger and get yourself a imax b6 off ebay, you can fast charge singly then, you can also discharge/charge, vary the charge rates the lot, never had one do that when charging in paralel but i have had the wires and one battery get seriously hot, one reason i no longer do it that way, may be one of your at pumps is semi blocked/siezed and thats dragged the offending battery down a lot lower than the other one

are you sure those packs are that size. last ones i saw for the `cat` were 2300 and 2600 mah, best size sub cells i got recently were only 5000mah and they were special order

ray t · « **Reply #8 on:** June 21, 2011, 05:50:47 pm »

Maybe a different 'cat' I think mate. My batts are 7, 10 and 12ah and are large SLA types that weigh around 1.5kg each.

Not a bad idea with the B6 though. Think I will look at one of those. Did have one a few years back for my helicopters. Do you know if these will charge the tx batt packs as well (9.6v nimhs) as the 6v 12ah SLA batteries???

treeboa · « **Reply #9 on:** June 21, 2011, 06:15:42 pm »

why am i thinking the at microcats on `race packs ??

yes they come with a series of adaptors, none the futaba plug though, easy to make up your own as the standard lead is the deans plug and everything plugs into that , i use mine to charge the nimh`s on my cat, the sla`s on the pocket rocket, the handset, the race packs in my tanks, the rx batts and also the 18ah 12 batts i take fishing with me, only diff is i have a big suitcase solar panel that i have strapped to the 12volt 18ah batts when the suns shining and im out fishing

mine cost me £11.80 plus £11 postage, not cheap p&p but still the overall price cheaper than anyone else in uk was selling for, just put imax b6 into an ebay search

ray t · « **Reply #10 on:** June 21, 2011, 06:19:18 pm »

Its the AT Procat that uses the racepacks. Think I will buy one now then if its gonna charge all my batteries. Did yours take long to be delivered from Hong Kong???

HS93 (RIP) · « **Reply #11 on:** June 21, 2011, 06:24:44 pm »

Ray in the first picture is the charger wire on the left hand side ? and the wire on the right yours to the batteries

Peter

ray t · « **Reply #12 on:** June 21, 2011, 06:32:59 pm »

No mate, other way round. The charger plugs into the gold phono socket on the right of the picture and the two batteries plug into the 2 tamiya connectors on the left (well, they did),

ray t · « **Reply #13 on:** June 21, 2011, 07:14:46 pm »

Why do you ask HS93????

treeboa: with the b6 charger, once the sla batts are fully charged does it turn off to prevent overcharging/damage/fire etc etc???

treeboa · « **Reply #14 on:** June 21, 2011, 08:02:01 pm »

hi ray, yes mine does this on all batteries and it also has an adjustable max time it will charge for, the manual takes a bit of wading through and does not always make sense , took me a day to realise that the final thing you do is hold the righthand button down untill it bleeps before it will charge

, you can also have a set of parameters for a couple of batteries as a pre set, only time my unit gets warm/hot is when i do a dischage with it, just be warned you can adjust the discharge down to a point were the battery will fail to recharge, mine came from uk stock - london, took 4 days to reach me, as i say expensive p&pbut still the total was cheaper than any other on ebay

Stavros · « **Reply #15 on:** June 21, 2011, 08:03:47 pm »

Why bother with ebay and Hong Kong lads check out the chargers available at www.componentshop.co.uk

Stav

ray t · « **Reply #16 on:** June 21, 2011, 08:08:28 pm »

I do prefer to buy straight from uk shop Stav and have already looked at Component SHop, however they dont sell them unfortunately.

treeboa: I've looked for uk ones on ebay, but all around £30 - £35 with postage. Will keep looking

treeboa · « **Reply #17 on:** June 21, 2011, 09:03:22 pm »

personally i would not worry about getting one from hk, they all come from there anyway, mines only a month or so old

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/iMAX-B6-Digital-RC-Lipo-NiMh-Battery-Balance-Charger-/220620904794?pt=UK_ToysGames_RadioControlled_JN&hash=item335e07d95a#ht_3555wt_1139

bid on this one, silly low
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/iMAX-B6-Digital-RC-Lipo-NiMh-Battery-Balance-Charger-/220620904794?pt=UK_ToysGames_RadioControlled_JN&hash=item335e07d95a#ht_3555wt_1139

or this one in the uk

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Battery-Balance-Charger-iMAX-B6-Digital-RC-Lipo-NiMh-/170658092674?pt=UK_ToysGames_RadioControlled_JN&hash=item27bc03d682#ht_2249wt_905

just bid last min and keep it low

Stavros · « **Reply #18 on:** June 21, 2011, 11:16:54 pm »

Quote from: ray t on June 21, 2011, 08:08:28 pm

I do prefer to buy straight from uk shop Stav and have already looked at Component SHop, however they dont sell them unfortunately.

treeboa: I've looked for uk ones on ebay, but all around £30 - £35 with postage. Will keep looking

Component shop DO sell chargers that are excellent I have 3 of them.£34.95 each they are made by Turnigy.Go to chargers section and then radio controlled and they are down the page,easy to use and IDENTICAL to the ones on ebay
.They will do all your batts with ease...and the beauty is they can be contacted with no hassle if anything goes wrong
Stav

ray t · « **Reply #19 on:** June 22, 2011, 08:14:01 am »

Sorry Stav, I didnt mean they DONT sell chargers, I simply meant that they do not sell the particular charger I was looking for (imax B6)

Stavros · « **Reply #20 on:** June 22, 2011, 09:49:07 pm »

Ray it is EXACTLY the same as the Turnigy,got 2 of them and a Imax b6

Stav

malcolmfrary · « **Reply #21 on:** June 23, 2011, 01:08:15 pm »

Looking closely at the pictures, the villain of the piece was the connector. Apart from where the wire is very close to the connector, the wire looks OK, only the connector has suffered, so its a good bet it was either a poor metal to metal contact within the connector, or a bad bit of wire adjacent to it. Either way, if the charger could only deliver 500mA, that is not enough to do that kind of damage.

ray t · « **Reply #22 on:** June 23, 2011, 01:29:12 pm »

It's definately a 12v 500ma O/P charger. I spoke to the company and they have never (admitted to anyway) had any problems in the past.

Think it will remain a mystery as to the cause. Bought an imax B6 now so should hopeefully be ok charging them.

DO you guys all think I should change all the connectors on the batteries and the boat then away from the Tamiya ones???

nick_75au · « **Reply #23 on:** June 28, 2011, 11:28:52 am »

The way that plug has burnt and the time it took it is definitely battery current (IE dead short) that has gone through the connector, I almost wonder weather for what ever reason that particular battery was plugged revere polarity from the others( long shot I know) or the gold connector somehow shorted ? in between charging sets of batteries.

Yes change the connectors, the Tamiya (molex) are notoriously bad for high contact resistance. The Deans style are the most common and reliable for general purpose modeling power

Cheers
Nick

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Author Topic: Microcat charger nearly burnt my kitchen down!!!! (Read 11205 times)

ray t

Roadrunner

Roadrunner

treeboa

ray t

treeboa

ray t

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ray t

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ray t

treeboa

Stavros

ray t

treeboa

Stavros

ray t

Stavros

ray t

nick_75au