Author Topic: EEVblog #397 - Turnigy Accucel 6 Charger Teardown  (Read 74802 times)

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Offline T4P

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Re: EEVblog #397 - Turnigy Accucel 6 Charger Teardown
« Reply #50 on: December 14, 2012, 12:34:27 pm »
Epic fail ... but the charts for that particular battery was quite promising though  :o
Oh, only for the DX ones
 

Offline SeanB

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Re: EEVblog #397 - Turnigy Accucel 6 Charger Teardown
« Reply #51 on: December 14, 2012, 03:14:33 pm »
I just open them and drop them in water, then they react to an inert mass. Nice copper and aluminium sheet inside.
 

Offline G7PSK

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Re: EEVblog #397 - Turnigy Accucel 6 Charger Teardown
« Reply #52 on: December 14, 2012, 06:32:51 pm »
I had a Dell computer come in recently that had a dead NiCd pack it ran Windows 2000 I replaced the battery with a new one which was LiPo and sent it back running XP.
 

Offline HKJ

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Re: EEVblog #397 - Turnigy Accucel 6 Charger Teardown
« Reply #53 on: December 14, 2012, 07:36:23 pm »
A am also working on a test of smaller LiIon batteries: http://lygte-info.dk/review/batteries2012/CommonSmallSummary%20UK.html
Wait... are you saying you're that guy?

Yes.


All the *fire brands seem to be a "generic", the Ultrafire 3000 have also been known to be recycled cells...

Some of the *fire brands are sometimes acceptable batteries and at other times they are not very good.



It is surprising that it is economical feasible to make this kind of fake batteries.
 

Offline SeanB

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Re: EEVblog #397 - Turnigy Accucel 6 Charger Teardown
« Reply #54 on: December 15, 2012, 05:01:38 am »
Scrapped electronics provides the battery inside, and then the case is cheap along with the assembly. If you get spare cell casings as scrap then it is easier and cheaper.
 

Offline metalphreak

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Re: EEVblog #397 - Turnigy Accucel 6 Charger Teardown
« Reply #55 on: December 15, 2012, 11:56:59 am »
Hey Dave,

Have you ever used one of those electronic vacuum pump desoldering irons?

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/150830114062?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649

I just received this one I ordered and... its fantastic  :-+ Will see how long it lasts but it seems to be built ok.

Might do a video on it tomorrow, and show how easy it is to desolder the LCD from my turnigy charger  :scared:

Offline cwalex

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Re: EEVblog #397 - Turnigy Accucel 6 Charger Teardown
« Reply #56 on: December 15, 2012, 12:17:45 pm »
Hey Dave,

Have you ever used one of those electronic vacuum pump desoldering irons?

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/150830114062?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649

I just received this one I ordered and... its fantastic  :-+ Will see how long it lasts but it seems to be built ok.

Might do a video on it tomorrow, and show how easy it is to desolder the LCD from my turnigy charger  :scared:

I would love to see a video demo :) If you have a faulty PC motherboard can you try it to desolder some of the large caps to see if it would work? If you don't have a m/b I can send you one! Just PM me you address.
 

Offline metalphreak

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Re: EEVblog #397 - Turnigy Accucel 6 Charger Teardown
« Reply #57 on: December 15, 2012, 12:33:28 pm »
Motherboards can be tricky, because they have such a massive ground plane. I have plenty of boards here which I was planning on taking components from  ;) Part of the reason why I ordered it.

Offline T4P

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Re: EEVblog #397 - Turnigy Accucel 6 Charger Teardown
« Reply #58 on: December 15, 2012, 01:05:00 pm »
I always thought the handheld ones were nasty
It vibrates massively doesn't it? An Aoyue 474A doesn't cost much more and is much more powerful in terms of vacuum pressure
 

Offline cwalex

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Re: EEVblog #397 - Turnigy Accucel 6 Charger Teardown
« Reply #59 on: December 15, 2012, 01:45:29 pm »
Motherboards can be tricky, because they have such a massive ground plane. I have plenty of boards here which I was planning on taking components from  ;) Part of the reason why I ordered it.

Yeah, that is why I was interested in a demo of it. If something can do that it is definitely worth the money. Are you going to try it on a board with large ground/power planes?
 

Offline ttp

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Re: EEVblog #397 - Turnigy Accucel 6 Charger Teardown
« Reply #60 on: December 16, 2012, 10:49:52 pm »
Motherboards can be tricky, because they have such a massive ground plane. I have plenty of boards here which I was planning on taking components from  ;) Part of the reason why I ordered it.

Yeah, that is why I was interested in a demo of it. If something can do that it is definitely worth the money. Are you going to try it on a board with large ground/power planes?

I bet it won't be good enough to remove eg. capacitor from motherboard, you need a lot of heat for that. I find a solder pot full of molten solder best to remove parts from PCBs with large power/groung planes, just put the board on top and pull the part before it gets hot. Preheating the board works well too.
 

Offline metalphreak

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Re: EEVblog #397 - Turnigy Accucel 6 Charger Teardown
« Reply #61 on: December 17, 2012, 01:14:33 pm »
Doesn't vibrate much at all. I made sure I got the one with the twin diaphragms in the pump. Make a fair bit of noise as you'd expect.

Motherboard with massive ground planes (which is fine when wave soldering...) and lead-free solder = mediocre results. Just like a regular iron, it takes way too long to heat up. I did manage to pull off a few heavy duty inductors with it though  %-B

Works great for regular stuff. If it's a job you can do with a soldering iron and a regular solder sucker, you can do it with this, but its much easier  :)


Overall, it works fine, but I wouldn't classify it as a "Must Have" tool. You can get by with a $10 manual sucker for the odd occasion when you need to clear some through holes or whatever.


Tried to get a video of it in action but its really hard on my (currently messy) small workbench with the camera between you and the tools. Battery in the cam went dead before I got any usable footage. I have some time off next week for the holidays so I'll see if I can get back into taking some vids.

Offline ryansoh3

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Re: EEVblog #397 - Turnigy Accucel 6 Charger Teardown
« Reply #62 on: December 23, 2012, 01:20:09 pm »
Hi guys, here's my first post:

First, I would like to thank Dave for this tear down. It was first tear down of something I actually owned!

Anyways, I'm having trouble activating the USB communication feature for the charger.
My setup is as follows:

Charger side:


UART converster side:


Anyways, when looked through via a crude scope, I basically see the TTL signal shown below:



I can't figure out what's wrong with this setup and it's driving me crazy. Thanks for your help guys.

Cheers!
 

Offline McMonster

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Re: EEVblog #397 - Turnigy Accucel 6 Charger Teardown
« Reply #63 on: December 23, 2012, 02:14:39 pm »
I can't figure out what's wrong with this setup and it's driving me crazy. Thanks for your help guys.

I'd start by connecting the grounds (the third pin on the charger side I guess) of the charger and serial converter together. :)
 

Offline ryansoh3

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Re: EEVblog #397 - Turnigy Accucel 6 Charger Teardown
« Reply #64 on: December 23, 2012, 02:37:32 pm »
Thanks for your reply.

I do have the ground connected, shown in the picture via the grey cable. The purple's Tx/Rx. Cheers!
 

Offline PA0PBZ

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Re: EEVblog #397 - Turnigy Accucel 6 Charger Teardown
« Reply #65 on: December 23, 2012, 03:11:48 pm »
The signal looks ok to me, is this from the charger or from the pc?
Keyboard error: Press F1 to continue.
 

Offline aargee

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Re: EEVblog #397 - Turnigy Accucel 6 Charger Teardown
« Reply #66 on: December 24, 2012, 02:10:08 am »
I thought that was the thermal sensor connector, maybe one-wire data flow?

I wasn't aware the Accucel had serial comms support.

- Rob
Not easy, not hard, just need to be incentivised.
 

Offline ryansoh3

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Re: EEVblog #397 - Turnigy Accucel 6 Charger Teardown
« Reply #67 on: December 25, 2012, 01:47:26 am »
The signal looks ok to me, is this from the charger or from the pc?

It's from the charger, and I've confirmed that the UART adapter is working as well because when I short the Tx and Rx leads, it loops what I type in Termite right back to me.

I thought that was the thermal sensor connector, maybe one-wire data flow?

I wasn't aware the Accucel had serial comms support.

- Rob


It doubles as a temperature sensor and a TTL/RS232 serial output, which is selectable in the config menu.

Thanks for your replies.
 

Offline PA0PBZ

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Re: EEVblog #397 - Turnigy Accucel 6 Charger Teardown
« Reply #68 on: December 25, 2012, 10:15:22 am »
The signal looks ok to me, is this from the charger or from the pc?

It's from the charger, and I've confirmed that the UART adapter is working as well because when I short the Tx and Rx leads, it loops what I type in Termite right back to me.

Baudrate? Does the bit time from the charger and the pc looks the same on the scope?
Or maybe level? Maybe you have to invert the signal from the charger?
Although you should see something on your terminal if any of this is wrong...

One more thing: I think the charger puts out a TTL signal level, did you take that into account?

Keyboard error: Press F1 to continue.
 

Offline ryansoh3

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Re: EEVblog #397 - Turnigy Accucel 6 Charger Teardown
« Reply #69 on: January 04, 2013, 03:52:34 am »
Thanks for your replies. I just got my hands on a scope and here's the output from the UART adapter when I type something in Termite/Hyperterminal:



And from the hobby charger:




The only thing I notice is that the charger has a slightly slower resting voltage.... could that be causing a problem?

Thanks!
 

Offline PA0PBZ

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Re: EEVblog #397 - Turnigy Accucel 6 Charger Teardown
« Reply #70 on: January 05, 2013, 12:54:13 pm »
Can you show the same on the PC side?
Keyboard error: Press F1 to continue.
 

Offline ryansoh3

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Re: EEVblog #397 - Turnigy Accucel 6 Charger Teardown
« Reply #71 on: January 05, 2013, 01:21:37 pm »
Yup, the first picture shows from the PC/UART adapter output, and the second one shows the hobby charger's output.  :bullshit: (Didn't know that meter was for bullcrap  ;D)

The UART adapter reads its own signals without a hitch, but doesn't seem to receive the charger's at all.  ???
 

Offline SeanB

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Re: EEVblog #397 - Turnigy Accucel 6 Charger Teardown
« Reply #72 on: January 05, 2013, 01:33:58 pm »
Select a lower baud rate, probably 2400 will work.
 

Offline PA0PBZ

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Re: EEVblog #397 - Turnigy Accucel 6 Charger Teardown
« Reply #73 on: January 05, 2013, 04:06:08 pm »
Quote
Yup, the first picture shows from the PC/UART adapter output, and the second one shows the hobby charger's output.
Sorry, I was thinking RS232 but you use a USB converter so there is no RS232 side.
What happens when you just connect the TX and RX pins here, do the characters you type get echoed on the screen?



Quote
Select a lower baud rate, probably 2400 will work.

AFAIK the charger works at 9600 baud.
Keyboard error: Press F1 to continue.
 

Offline ryansoh3

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Re: EEVblog #397 - Turnigy Accucel 6 Charger Teardown
« Reply #74 on: January 05, 2013, 04:08:05 pm »
Yup, if I short the Rx and Tx pins, I what I typed is echoed and comes back to Termite/Hyperterminal, so the UART adapter itself seems to be working properly.
 


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