Victor Engineering Charger Setup Question

[makoman1860]

Ok for all you other guys out there that love the smell of ozone and flux in the morning (tamiyadan im looking at you), I have a question about my Victor SuperIQ2 with the IQ3000 retrofit when it comes to setup. The nostalgia bug bit me and I dug this back out of my archives, gave it a good cleaning and replaced a couple caps that looked a little too puffy for my taste. Anywho its up and running just fine, but for the life of me I cant remember how to change the peak detection settings when cycling! On the menu chain for setting up the cycle it does not give the voltage drop as a value to change. Same goes for the cell matching special test, no peak detection value to change. So is it grabbing that value from a one of the 3 presets or was that not a changeable value when cycling? The manuals mention nothing of it......

[tamiyadan]

.

[makoman1860]

Hey Dan,
Yeah I got it for a standard charge, but not when doing a cycle, the script in the cycle has no line for voltage drop of any kind. Thats why im wondering if it takes that value from the saved charge program when doing a cycle. Yeah no doubt the CE is much nicer in that area..........but the Victor has vintage appeal!

[tamiyadan]

.

[makoman1860]

Dan,
Ha true CE is older as a company....but my Victor is older than my CE . Whats weird in the cycle script is that there is no voltage drop listed at all......ever let alone an option to change it . Hmmm I wonder if I change the voltage drop to 0.01 in the saved charge profile and see if it false peaks on a cycle.....hmmm. Yeah I just got some replacement faceplate stickers for my CE chargers from them.....they seemed pretty pleased that people were fixing up their old equipment.

[tamiyadan]

.

[makoman1860]

Dan,
I think I have it figured out, the cell size part of the script must determine the voltage fallback for the standard NiCd Charge, Cycle and Test functions. The NiMh side of the charger has an adjustable fallback voltage, but there is no test or cycle function that allows voltage drop control. Of course the engineer part of me is going to record a charge curve from this thing and see what the fallback is for the different listed cell sizes......

[tamiyadan]

.

[makoman1860]

Dan,
Well I had to check, the AA mode of the charge uses 3mV per cell as the fallback, the C/D mode is 9mV per cell. Charging a 1500 SCR type cell at 5 amps using the C/D mode for fallback resulted in a end of charge cell temp of 115F in a 62 degree ambient room. Seems reasonable.

[tamiyadan]

.

[makoman1860]

Dan,
Nope never had a Victor thermal probe ( I wouldnt mind one for the retro collection if anyone has one), I just use a K type with a Fluke reader. I did throw on a clamp meter and the amperage was pretty darn good. The nice thing is that for charging I can set the voltage fallback to whatever I want on the Victor, same as the CE. There is no reflex charging on either the cycle modes or "computer match" modes of the Victor, only a linear charge. I will run a back to back on a fresh cell and see how it goes......later!

[thepistol]

The Victor IQ's with script access/quick key functions are simple to setup for cycling NiMH batteries using the adjustable fallback voltage. Just program quick key #1 for a NiMH charge (or Voltage Pull Charge), then program quick key #2 for a discharge. Then go to program quick key #3, select "Quick Keys" this time (the Victor will recognize you are programming a script macro) then select 1, then 2 then *. You will then be asked how many cycles you want to run, and what kind of delay you want between the cycles. And there is Reflex Charging & D-Flex discharging available in ALL charges or discharges with the IQ3000 software. These are available by accessing "Special Functions" (#2) from the main menu, then "Utilities" (#2), then "Options" (#2). You will see the following screen:
1:REFLEX CHARGE:NO(or YES)
2:D-FLEX DISCHRG:NO (or YES)
pushing key 1 or 2 will change each respective option to YES or NO. Changing either of these to YES will change ALL of the charges or discharges within the system into Reflex charges and D-Flex discharges.
Hope this helps

[makoman1860]

WOOOO HOOOO there was the missing information! You sir are amazing ( when it comes to weird programming of old R/C battery chargers at least )! That is getting typed up and put in my Victor manual. I knew there was a way to do it, and the electronics seemed up to it, but honestly the manuals are a poor excuse for anything. I am going to keep up this back to back testing between the CE and Victor.....just for fun.

P.S. I think I found my problem ( one of many ), my copies of the IQ3000 manual dont cover programming scripts, but a quick google search including the word MACRO got me a Super IQ manual in PDF that does.....TAA DAA! Seriously.....I need help....this is a sickness......

[makoman1860]

Ok I ran a single SCR type cell in both my Victor SupIQ and my CE T35BL to evaluate it. This is to spin a 380 motor so discharge was set at 10A, charge at 4.5A, 15 min cool off period with a .9v discharge cutoff. Voltage fallback was .030V/Cell.

The CE measures 436 seconds, 1.148 ave V, 1211mAh, and 8.2 milliohm resistance.
The SupIQ measures 444 seconds, 1.15 ave V, 1224mAh, and 15 milliohm resistance.

The test was run on the victor first, then the CE, so Im thinking the cell lost a tad on the second pull. If I did a bunch of runs to get an average I bet they would get closer. All in all very interesting and fun!

[tamiyadan]

.