Lipo series charging boo boo

[elbutchos1]

Hi guys.
I have a couple of old Zippy 4000 2S 25C which I was charging in series for a long time now. The main charge series cable and the balancing adapter are made by yours truly.
Now here's the problem. Just got from hoobyking a couple of hardcased zippy 5000 2S 20C. As usual I connected the main charge lead to the batteries and to the charger, but when I tried to connect the series balancing lead to the second battery I got lots of sparky, sparky.
Basically I followed the same procedure as with the old batts but with different results. If I connect the batteries individually to the charger everything work A OK.

Before this all I checked all the batteries's leads with a multimeter just to be sure that + is + and - is -, you know what I mean. Charger is a Turnigy accucell 6.

Any of you got any idea what could have happened ? Now I'm afraid to connect back in series.

[esavage]

Could the sparks just be because of the voltage? My packs spark when i plug them in..

[elbutchos1]

YAY !!!. I fixed it. Almost shorted out my brand new packs because i'm too lazy to check stuff. Weird that this never happened in 2-3 years with my old batteries. I guess I just was lucky.
It's all about the orientation. I'll post a pic later today.

[elbutchos1]

As promised here's a little sketch I made.
Right side BAD ... left side GOOD.

[generis]

I was thinking it was something like that. great you got it worked out!
Say no to Sparky!!

[wwwes]

Originally Posted by generis

I was thinking it was something like that. great you got it worked out!
Say no to Sparky!!

I have four packs that I always charge in doubles (2x 2Spacks) like elbutchos so that the charger sees a 14.8V pack (4s). I use a Y-harnes and made a balancing adapter aswell. As elbutchos mentioned it's about the right male plug with the right female plug otherwise you get sparky.

So what I did was mark my Deans and balancing plugs to always match the same plugs. Marked them with X's and O's.
Just take a fine tipped marker and mark them after you have successfully measured everything with the MM.

happy charging!

[Aero007]

when charging several packs in serial connections, ya gotta make sure of the polarity match of main and balance leads.. if you dont, the polarity of the main leads and the balance leads can get scrambled up, which lead to burned balance wires. use of colored cable ties, colored elastics, or numberes letters/numbers works swell too.

in short (as in not short circuit) keep red with red, and black with black.



follow the wires, them lipos are all in serial connection, here i used colored cable ties to show where to connect what charge connector (within a charge harness)