# are there any alternatives to the PFC3000 for a 3000 Watt charger?



## brainzel (Jun 15, 2009)

Look at Atech. Prepare your data, take your phone and ask or write an e-mail.
They are general representation of Zivan in germany I think.
I bought my Zivan NG3 (one phase, 2kW) charger there but they have also NG5/NG7/NG9 (three phase up to 72kW).


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## miernik (Nov 28, 2009)

gottdi said:


> Rebranded Chinese and it is a good charger. However you need to know what voltage, pack size and how many batteries your going to use.


Did anyone manage to hack it how to reprogram the charger for different voltages by yourself?

So if I change my pack topology, which is likely at some point, I don't have to send it back - sending things back is not an option for me, I'd rather reverse engineer and take the thing apart to pieces then send it back for reprogramming.


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## brainzel (Jun 15, 2009)

Zivan NG3 - 738,41 € inkl. taxes and shipping within germany, german support with hotline, adjustable voltage (+/- 10%) and current.
My charger was delivered at 136,8V and is adjustable up to 157,8V (+15,35%).
If I want more changes to be made, I have to send it to f.ex. Atech (germany) and get it back a week later.

If you buy a Elcon (or similar) charger in america or china, there are some additional costs like shipping an taxes (+19% to the hole amount) and a "Zollgebühr".

So check everything before choose your equipment.


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## miernik (Nov 28, 2009)

brainzel said:


> Zivan NG3 - 738,41 € inkl. taxes and shipping within germany, german support with hotline, adjustable voltage (+/- 10%) and current.
> My charger was delivered at 136,8V and is adjustable up to 157,8V (+15,35%).
> If I want more changes to be made, I have to send it to f.ex. Atech (germany) and get it back a week later.
> 
> If you buy a Elcon (or similar) charger in america or china, there are some additional costs like shipping an taxes (+19% to the hole amount) and a "Zollgebühr".


I am more interested in which one is more hackable (for example can be reconfigured for a different voltage DIY in an "unofficial" way). Sending it back is a no-no for me, its not about the cost, but about the inner desire to do myself what I possibly can, and not to have to rely on commercial services. 

It is a sign of independence for me! And I will defend my independence, and I will pay more for a charger which will allow me to be independent from the manufacturer from the moment I first get the charger. Independence = hackable, reconfigurable, repairable by persons other then manufacturer-approved.


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## miernik (Nov 28, 2009)

gottdi said:


> Well if money is no problem then get a brusa. No need to hack which is not the right way. The brusa is an excellent charger, just don't let a BMS take over it's functions. The brusa is fully able to control it's self.


Well, no, the budget is limited, and besides that devices which try to be more intelligent then me and do everything by themselves and not allow to get hacked by me - that usually ends-up badly, at one point I will really want the charger to do something in a way I want it to get done, and I will know what I am doing, but the charger will "know better" and not allow me.

No no no, no super-expensive non-hackable maintenance-free devices for me please.

I want a charger which is DIY-friendly, hackable, modifiable, repairable outside the manufacturer-approved places. No matter how intelligent the charger tries to be, sooner or later you'll find me opening the case and soldering something in there, that's how it is!


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## frodus (Apr 12, 2008)

Then go build one.

Not gonna find much "hackable" stuff in that power range or voltage level.


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## miernik (Nov 28, 2009)

gottdi said:


> Looks like you need to build one. By the way, what do you really red a charger to do? It needs to stop at pre determined setting, programmable for specific algorithmx, and able to use either 110 or 220 power and up to 100 amps.


Building one from scratch is overkill. Yes, thats what it does, so by "hackable" I mean I want to be able to reprogram the output voltage myself (even if its unofficial, undocumented, but somehow available through findings of some hackers) instead of having to send it back.

So far I found some ElCon PFC3000 info here: http://eprotege.blogspot.com/2009/05/progress-report.html

If I'll find there is a way to reprogram it from 192V to 144V output for example, by yourself without sending it anyway, I'll be happy to buy it. Otherwise I'll look for other options.


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## frodus (Apr 12, 2008)

Probably not going to happen since they're built different. They're built for "ranges" and 144 to 192 is too much of a jump for most of the chargers. 

If you want a no hassle charger you can suit to your needs (current and voltage), get a Manzanita Micro charger.

You don't want to build it, you don't want to pay for it, but you want all the features and ability to suit it to your needs.....

Welcome to the club, but after 4 years of specifying parts and datamining in the EV world, it doesn't really happen.


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## Coulomb (Apr 22, 2009)

miernik said:


> I want to be able to reprogram the output voltage myself (even if its unofficial,...


I have a 312 V 5.5 A Elcon charger with the CAN bus option (a different model, not just an add-on) and can program the output voltage from just under 200 V to about 416 V. So if you bought a 144 V model, you could do 96 V (at less current) then change to 144 V later.

[ Edit: it was pointed out later that I misread the voltages; they were 144 and 192. So I should have suggested getting a 192 V charger, and it might still be able to do 144 V at less current. ]


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## frodus (Apr 12, 2008)

Coulomb said:


> I have a 312 (?) V Elcon with the CAN bus option (a different model, not just an add-on) and can program the output voltage from just under 200 V to about 416 V. So if you bought a 144 V model, you could do 96 V (at less current) then change to 144 V later.


Do you know that for certain Coulomb?

most 96V models only goes to 136V. 

One model (TCCH-96-18 AKA "PFC-2000+", a 2000W model) goes from 96V to 168V, but some websites have conflicting information. I'd double check before buying an Elcon to make sure it has that wide of an output range.


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## Coulomb (Apr 22, 2009)

frodus said:


> Do you know that for certain Coulomb?


I know my model does the range stated.



> most 96V models only goes to 136V.


That's why I suggested purchasing a 144 V model, if you want 96 V now and are thinking of 144 V later. But you get less current from a 144 V model, of course, so if you never go to 144 V, you're wasting a lot of charger capacity, and charges will take longer than they need to.

So this flexibility is better for the situation where you have a tight voltage constraint, say a Curtis 1238-7501 (AC, 130 V max input). You might start with 35 cells, then try 36 or even 38, and not have to send the charger off somewhere to get the voltage changed.

It's also better for LiFe than lead, since with CAN you have to do the algorithm yourself (bulk/absorb/float with occasional equalization); LiFe is easy (just set the voltage and current limits; the charger will CC then CV automatically).



> One model (TCCH-96-18 AKA "PFC-2000+", a 2000W model) goes from 96V to 168V, but some websites have conflicting information.


Not all wattage models have the same range, that's true.

Also, while 168 V sounds plenty for a 144 V nominal vehicle, it's not enough to charge lead acid (14 V per nominal 12 V module, although 3.7 VPC is probably enough for a 45 cell LiFe pack).



> I'd double check before buying an Elcon to make sure it has that wide of an output range.


Definitely.

The basic problem is that packs can require quite a range of voltage from dead flat to equalising (say 2.0 to 3.7 VPC, a 185% difference), so changing the pack voltage by 50% (96 to 144 VC for example) on top of that is basically a huge ask.


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## frodus (Apr 12, 2008)

> I know my model does the range stated.


What model, might be useful for the OP. 



> That's why I suggested purchasing a 144 V model, if you want 96 V now and are thinking of 144 V later. But you get less current from a 144 V model, of course, so if you never go to 144 V, you're wasting a lot of charger capacity, and charges will take longer than they need to.


So it'l go lower than its "nominal" range? it only has a "max" voltage on the datasheets, but no minimum. Agreed, best to check with Elcon.



> So this flexibility is better for the situation where you have a tight voltage constraint, say a Curtis 1238-7501 (AC, 130 V max input). You might start with 35 cells, then try 36 or even 38, and not have to send the charger off somewhere to get the voltage changed.


Yeah, I totally agree. It's one of the reasons I decided to max out my controller/charger with 32S for the 1238-7501.



> It's also better for LiFe than lead, since with CAN you have to do the algorithm yourself (bulk/absorb/float with occasional equalization); LiFe is easy (just set the voltage and current limits; the charger will CC then CV automatically).


Have you played with the Canbus on the elcon? Does it need something constantly telling it what to do, or do you just set the parameters? I might consider getting one if the canbus works well.


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## Coulomb (Apr 22, 2009)

frodus said:


> What model, might be useful for the OP.


It's a TCCH-312-5.5-CAN2, per the sticker:












> So it'l go lower than its "nominal" range? it only has a "max" voltage on the datasheets, but no minimum.


Yes, but we only found this out by trial and error. Our best theory is that the charger rejects a pack that it thinks has less than 2.0 VPC average. Being 312 V nominal, we experimented and found that it probably takes the nominal cell voltage as 3.25, so it thinks it's a 96S pack, so 2.0 VPC comes to 192 V. We haven't experimented to prove that 192 is the threshold. Certainly, just under 200 V works. It certainly won't charge a 50 V pack (16 LiFe cells).



> Have you played with the Canbus on the elcon?


Yes, except that we read somewhere that it can only handle a maximum of 2 packets per second, so it would need a dedicated CAN bus. So we experimented with the serial interface, and we feed it CAN-like packets through the 2400 bps serial port. See for example
http://forums.aeva.asn.au/forum_posts.asp?TID=980&PID=26610#26610

For more information, go to the index post and scroll down to the Charger section, and follow the links.



> Does it need something constantly telling it what to do, or do you just set the parameters?


You can just set the voltage and current, but it will throw an error if it doesn't see a CAN (or RS232 fake CAN) packet every 10 seconds. But you can just send it "247 V 5.5 A" over and over, and it will CC to 5.5 A (its limit) until the voltage reaches 247 V, and then limit the current such that the voltage doesn't exceed 247 V.

We're finding a rather weird effect whereby the current drops back for apparently silly reasons. One seems to be temperature related; running a fan over the heatsink seems to help (with a long time constant). The other thing is that if you interrupt charging and then restart, it seems to ramp up the current over about a minute or two. Otherwise, it seems like a good, inexpensive charger.


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## miernik (Nov 28, 2009)

Coulomb said:


> I know my model does the range stated.
> 
> That's why I suggested purchasing a 144 V model, if you want 96 V now and are thinking of 144 V later. But you get less current from a 144 V model, of course, so if you never go to 144 V, you're wasting a lot of charger capacity, and charges will take longer than they need to.


You misread my post, I wrote 192V, not 96V. And by 192V I meant for 192V nominal, so in fact I need 64 * 3.6 = 230.4V. And maybe I'd like to go up to 3.7V, so max voltage would be nice to be 236.8V. That's for a 64S LiFePO4 pack.

I would like to be able to go down to a 32S pack in case I decide to halve it, so a lower limit of 115.2V would be needed.

Do you think one of their models would do that?

The TCCH-192-12.4 model goes up to 258V which would be more then enough, but how much down do you think it will go? According to your calculations only 120V, which divided by 32 gives 3.75V and that would overcharge a 32S pack too much.

Their lower model TCCH-156-14 has nominal 156V, would go down to 96V according to your calculations, but it has a max of only 217V which is not enough - that would give 3.39V per cell on a 64S pack.

Any chance they have a model in between, like a 13Amp model or something?

Or maybe one of them can be stretched just a tiny 5% more?

Also, can the charging rate (of the CC phase) be modified, or is it always fixed at the nominal, and only the voltage can be modified?

If I choose the TCCH-192-12.4 model, it will always start charging with 12.4 A, is it possible to impose a lower limit, if sometimes I want to charge a pack with only say max 5A or something?


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## Coulomb (Apr 22, 2009)

miernik said:


> You misread my post, I wrote 192V, not 96V.


Oops, my bad.



> And by 192V I meant for 192V nominal, so in fact I need 64 * 3.6 = 230.4V. And maybe I'd like to go up to 3.7V, so max voltage would be nice to be 236.8V. That's for a 64S LiFePO4 pack.
> 
> I would like to be able to go down to a 32S pack...


So you want a 2:1 range in pack nominal voltage. Almost certainly, it can't be done. You'd need some sort of series/parallel switching of internal charger elements. I've never seen that done. About the closest I've seen are bench power supplies that switch transformer taps when certain voltage thresholds are crossed, to keep the efficiency from being really poor.



> Do you think one of their models would do that?


No.



> The TCCH-192-12.4 model goes up to 258V which would be more then enough, but how much down do you think it will go?


All I can do is guess that the numbers roughly scale, since they don't seem to publish these critical numbers. My model has a max to min voltage range of about 2.17:1, so with an upper limit of 258 (if there was one), the lower limit would be around 119 V, as you mentioned.



> According to your calculations only 120V, which divided by 32 gives 3.75V and that would overcharge a 32S pack too much.


The problem is actually that the charger refuses to turn on if the pack voltage is less than a certain amount.

It might be easier to reconfigure the pack for the charger. For example, if you are considering packs of 64S and 32S, arrange the 64S in two strings of 32S that can be paralleled for charging. If you later end up with a string of 32S, then the charger is already set up for it. If you have a pack of say 30 to 35 cells, it could handle that sort of variation.

We do something like this with our AC MX-5. We have 228 cells (228S, or 730 V nominal), and we can't find a charger for this voltage. However, by paralleling half strings, we can just get 3.65 VPC for the 114S configuration.

Not only can't we get a charger for the 228S pack, we don't (now) have a controller either. We were going to use an industrial controller, but it turned out to be too big to fit. Now we're going with a Tritium controller, which can only handle half the pack voltage. So we'll run with 114S2P for a while. Hopefully, a 900 V Tritium controller will be available in a year or two, and we'll be able to switch to our original design of 228S1P.



> Any chance they have a model in between, like a 13Amp model or something?


Your guess, and search, is as good as mine.



> Or maybe one of them can be stretched just a tiny 5% more?


I suppose that's possible, by shaving some margins. But that would require intimate modifications of the internals, including software. As delivered, you can't change the maximum voltage at all.



> Also, can the charging rate (of the CC phase) be modified, or is it always fixed at the nominal, and only the voltage can be modified?


Oh yes, the current is set in the same packet as the voltage. The current can be specified from 0.1 A to the maximum current in 0.1 A steps. (The voltage resolution is 0.1 V.) We use this to respond to the BMS telling us that all of the cells are in bypass, or one of the cells is over voltage. We then cut the current back to 0.9 A (our BMS can bypass 1.0 A), and slowly increase it in 0.1 A increments in case the pack can take an intermediate current. It should sawtooth from 0.9 A to whatever the pack can take.



> If I choose the TCCH-192-12.4 model, it will always start charging with 12.4 A, is it possible to impose a lower limit, if sometimes I want to charge a pack with only say max 5A or something?


Yes, no problem there. It will start charging at whatever you tell it to, not necessarily 12.4 A (or whatever the maximum is). Although if you ask for full current immediately, it may take a minute to ramp the current up.

We have a video of our first charge:






Note that the ammeter is upside down; the leads were tight that day.

From http://forums.aeva.asn.au/forum_posts.asp?TID=980&PID=31837#31837 ; other charger information here.


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## miernik (Nov 28, 2009)

Coulomb said:


> All I can do is guess that the numbers roughly scale, since they don't seem to publish these critical numbers. My model has a max to min voltage range of about 2.17:1, so with an upper limit of 258 (if there was one), the lower limit would be around 119 V, as you mentioned.


I have another idea: if I can go down to 120V, and I need 115.2V to charge a 32S pack, maybe I could just burn off the excess 4.8V with a power resistor?

To drop 4.8V at 12.4A that would be a 0.387 ohms, and at least 60W power resistor in series with the battery.

Would such a method be OK?


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## Coulomb (Apr 22, 2009)

miernik said:


> I have another idea: if I can go down to 120V, and I need 115.2V to charge a 32S pack, maybe I could just burn off the excess 4.8V with a power resistor? ... Would such a method be OK?


No.

The problem is that the charger attempts to save you from charging a too-low pack; the logic seems to be that surely something is wrong with the battery if it is so low in voltage. [ Edit: you'll get a "wrong battery" error code, and the charger won't close its relay to connect to the pack. ]

To fool the charger, you'd need to somehow get another 4.8 V so that the charger would see the minimum 120 V to keep it happy. Perhaps a DC/DC, but that DC/DC would see the full 12.4 A of charge current, and would have to "buck" it. It would be easier to just add another 2 cells (making it a 34S pack).

It would be great to be able to somehow disable the "low pack voltage check", or at least make the minimum a lot lower, but that would require re-flashing one of the microprocessors on the charger. That's a little more hacking than I'm ready to do at this stage. Maybe someone will discover how to do that one day and publish the details.

[ Edit: I suppose it could be possible to change the feedback resistors so that the micro reads the voltage as higher than it really is. But then you'd have to ask for a too-high voltage for your cells (so when you want 115, you actually ask for say 125), but that seems silly. ]


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## circuit (Jan 16, 2012)

Old, but still interesting topic. One client of ours has a 144V CAN-enabled charger and EMUS BMS. While BMS is perfectly fine for lower voltages, the client wants to know if "144V" Elcon can be used to charge 28S LiPO (84-117V range). So, can it?


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## Coulomb (Apr 22, 2009)

circuit said:


> Old, but still interesting topic. One client of ours has a 144V CAN-enabled charger and EMUS BMS. While BMS is perfectly fine for lower voltages, the client wants to know if "144V" Elcon can be used to charge 28S LiPO (84-117V range). So, can it?


LiPo cells (as in Lithium Polymer, not Lithium Iron Phosphate) are a tricky thing to charge safely. Elcons as standard only come with lead acid or lithium iron phosphate "algorithms". If it was a CAN model, you could charge such a battery using a nominal 144 V charger, but you'd have to know how to charge these cells. You'd likely have to be monitoring temperature as well.

In theory, we could come up with a firmware to do it as well, but I don't know enough about LiPos to do this.


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## circuit (Jan 16, 2012)

Don't really care about "algorithms" or profiles, EMUS BMS takes care of that over CAN. At the moment I am only interested in hardware capability, particularly CCCV limits.
I read somewhere that 3kW 144V TC charger (similar to Elcon) will work from 35V (output), but would like a confirmation... They also said that it will drop the current in half below certain output voltage.

Source: http://media3.ev-tv.me/chargermanual.pdf


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## Coulomb (Apr 22, 2009)

circuit said:


> I read somewhere that 3kW 144V TC charger (similar to Elcon) will work from 35V (output), but would like a confirmation... They also said that it will drop the current in half below certain output voltage.


I personally use a 144 V nominal Elcon/TC charger on my solar electric system, which is 48 V nominal. It charges it just fine, but I have hacked firmware. It is a 5 kW nominal charger (167 V @ 30 A), so at 52 V, you only get some 30 x 52 = 1560 W.


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## circuit (Jan 16, 2012)

Yes, I understand that power drops at lower voltage.
Good to hear it works, will pass it on.

By the way, first time I hear about these firmware hacks (or just re-config over serial). That is interesting.


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## Coulomb (Apr 22, 2009)

I meant to add, the halving of power is I think a misunderstanding. It happens at half *input* voltage (i.e. running off 120 V, instead of 240 V).



circuit said:


> By the way, first time I hear about these firmware hacks (or just re-config over serial). That is interesting.


http://www.diyelectriccar.com/forums/showthread.php/elcon-tc-charger-firmware-facts-134225.html

There should be enough information to do it all yourself, but in practice, I'd expect a ton of questions and hand holding.


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## circuit (Jan 16, 2012)

Thanks, will have a read.


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