# Zivan NG3 adjustment / settings



## hummbug (Apr 8, 2019)

So I've been getting a lot of help on this from @green_caveman and I think I finally got it dialed in. 

Basically I switched out R20 from a 560k to a 470k to get the charger "in range". Then hooking a load up to the battery output (a 100w light bulb). Then I could adjust the U pot down to the 134.4v level I needed for my setup.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Nb-YBAlWiA

I get a red led, then a blinking red, then blinking yellow. Seems to be just slightly above the 134.4v level (134.6v maybe) at the blinking yellow stage. So I'm happy for now but looking forward to getting the programmable board to give it some more adjustability and maybe telemetry output to a monitor.


----------



## green caveman (Oct 2, 2009)

Very nice. So any Lead-Acid Zivan should be usable to charge Lithium.


----------



## leman2112 (Dec 2, 2018)

Thanks for posting this. I am Trying to charge my LG chem batteries to about 131.2 So I wonder if this same resistor will work for my zivan ng3. I also wonder if I can send my charger in and get it to pump out more amps. So you can leave it plugged in all night and the charger will not blow up your batteries? Do you use a bms?


----------



## leman2112 (Dec 2, 2018)

cool hummer bro!


----------



## hummbug (Apr 8, 2019)

I recommend searching for all the other articles on how to properly adjust your Zivan charger. Depending on its configuration the procedure might be different. This worked for me.

I don't have a BMS yet. Its me and my multimeter being vigilant.


----------



## green caveman (Oct 2, 2009)

I'm still wondering why, with a 560k resistor you couldn't hit the 134V mark. I feel that the range should have been about 130V to 225V .

Or was it that the charger didn't start because it didn't see a pack? The initial voltage would have been lower than the minimum 130.

470k should start at about 105V. 

BTW, on the very limited number of chargers that I've seen, R21 was either missing or the same as R20. I'm also not sure why those are such huge resistors. If it's just part of a divider for voltage measurement there shouldn't be much current.


----------



## hummbug (Apr 8, 2019)

I don't exactly know since I didn't try the "light bulb as a load" trick while the 560k was in there. I should have. I just slowly turned the pot and expected the charge phase to change, and it didn't, and didn't want to put too much voltage into the batteries any longer than a minute. 

I am just very glad it is charging now!


----------



## leman2112 (Dec 2, 2018)

Hey what company did you trust to buy this resistor from. I am pretty sure I am going to try the same procedure with my zivan ng3 that came from a corbin sparrow. It seems a little different though to all the other zivan ng3's I look at. There is no selector switch. think I got the board though. It just flashes red and beeps really loud when it's all plugged together from my 110v house outlet and to my lg chem cells. Still gotta try the light bulb trick.


----------



## green caveman (Oct 2, 2009)

leman2112 said:


> Hey what company did you trust to buy this resistor from. I am pretty sure I am going to try the same procedure with my zivan ng3 that came from a corbin sparrow. It seems a little different though to all the other zivan ng3's I look at. There is no selector switch. think I got the board though. It just flashes red and beeps really loud when it's all plugged together from my 110v house outlet and to my lg chem cells. Still gotta try the light bulb trick.


Any pictures?


----------



## leman2112 (Dec 2, 2018)

Here it is.


----------



## alvaro (Feb 6, 2018)

hummbug said:


> Hi:
> 
> I have a car with (8) 4S3P batteries from an e-golf. The Zivan NG3 charger is set up for lead acid, 156v right now but I want it to work with my LiPo batteries. Seems CC/CV threshold would be 134.4v. I was told this charger can _probably_ do it. I know the charger works: I have hooked it up, watching closely until each pack gets close to the 16.8v and unplugging, but this is not safe or right.
> 
> ...


Thanks!! We buy a ng3 charger configurated to 26S and now we build 30S battery... Now with your post we will reuse our zivan NG3


----------



## hummbug (Apr 8, 2019)

I ended up getting a ThunderStruck charger since I needed faster charging and 220v support. My Zivan was 110v only (unless I hacked that too) and I get 15a of charging now.


----------



## zubmio (May 19, 2020)

Here I am … another one converting from Lead-acid to Lithium … Chevy Volt set, in my case. I have rewired the set for 180V (two strings, 48 cells each). The charger is an NG3 220VAC input and it is currently programmed for 156V lead acid set. I am trying to set it to have a final voltage of 197V. I know the charger can make that voltage because I remember it going above 200V in equalizing phase for lead acid. By using the U trim pot I can dial in the constant voltage point (the point where red LED switches from solid ON to flashing). However, once it goes to yellow LED stage (equalizing) I can't seem to get it to stop charging at any particular voltage. I tried charging/discharging cycles and patiently tried tweaking the U pot, but the final point (voltage) just seems inconsistent. So, I've decided to not rely on the charger to stop automatically. I am going to dial the constant voltage phase to happen somewhere at 190V (if I can go that high) and then use my battery controller (arduino Due that monitors cell voltages through BMS slaves and CAN) to stop the charge at 197V. So, here are my questions:

What would be the best way to control the charger to stop the charge? I would like to avoid having to use a big relay to turn off AC power.

One way I can think of is to short the \RESET pin (pin 11) of the ST62T25 microcontroller to its COM. Is there a better way? Or, another way for redundancy?

Does anyone know what exactly are the functions of jumpers? I imagine it may differ based on firmware versions and changes over the years.

BTW, I am not sure of the vintage of my charger, but it is very likely from around 2009 - it has SMT components on the control board.

I have seen people talking about a set of wires that can control a relay inside the charger which can turn the output ON/OFF. My charger doesn't have that set of wires. I wonder if anyone knows where exactly those wires come from and whether I could add them.

I also know that I could probably have Zivan USA (or whatever the name of the outfit that can replace the MCU and have it programmed for my set) do this for me, however, I wasn't the happiest with the process when I had it converted/replaced for 220VAC unit, so I'd like to avoid this route.


----------



## zubmio (May 19, 2020)

Here I am … another one converting from Lead-acid to Lithium … Chevy Volt set, in my case. I have rewired the set for 180V (two strings, 48 cells each). The charger is an NG3 220VAC input and it is currently programmed for 156V lead acid set. I am trying to set it to have a final voltage of 197V. I know the charger can make that voltage because I remember it going above 200V in equalizing phase for lead acid. By using the U trim pot I can dial in the constant voltage point (the point where red LED switches from solid ON to flashing). However, once it goes to yellow LED stage (equalizing) I can't seem to get it to stop charging at any particular voltage. I tried charging/discharging cycles and patiently tried tweaking the U pot, but the final point (voltage) just seems inconsistent. So, I've decided to not rely on the charger to stop automatically. I am going to dial the constant voltage phase to happen somewhere at 190V (if I can go that high) and then use my battery controller (arduino Due that monitors cell voltages through BMS slaves and CAN) to stop the charge at 197V. So, here are my questions:

What would be the best way to control the charger to stop the charge? I would like to avoid having to use a big relay to turn off AC power.

One way I can think of is to short the \RESET pin (pin 11) of the ST62T25 microcontroller to its COM. Is there a better way? Or, another way for redundancy?

Does anyone know what exactly are the functions of jumpers? I imagine it may differ based on firmware versions and changes over the years.

BTW, I am not sure of the vintage of my charger, but it is very likely from around 2009 - it has SMT components on the control board.

I have seen people talking about a set of wires that can control a relay inside the charger which can turn the output ON/OFF. My charger doesn't have that set of wires. I wonder if anyone knows where exactly those wires come from and whether I could add them.

I also know that I could probably have Zivan USA (or whatever the name of the outfit that can replace the MCU and have it programmed for my set) do this for me, however, I wasn't the happiest with the process when I had it converted/replaced for 220VAC unit, so I'd like to avoid this route.


----------



## BjoernArvidsson (Jun 11, 2021)

zubmio said:


> Here I am … another one converting from Lead-acid to Lithium … Chevy Volt set, in my case. I have rewired the set for 180V (two strings, 48 cells each). The charger is an NG3 220VAC input and it is currently programmed for 156V lead acid set. I am trying to set it to have a final voltage of 197V. I know the charger can make that voltage because I remember it going above 200V in equalizing phase for lead acid. By using the U trim pot I can dial in the constant voltage point (the point where red LED switches from solid ON to flashing). However, once it goes to yellow LED stage (equalizing) I can't seem to get it to stop charging at any particular voltage. I tried charging/discharging cycles and patiently tried tweaking the U pot, but the final point (voltage) just seems inconsistent. So, I've decided to not rely on the charger to stop automatically. I am going to dial the constant voltage phase to happen somewhere at 190V (if I can go that high) and then use my battery controller (arduino Due that monitors cell voltages through BMS slaves and CAN) to stop the charge at 197V. So, here are my questions:
> 
> What would be the best way to control the charger to stop the charge? I would like to avoid having to use a big relay to turn off AC power.
> 
> ...


I


zubmio said:


> Here I am … another one converting from Lead-acid to Lithium … Chevy Volt set, in my case. I have rewired the set for 180V (two strings, 48 cells each). The charger is an NG3 220VAC input and it is currently programmed for 156V lead acid set. I am trying to set it to have a final voltage of 197V. I know the charger can make that voltage because I remember it going above 200V in equalizing phase for lead acid. By using the U trim pot I can dial in the constant voltage point (the point where red LED switches from solid ON to flashing). However, once it goes to yellow LED stage (equalizing) I can't seem to get it to stop charging at any particular voltage. I tried charging/discharging cycles and patiently tried tweaking the U pot, but the final point (voltage) just seems inconsistent. So, I've decided to not rely on the charger to stop automatically. I am going to dial the constant voltage phase to happen somewhere at 190V (if I can go that high) and then use my battery controller (arduino Due that monitors cell voltages through BMS slaves and CAN) to stop the charge at 197V. So, here are my questions:
> 
> What would be the best way to control the charger to stop the charge? I would like to avoid having to use a big relay to turn off AC power.
> 
> ...


I have that set of wires to turn on and off my charger. I can see where they are coming from, if you haven't solved it already


----------



## zubmio (May 19, 2020)

BjoernArvidsson said:


> I
> 
> 
> I have that set of wires to turn on and off my charger. I can see where they are coming from, if you haven't solved it already


I have solved it for now by using the Arduino Due MCU output indirectly shorting the RESET pin on the microcontroller inside Zivan charger. When I want the charger to stop charging I effectively make Zivan's microcontroller go into reset state which stops the charge. I don't like this method but that was the closest I got to shutting off the charger remotely (without shutting off AC power).
I would still love to know where the set of wires you are using are coming from. Could you share a picture or somehow describe it for me?

Thanks


----------



## BjoernArvidsson (Jun 11, 2021)

zubmio said:


> I have solved it for now by using the Arduino Due MCU output indirectly shorting the RESET pin on the microcontroller inside Zivan charger. When I want the charger to stop charging I effectively make Zivan's microcontroller go into reset state which stops the charge. I don't like this method but that was the closest I got to shutting off the charger remotely (without shutting off AC power).
> I would still love to know where the set of wires you are using are coming from. Could you share a picture or somehow describe it for me?
> 
> Thanks


----------



## BjoernArvidsson (Jun 11, 2021)

When the green/red and yellow/black cables, that are connected to cn14 are shorted the charger starts. It also written start/stop under cn14


----------



## zubmio (May 19, 2020)

Thanks a lot for the info!
I can't try this now ... currently in a cast after Achilles tendon tear/surgery ... but I will try it once I am up and about.


----------



## Nogasrequired (10 mo ago)

Hi, I have been reading your post and like you I am up-grading from lead acid to LiFePO4
My charger is also an NG3 set for 144vdc with 24 lead acid batteries. I am up grading to (45) 280ah
LiFePO4. I have contacted Electric Conversions in Sacramento and did not bother to get back with me.

I have to admit I am better with my hands and what you guys are talking about is over my head.
It has been a year since your post and I assume you have been successful with making the necessary adjustments
to your charger that it is charging your new lithium pack as it should.

Would you be able to work on mine. Be glad to pay you and pay shipping.

Thanks, enjoyed your post. Gasnotrequired.


----------



## PuncturedCell (10 mo ago)

Hi,

I'm trying to figure out some changes to my Zivan NG3 aswell. Changing the onboard CPU/microchip to an Arduino, not unlike NG3 chargers can't current limit on lithium batteries?

If you still need help, post whatever your requirements are & what your current setup is, and ill try to help. (+ some photos of the control board on the charger)

But all things considered, using the Zivan to charge lithium perfectly is not so easy.

The issue as explained in the post above, is that the charger (in CC/CV mode) does not cut-off at C/20 (So 280Ah/20 = 14A) but continues to charge untill 0.2A or something. This causes overcharge. Although I expect you can do little harm if you set the charge voltage to 3.4V/cell or 153V total. Although that is still not perfect.

You could also use the BMS, or a shunt with some logic, to disable charging (start/stop like explained before in this topic) at set parameters, although that might be an issue on itself !


----------

