First off, I put together the power portion of the bulk charger:
From right to left, the first blue block is a variac, which is simply an AC-AC variable transformer; ultimately, I'll set the output voltage to whatever voltage yields the correct maximum charge voltage of 16 cells. Next up, the orange plug breaks the AC voltage out
and plugs right into two 6A rectifiers. This is only 12 A, so I'll need to swap out for 20A total... once I swap out the variac for a transformer that can handle more than 10 amps. So now we've converted AC to DC and next up come two 6500uF capacitors to store the energy needed to keep our "DC" signal DC. Then come two brushed motor controllers that I'm hoping will charge batteries despite their "absolute minimum inductance rating of .15H". My confidence level that this charger will work: 30%. Assuming this fails, I'm still waiting on tp-packs.com to come out with the new balancer they've been hinting at for two months.
Speaking of things not being around for two months, the controller saga is hopefully almost finished. The company I bought it from promised again and again that they had the controllers and that I was # 13 on the list, that the item had shipped, etc, thus bringing us up to two weeks ago. Then, suddenly, they had no record of me ever ordering the controller. After showing them my paypal record, my credit card statement, etc, they decided that maybe they hadn't shipped my controller out, but unfortunately were out. After a few frustrating phone calls last Friday, I received an email stating that my controller shipped 'priority mail' and will be here this week. I'm giving them until Wednesday before I buy it from someone else. Waiting for these guys to send this controller has been quite an unpleasant experience; I will not be dealing with them again.
