Hyperion EOS 1210i Balancer?
 

Does the EOS 1210 need a seperate balancer to balance the packs or is it included. I cannot find a clear answer anywhere.

The LBA10 is the balancer to use with that unit since it has the feedback cable to talk to the charger. Of course, you can use any suitable balancer with that charger - it just won't provide feedback...

So I do need to purchase the LBA10 also to charger my packs. The charger is more or less a brain and power supply what tells the balancer what to do? I should be able to charge a pair of 2s packs in series with the LBA10 (telling it that it's charging a 4s pack). Or do the balancer plugs insert directly into the LBA10 like the do on a thunder power balancer?

The 1210i charger is just that - a charger. You could charge lipos directly off it with nothing else if you wanted to.

All a balancer does is monitor each cell and apply a small load to leech some of the voltage off the higher voltage cells. When you hook the LBA10 to the charger via the little feedback cable, it talks to the charger and probably reduces the charge rate if a large imbalance is present. You don't need the feedback cable - it just makes it a more integrated solution. I use the LBA10 with the older EOS 7i charger and it works fine - just no feedback.

The LBA10 only has one balance connector input. So, if you want to charge and balance your two packs in series (as one pack), you are going to have to make an adaptor cable, something like this:

http://scriptasylum.com/forupics/balancer_Y.jpg

I made the leads long so I can charge the packs while they are in my Liposack and still have some wire slack. This cable allows the LBA10 to see both packs as one 4s pack. It's not very difficult to make, but you MUST make sure it is done right or you could burn up one or more of the balancer wires. Also note how the cables are zip-tied together in the pic above. This is so I hook up the cables correctly - if I hook them up wrong, I would burn up a wire.

The diagram at the very bottom of this page shows you how the balance connector is to be wired. If you feel at all uncomfortable about doing this, you should have the adaptor made, or simply charge each pack seperately (takes twice as long to charge though).

Thanks. I was having trouble finding information on the charger. I thought that i could make a cable like that . I have no problem wiring. I routinely work with wiring on 1:1 cars all day @ work. I just wanted to make sure I have everything I needed to charge my packs.

One more stupid question/ statement. I take it that it is a 12v d/c charger not 110v a/c.

Yep, it requires a 12v DC power source.

I have this charger and really like it because it allows you to see the voltage off all the cells as they charge if you use with the balancer and data port.

gixxer: Does the data port do anything else? I was hoping that if the charger saw a large imbalance, it would reduce the charge rate or something like that...

not sure if it does anything else. I haven't had a pack that had a large imbalance. I will have to check the manual. I will try and get that info for you tomorrow. right now I have to get some sleep.

Sleep?! It's overrated! :)

BrianG, long day but I got the manual. Here is what it says. There are two main functions of the datport connection to lba10 balance adapter:

*the lba communicates with the charger, giving notification when balance charging is completed, or when an error is detected. In both cases, the lba tells the charger to shut down. This insures maximum safety, and saves the user from having to manually push the charger stop button to stop the charge-end or error tones.
*the dataport version eos chargers when connected to lba10 balancer via cable hp-e02lba10-dpc allow the user to monitor the individual voltages of each battery cell during the charge process. this is an important addition to pack diagnostics ans on is able to see the exact balance status of the battery pack (or packs when lba10 is in net mode)

so it doesn't look like it will reduce the rate, but will stop the charge if it detects an error.

Hmmm, at least it does respond to an imbalance to some degree. Usually, if I'm charging a pack that has a larger imbalance (the LBA10's cell LEDs will remain solid instead of blinking rapidly), I start the charge rate at a very low value - ~0.5A. If you charge at 1C, the balancer may not be able to equalize the cells before the CV stage, which is where it is more imperative that the cells are equal. The LBA only disharges the high cells at ~0.15mA so it can take a while. I've actually put a 0.5A load on the high cells before to get it to equalize a little quicker, but of course requires some custom hookups.

And even if you start the charge at a low value, you can always bump it up on the fly by pushing the up arrows to increase the charge current (up to 1C) if this charger works anything like the EOS7i.

it works the same was a as the 7i. I actually have one of those too but never use it. I just use the 1210 for the bigger packs and the mrc 989 for my 1/10th scale stuff.

What's the power limit on the 1210i? I know the 7i has a 120w power limit...