Hyperion 7i Wiring

[BrianG]

I was charging my 14 cell GP pack at 5A earlier today and happened to notice that the wires going from the 12v power supply to the charger were warm. So, I opened the charger and measured the voltage across the positive wire. At ~9A draw on the power supply, there was a 0.27v drop on both the positive and negative wires. That is a total of over 1/2 a volt, so the charger was getting only 11ish volts even though the power supply was outputting 11.8v. The wires alone were dissipating ~5W.

So, I replaced the approximately 6 feet of 20ish gauge wire with 2 feet of 14 gauge wire and ran the test again. Much better. No voltage drop on the wire and now I can charge almost to 7A, when I couldn't charge even 6A before because the charger would shut down due to inadequate supply voltage. Now, the limit is the 120W power limitation on the charger itself. This also causes the switching power supply in the charger to not work so hard.

Anyway, just thought I'd share for those who have this charger. I suppose I could have simply shortened the present wire, but when I saw how thin it was, I decided just to replace it.