Battery Charging Time

[spmartin]

I have not seen this posted on the forum, so I thought I would post it.

 

I wondered how long it would take to charge a battery from dead to when the red light flashes. I just timed it at 3.5 hours. (give or take a few minutes!)

 

For any of our international members, this was on a 110 volt ac outlet.

[McLenison]

That's about the right time frame.  The instructions I received said something to the effect that you should charge it about an hour longer because when it shows it is fully charged, it is really only about 95 percent charged.

[TxHCBP]

Interesting. I didn't SEE any instructions with my 59. Only instructions I have are in the pdf I d/l'd from the site.

 

However, I must agree with Mac: somewhere around 3.5 hrs (I haven't timed it, but started it just before supper and let it run 'til bedtime). That included the extra for the "last" 5% or so to get a truly full charge. Of course, our voltage here is a touch high at around 125V (rural power company, and it varies a bit more than most). (Most U.S.A. power runs within about 5% of 117V; even though most people CALL it 110, it isn't.).

[TweakGeek]

Hey guys, I know it's been a while but I have a question. When you charge the battery, I noticed that the charger's red LED stays lit while charging, but later on it starts blinking. If you leave it long enough, it will shut down completely. When should I remove the battery from the charger? when it's blinking, or when it shuts down?

[cbrillow]

My JTV-59 is one of the 'older' ones and was little-used for several years. Because of this, my battery  isn't what I'd consider an ideal test case, as it doesn't hold its charge for as long as I'd suspect when running on battery power.

 

Bearing that in mind, here's how mine behaves: I agree that the time required to charge is in the 3 - 4 hour range. While charging from a low condition, the LED remains lit. It eventually does begin to blink, and will continue to blink for as long as it's in the charger. (and that could be days or weeks, literally) Measuring the voltage at this point yields approximately 8.4 to 8.5 volts, which will hold for quite a long time -- days, in fact --  as long as it's not put back into the guitar.

 

It does seem to lose energy more quickly in the instrument, even if not played, without a cable being connected to the 1/4" jack, and with the volume turned all the way down. I've begun to use an XPS box to power it for practice nowadays, so I don't have to be concerned about the state of charge in the battery. If I play a couple of songs at an open mic, I'll use the battery with confidence, as long as it's been in the charger for a while prior to going.

[jerseyboy]

IMO Variax “must have” - spare or 2nd battery pack.  

 

Manual “Battery Management” using 2 packs you can avoid hammering the 2S 18650 battery pack under low SOC (state of charge) conditions and never run out of untethered power when you most need it.  

 

Rarely below 1/2 charge is the “easiest” duty level for these battery packs.  They’ll each last much longer in the end than a battery pack drained repeatedly down to ODDV (over discharge detection voltage) over and over.  

 

Another thing with this chemistry is to never leave packs sitting unused @ full charge.  If you’re not going to use the pack/guitar for more than a few days but it’s been fully charged - play it or leave sit plugged in volume up for 30-60 minutes.  This will burn off enough SOC to help reduce chemical degradation which occurs during unused periods of time.  Storage…

 

Additional benefit of using 2 or more battery packs - much easier to troubleshoot power issues.  

 

AC input voltage should exhibit little influence to charge rate and termination voltage of these packs.  The DC charge controller governs rate of current and maximum voltage detection baked into the charger system.  

 

IIRC my Line6 charger delivers about 0.5A charge rate.  Tapers off towards the end (not sure if any balancing may be going on?)  Seem to be 2-2.5Ah cells so 3-4 hrs would correlate to my charge rate observation.