Parkside PAP 20 A3 battery failure. Defective - cells, charger or balancer?

Hello . I recently bought two devices from this company, both from the black Performance series. Impact hammer and angle grinder PWSAP 20-Li B2. Both were supplied with the same type of PAP 20 A3 battery.
I can recommend the grinder itself as well as the original Parkside discs, which I bought separately in a box for which there is space in the suitcase. Recently, the body has a fairly thick tube and the shield has lost almost nothing and the battery has only partially discharged.

The problem was with this battery. The next time I used it, it stopped relatively shortly after. I check the charge and zero (as I mentioned, after the previous cut, it was over half of the state ...) I installed the batteries from the hammer and finished the work. Some time later, I put this battery into the charger and it signals an error - both LEDs are blinking. It is obvious that the battery has died. I called Lidl and they gave me the number to the external service that deals with it. OWIM company. German number but service in Polish. After providing my personal data, the type of equipment and the date of purchase, you said that I would be informed by e-mail about how the complaint would be considered and, if approved, a new battery would be sent to me and the old one should be disposed of.
Interestingly, they did not ask for the serial number of the device or the scan of the receipt
If I receive a new battery and they do not request the return of the old one, I will of course include its detailed research here.
Today, being on the exchange, I bought a new such battery at a bargain price (a spare one will always come in handy, and if I manage to repair the old one and receive a new one, I will have four ...)
I read the instructions for the new battery and it says that only the PLG 20 A2 charger should be used for charging.
And here is the fundamental question from the subject, because the hammer was joined by the PLG 20 A3 charger
and for the PLG 20 A1 grinder. Chargers for the same batteries are identical in appearance but have different markings. The parameters of the latter two are also supposedly identical. Which one to use for charging?


I also found a page with tests of cells used in these batteries Link
when I took a closer look, it looks like the chargers I have are from different manufacturers ...
One from Kompernass, the other from Omi. Likewise the batteries.

Hmm ...
Looks like I've already answered myself ...

Quote:

Which one to use for charging?

Added after 1 [hours] 53 [minutes]:

But since the batteries have the same designation, it does not matter which I will charge. On the other hand, it is always better to use devices from one company ...

I have a Kompernass A1
It will probably be the manufacturer's marking.
They should be interchangeable, let's say you bought only a hammer or only a grinder and bought batteries from the shelf in Lidl.
Depending on what you bought, you will have a complete set or not.

Tommy82 wrote:

They should be interchangeable, let's say you bought only a hammer or only a grinder and bought batteries from the shelf in Lidl.
Depending on what you bought, you will have a complete set or not.

It is logical that it should be so, and it probably is. So I was unlucky.
But it is also possible that in a set of one company, charging is more optimal. In my free time, I am tempted to do some charging tests of these batteries.
I will make an adapter and measure the voltage and current.
However, I think that the biggest problem of all such devices is fast charging with 1C current. While it is known that the safe charging of Li-ION cells is 1 / 3C. I will consider purchasing an A1 two-amp charger. As I talked to my colleague for Parkside, the company Grizzly does ...
I wonder which companies have better quality / durability?

I wonder if it's not one Chinese

Tommy82 wrote:

I wonder if it's not one Chinese

When it comes to batteries, the housings are visually slightly different. Means execution. I dare say that they are made on a different injection molding machine and certainly from a different plastic. so rather different factories ...

Darek.S wrote:

If I receive a new battery and they do not request the return of the old one, I will of course include its detailed research here.

It also happened. First, I made an attempt to resuscitate the battery with a laboratory power supply. Voltage 21V, current 0.8A.
The battery received the current, but the voltage above 19V did not pop out. When charging is turned off, the voltage is a few volts. I connected the original charger and it started working, but after a few minutes the error. so I did the Battery section ...

It turned out that the two 2nd and 4th sections have zero voltage and damaged targets
(four links in total). They didn't load at all. The other targets were reloaded to 4.6V! And this is logical, although it poorly proves the work of the balancer, but on the other hand it worked in unnatural conditions (hence the original charger signaled an error.
So I disassembled the cells and temporarily soldered the used and a bit tight but working and full charged to 4.2V.
I even connected the hammer, but it worked only at the lowest speed, then it turned off, but not the cells themselves were a problem, only baskets with high resistance (up to 500m? . This is clearly visible in the infrared image.
So I discharged the batteries a little with a resistor and charged them with a laboratory power supply set at 21V and 500mA. After a while, the current dropped and after a good time it reached a minimum. I checked the balancer and the voltage on the cells was 4.1 to 4.27V, but the cells were not the same and a bit worn.
Unfortunately, these tests showed that the two targets have a bit too high tension and from what I see in the sections that were scored. I did tests on various cells and in a rather weak condition and on a laboratory power supply. I also tried to replace the cells with the greatest differences (after slightly discharging the battery). The tensions leveled out a bit, but in the section where it was 4.27 it dropped to 4.22. In the section where I had 4.2 on the weaker link, it increased to 4.24.

After turning off the power, I had 4.27V on the cell for a while and it was discharged by the Balancer with a current of 50 mA. After the voltage on the cell to 4.24V, the current dropped to zero.
The next one was on the original Parkide links in half (one link per section because four were lost)) but in much better condition and the same.
The cells were charged with a Newell C4 Supra charger, therefore balanced.
The idea was to unload them with the resistor and then check the charging first in the laboratory and check the balancer, this time on the same cells, and then after another discharge with the original charger. And to my surprise, one of the cells fell to zero already at a relatively low discharge current. after the exchange, the second one fell, and it was at a relatively low current.
And so it happens similarly to the targets 2 and 4 before. On the last third attempt (I had to replace only one link with another one), the target 1 failed in the same way!
I have not tried on blue cells anymore.
Each time there was a small pop, ala a skip of a spark. Since I have a few other recovery cells, I did further discharge tests on them and nothing fell. It is worrying whether a defective BMS can be so damagingAt the same time, the cells did not succumb to permanent damage because they started working on new cells again (until the next cell failure) and nothing broke on the recovery ones? If it were so, it would be pointless to replace the cells with a new BMS. I should choose something. I realize that it is totally unprofitable (I bought the third battery for less than a hundred) but I do it out of curiosity. New links (from depots but not used) are on their way.
I took a closer look at this balancer. There is no BMS in this battery!
There is no Current Limit. There is only Balancer on the LGT8P22A chip.
The output is 5 cells in series with no transistor in series.
Balancing transistors are fleas that can balance small currents in the final stage of charging. If one were stuck short-circuiting the batteries it would be binding
with a multi-ampere current flow that would probably damage such a flea.
Another thing is that these baskets, as I measured them later, had a resistance of up to half ohm, so there is no question of such a large current even with a short circuit
and the 8 ampere current cannot damage the cells.

Anyway, later I soldered directly one of the cells that remained alive and it withstood a discharge with a current of 15A!

My fundamental question is whether this balancer could be the cause of the Parkside cell failure or was it simply defective.
Although the last three were overloaded, I use the remaining one in a device with a power consumption of over 10A and I have already unloaded them once ...
the question is important because I am afraid of new ...

Added after 5 [hours] 29 [minutes]:

I changed the topic because the most important thing is what was really the cause of the failure, as if there was no new or at least little used equipment ...
1. Cells - unlikely, considering that the three that survived are doing well so far (although it is a short time, but the ones that died basically in the original battery). And I tested one of them with a discharge current of 15A ... but in the original system, the other cells did not die ...
2. Charger - hmm charged and the cells died during discharge. Both at work and during tests ... Although she could overload the cells ... What is likely
3. Balancer - The original Parkside links are dead, but gone. The first time with the original Owi charger, then charging from the laboratory and certainly reloading those who survived .... And the recovery during discharge somehow survived

... how to analyze the above points, one of them or maybe a few is right ... I have my type but I'm not sure. Asking for your opinions ... best regards

Yesterday came the links. All in 3.6V storage mode. Today I turned the purchased batteries a bit discharged and tested both chargers.
Charging stops when any of the cells reaches 4.22V in one
and 4.21 in the second. This is basically a discretization error ...
After my previous tests on these scrap ones, I dare to say that de facto these batteries do not have cell balancing in the full sense of the word, but only protection against overcharging. Over time, this will unbalance the cell and I have repaired such batteries several times, where it was enough to balance them and the charger started working.
One of these three links from the old one has already fallen in a completely different device ...
For now it is testing the charging of a new battery and is going smoothly. Certainly the VTC4 bought at Prometalum are much better class than those assembled by Parkside.


Added after 15 [minutes]:

Charging finished after 45 minutes. After switching off the charging, the voltage on the cells
4.12 - 4.14V
After a certain period of exploitation, I will answer the title question and close the thread. Though I already have a certain type.

I received an inquiry from one of the electrode users whether these batteries have over-discharge protection. So I will also answer here.
It probably is, and it certainly is. When the battery is low, the tool will simply stop and it cannot be started, possibly for a short time as the cells rest for a while. And theoretically, it should work when only one section is in poor condition. Otherwise it might happen that the total voltage still allows work to be carried out while one section is already discharged, which would quickly lead to at least unbalance and, consequently, also to faster failure of the battery. I do not know exactly how it is because I have not carried out such tests.
It just so happens that my hammer battery has died and already had a few charging cycles.
And that it was the last time it was charged with the charger from the grinder, it did not matter. Just like the fact that it fell in the grinder and as I noted during work and basically charged. These batteries have four pins. Plus and minus and the other two for controlling the BMS (in the tool) and the charger (and both have three pins).
The masking of these pins means that the tool does not fire (lights up in the hammer and then it starts blinking) and the battery cannot be charged with the original charger. From the laboratory, yes, but in the case of a defective cell, it results in overloading / damaging the others that I have already processed.
Time will show how the original batteries will work and the repaired one, but when I use the two that I have left of this damaged battery, the VTC4 is a completely different shelf compared to them. And I use it in quite a power-hungry contraption . And the VTC4 was originally delivered to it.

A month ago, I bought a weaker 2.5A charger on the promotion so as not to torture the cells with such a high current. Yesterday I dismantled one of the two 4.5 A. I desoldered one 100m? resistor and changed the other to 270m?.

In this way, I have an even weaker 4-hour charger.
When charging, what I had observed before was confirmed. After the batteries reach 21V, the current is turned off.
This means that the cells are charged only with the CC phase and no CV phase.
And here the question arises, how many percent do we have charged cells without the CV phase?
In 90 or maybe 95%?

the answer is on the electrode
And I, in a way, had it at hand.
Namely, I have a Newell C4 Supra charger that shows the state of charge of the cells. And yesterday I just noticed that the CC phase ends in the vicinity of 90-97%.
It depends on what stage of charging we start charging and on the internal resistance / state of the cell. I haven't been doing any detailed research but
(and it is logical) I got the impression that the better the cell (less used and less resistance), the more it will charge in the CC phase.
I had to convert the weakest charger into a Step Down converter with current regulation (CC phase) Link to also use the Cv phase.
I bought four of them and I have already used two of them for my other screwdrivers, but in the case of Parkside it does not make much sense.

To my colleague Darek.S, the Parkside battery has no protection against overcharging, but the receiving tool has it along with an overload protection in the case of grinders and drills because it works for me. In any case, after using the battery with a receiver other than Parkside, it discharges so much that the built-in indicator does not work.
PS. I did not test it with the meter, but I was surprised a few times when I powered the battery with another device (and I have a pair of them), I think that one additional pin in the battery is to control the charger, and the other to turn off the Parkside receiving tool, because the charger uses another than a tool

I wrote that the Parkside battery has a protection and the device will stop.
I meant the whole thing with the device, of course. So the point is correct. The battery itself has no protection.
Real link balancing is also not possible. The charging process is stopped when one of the cells reaches the CV phase. But so far all four batteries are working.

I got the PAP 20 A1 battery, as far as I know, it was not used for quite a long time.
The battery came to me discharged to a very low voltage of 8V. Original charger did not detect the battery and did not start charging. I tried to revive the battery and it worked. I tested the capacity and it was almost 2Ah with a discharge current of 0.5A.


I supervised the voltages on individual cells, while charging, the difference between the cells was 20mV. After recharging, the target difference was also 20mV, I found the battery was reanimated. Unfortunately, after 3 days, measuring the drive, I was surprised, it was 18V.
I opened the battery again. The reason for the discharge was the integrated circuit and the diode. After soldering the diode, the current dropped from 45 to 29mA. Unfortunately, such a current disqualifies the use of a battery.

I got rid of the electronics board and installed a Chinese balancer.
https://pl.aliexpress.com/item/32915116435.html?spm=a2g0s.9042311.0.0.27425c0fZjfWyg
I soldered the ground through the 10k resistor with the next pin on the battery connector and the tools began to work with it.
Charging in the original charger does not work, maybe someone has figured out how to solve it?

If you have changed the original balancer, the original charger is not allowed to charge because there are no signals / information provided by the original balancer.
And I admit that there will be a big problem (if at all possible to be solved) to provide signals from this Chinese balancer that the Parkside charger will understand.
You can always charge such batteries from the laboratory power supply (even the original one with the original balancer by setting 21V and the limitation current (optimal 1 / 3C - why feed the battery too fast - you should eat slowly too).
Or make / remake a charger based on Link
I used this converter to build chargers many times, but not for Parkside batteries, because all my batteries from this company have original balancers so far.

This pin is most likely communication with the charger.
There is no point in combining with the original charger. I will charge, for example, SK80, also Chinese, but it is enough for charging, you can see the capacity of the battery and the current charging current.
As I wrote earlier, the most important thing is that the devices work, the battery has an OVP, UVP plus balancer protection, which was not available in the original electronics.

And real balancing, which is not in the original one.

is it possible to charge the battery without the original charger, if we keep the original bms?, if yes we connect the generic charger to the + and - pins of the battery or is the third pin used as a c- to connect the minus of the charger there?

Hello
From my knowledge on the subject, the matter is as follows. The original balancer and parkside charger communicate digitally via the LGT8P22A chip (the same system in the battery and charger). If we change the balancer, there is no communication with the charger, so it does not start charging and the solution is to convert the charger so as to omit the LGT8P22A system from the charging process. The only risk is that the use of such a converted charger for the original battery will not interrupt the charging process, because in the original battery it is not the battery that cuts off from the charging source, but sends a signal to the source so that the source completes the process. The question is whether the charger has any protection against overcharging, I do not know, if someone checked it, please let me know. I only have original batteries and I have no way to check it yet. If someone has already dealt with the topic of improving the original parkside charger, please let me know.

so without original charger, the battery can't b charged.?... , i have a charger where i can specify the cutout voltage 21 and it stops when it reaches that voltage... but not shure if i can connect it directly to the +,- of the bms battery and without communicating with the chip as you say the bms won't allow charging to start....

thanks for the thread, I thought the BMS hit me, and it turns out that it is not there at all (A3)

in the 4ah battery, one section fell to me, voltage 0 V, I fired and shorted for a test with a loose working link.
The whole package seemed to charge very quickly (green LED), checking the voltage, it turned out that they only charged my single cell to the nominal 4.2V, the other sections did not exceed 3.6V (obviously, as there is no BMS: I inserted a single cell, where the others were double a charging current one)

btw, I saw something like that on YT: PAP 20 B3 "cell balancing" edition, FR but you can watch it with subtitles


could they have added BMS? or is it just the difference between B3 and A3 ...

markinn wrote:

it turned out that they only charged my single cell to the nominal 4.2V, the other sections did not exceed 3.6V (obvious as there is no BMS: I inserted a single cell, where the others were double and the charging current was one)

which confirms my earlier observations about which I wrote here.