Tools I like and tools needed to be repaired or figure out what they are for....tool Junkie topic

revision: sorry they are not insulated.the Klein tool blue handle (pvc covered maybe)

got to looking closer and it says warning not insulated on them

brought them inside and took hopefully a better picture with the el cheapo android cellular phone to send to post a hopefully better picture ,,,at any rate I am really careful around the 544ah LiFePO4 battery as I sparked one once and ruined a grub screw / set screw like melting with an arc welder....

I will need to pick and watch my tools a bit closer....somewhat dark in the off-grid solar power shed so this morning took the better pictures in the office inside the 1840-1880 vintage farm house off grid....🤔🤔🤔😎

 i got it charged up to 30 percent by dark then shut off the Riden 6018 

I  brought the  Riden 6024  because of your earlier  review .     This is an automatic  battery charger  and will never overcharge my LI Ion  BMW battery .  I  use it to charge all Li Ion battery size  of  15vdc  and 20vdc and  30vdc  and  45vdc and  60vdc  and even  8vdc  Leaf battery .    I  am riunning my new  200 dollars Powerjack 9000 watt  18 hours a day off grid  and run portable heaters to heat the  1800 sq ft  house .    My utility bill is one of the lowest in Arizona  according to the utility company  and even  lower than  people who have solar install by the utility which add  80 dollars  maintence fee a month  to all people  who has solar  and net metering is 4 cents per kwh .       

I also bought the Riden 6024 but unfortunately have not yet assembled it....but yesterday did find the small battery it needs and the power cord as those are two items one has to buy separately in the Riden bench power supply builds.... lots of irons in the fire >>> multi-tasking in retirement....

another diy solar friend made me 2 sets of heavier charging leads....

wow ..... it is always amazing and I am a believer in the "pay it forward" motto and often get more enjoyment of helping others for free than being paid... i really like  teaching others when I can... 

great to hear your 200 dollar investment in the 9k PowerJack is working vs being bashed. i will not be grid connected to the electric monopoly....>> no incentive for me...

 I like the Riden 6018 a lot and will try the Riden 6024 later.....

they are predicting more snow in the next couple days, and i scoop a little more each day....

when i lived in Vermont for 15 months they used to pack the snow in the mountains will big rollers and drive on top of it....i thought that was strange but the amount here is getting to the point of thinking that was a good idea as there is not much room to move the snow off the driveway....about 24- 30- inches deep now with lots of fences covered entirely....

cheers all,,,,

from snowy South Dakota 😎 

well I finally took the time (2 plus days off and on maybe 6 hours) and assembled the Riden 6024 bench top charger....most time is looking for pieces and parts and tools...

Riden 6024 is now functional and will charge up to 60 volts at 24 amps.... yea >>> more power ooo ooo ooo says "Tim" the toolman!!! arh arh arh

It also does not come with the external leads but I have several and plan to make up an improved set with 10 gauge silcone wire for increased flexibility....stiff wire is less to my liking >>>> slow but sure !!!

I put in the coin cell battery (not included) and it also has the WIFI board..... found a 10 amp ac power cord (not included) for the box I bought at a garage sale for 50 cents and it had a right angle end and a cable clamp. so will be more compact cord winding on the bench in the off-grid solar power shed.....not much room...still waiting to build a bigger one.... I find it interesting that all the power cords that fit into the s800 case designed for the Riden >>>i found were rated at 10 amps 120 volts.... they are the same style power cord as what fits into a Dell desktop computer and many other electronic items... some are labeled that they have 18 gauge wire inside those power cords.... hmmm hmmm

this one (Riden 6024) was a bit different than the Riden 6012 and 6018 in that it had 2 larger terminals to connect the Riden 6024 to the power supply so I had to solder the two positives to a larger wire (I used 12gauge copper primary wire (stiff stuff)but wish it was silicone wire instead) (I used electrical solder but the pistol style soldering gun kind of sucked) with a crimped on female spade end (used the Klein tools cr3005 crimper for insulated fasteners) which then fit onto the include male spade end that in turn screws down to the positive and negative respectively.....

my solder skills with the magnifying alligator clamp station were less than stellar....🤔🤣 (I taped the splice but I think I will go back and put heat shrink on that solder wire extension splice (2 wires into one larger wire)).

the reason I bring this up is I was thinking of Sean having to hand solder electric parts for some of the GS inverter work and thinking to myself what a pain in the rear end that will be....

but of course with a better solder iron and a better bench to work upon and a lot of repetitive soldering of small electronic parts >>>the soldering skill will likely improve...

I also made up some inverter cables for another inverter with the 10 ton hydraulic crimper....all works well with the proper tools and I put heat shrink on the ends to minimize the exposed electric and hooked up to a HF inverter 3000Watt.

of course now I need to make up a mount for the large fuse and fuse block between the inverter and the LiFePO4 battery.... 

I think I will order some 12 gauge copper silicone wire,,,, to improve the wire inside the Riden 6024,,,,,

I think the screw down post are an improvement in the ampacity of the Riden 6024 if I can improve my solder connection/workmanship a bit 🤔🤔😎

gotta go 

have a great day all,,,, more snow coming tomorrow....😎

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I am going with 12 awg for the internal wire from the power supply to the Riden 6024.... it connects via a spade type lug that is fastened down via screw terminal....the next thing is the fork type terminals to find or maybe i will make my own with small diameter copper pipe....most of the fork terminals i find are thin gauges China made junk on the internet.....

if you know where i can find better quality fork type terminals let me know...

I have some 10 awg silicone copper wire that  I think I will make some flexible leads with for battery charging....using the Riden 6024...

the Riden 6024 is described as basically a buck converter but can be set anywhere from 0 to 60 volts as a constant current battery charger, and also one can set the constant current if that is the method you need.

for my purposes the battery charging option set at a constant voltage works great and when it is fully charged the amperage just decreases automatically down to zero.... a very handy unit...

 I was thinking of Sean having to hand solder electric parts for some of the GS inverter work and thinking to myself what a pain in the rear end that will be.

I do not think  Sean will do soldering  but have his helper  do the soldering .      He is probably  working with the bank to get his money back so can pay  a soldering company to do the soldering  like the  wire  assembly   company   making  the cable  and the  shell  making  company  doing the work .  

2 hours ago, dickson said:

I do not think  Sean will do soldering  but have his helper  do the soldering

Reality is that it is very simple and quick, just the equipment he has makes it difficult watching him solder in those older videos just hurt to watch.  He didn't know though so not his fault and was still fun to watch.  I think he has better equipment now because Sid said something to him. 

Helps considerably now that he has an actual 60W temp-controlled (el cheapo Chinese) soldering iron...instead of a puny battery-powered cordless iron that was uselessly weak.  Oh, and using standard 60/40 solder instead of the lead-free stuff that I still have never been able to get to work.

yes better equipment on a work surface with adequate room, the right type of solder, an improved soldering iron will definitely help >>> but a factory that does the same task 1000's of times each week with better equipment will likely produce a higher quality end product.

I primarily solder plumbing parts and when I go to soldering small electronic parts and wires i seem to fumble about more as it is not my best mastered skill, quite the opposite...although now i use more of the pex with crimped connections in whole house plumbing remodels....always a few pieces of copper to be soldered in place though....i have a big plumbing job coming up soon...

I also have hard time with hand soldering small electronic parts, but need a better soldering iron (((yea yea ...more better tools for the budget)))

now >>> hydraulically crimped copper cable connections >>> i do great at those....

my engineer contact uses a lot of smd (surface mount devices) in his electronic assemblies but he has a pick n place machine and an oven for the smd installations.....way beyond my means but he makes a lot of solid state things....

the through hole component soldering of the mosfets would seem to be fairly easy and repetitive once you get started at the right angle of attack....but I have not attempted that task personally....

my 10 ton hydraulic crimper was bought for small size wire crimping and the other (first one i bought) 16 ton hydraulic crimper works great for the larger wire crimping...and when you mount the hydraulic crimper in a adjustable drill press vise it gives you the extra hand you wish you had when using the hydraulic crimper.....

cheers all,

you can order things on alibaba and aliexpress right now even if they are in the Chinese celebrations,,,the shipping may be delayed a bit...some order arrive amazing fast...

Riden 6024 bench power supply upgrade: i ordered a 14 gauge power cord in 3 foot and 6 foot version as some reviews indicated the smaller typical 18 gauge power cord to the power supply gets hot and another review actually indicated the Riden 6024 functioned better with the 14 gauge power cord.

the limiting factor in the Riden 6024 bench top power supply is the required dc voltage input from the separate power supply. normal is to get a 68-70 volt dc capable external dc power supply as the Riden is a buck converter and in order to out put 60 volts it needs a higher level dc power supply...

to get the full rated 24 amps out of a Riden 6024 at 60 volts >>> one needs an approximate 1500 watt dc power supply >>>> so the need for an 14 gauge 15 amp power cord to the external dc power supply becomes more apparent.... 

Monoprice brand 3-prong power cords made to fit 17.20 with tax on ebay for the 2 of them.

to get the full rated 24 amps out of a Riden 6024 at 60 volts >>> one needs an approximate 1500 watt dc power supply >>>> so the need for an 14 gauge 15 amp power cord to the external dc power supply becomes more apparent..

My  DC power supply is 600 watts .      I  charge 2  Li Ion battery in parallel   at one time at  60vdc and at  5  amps each .       Charging  BMW battery at  24 amps will blow up by the  heat from  fast charging .     Very dangerous to charge  BMW battry  without  water cooling  so I have to do slow charging .     

wow,,,,, that would seem to be difficult the slow charging.....can you put more in parallel or is your limiting part the power supply connected to the Riden 6024??

i have a LiFePO4 2P8S using Lischen 272Ah cells (16 of them ) that got a little low so I charged at 27.8 volts and 18 amps but that is way less than 108.8 amps which would be .2C charge rate..... i had to wake them back up as the BMS went into low voltage undercurrent (low voltage) shut down so they had to be manually brought back up....never had that happen before but was a bit preoccupied with the sheep lambing and huge snow falls to deal with....

that battery was 100 percent SOC yesterday but all is buried in snow again today....🤔😒

27.8volts  x 18amps = 500.4 watts charging

if I can get the 24 amps I could charge with the Riden 6024 at (27.8 x 24 = 667.2 watts) although it would take slightly more watts input from the power supply to do that....

I am thinking they will be helpful for the 48 volt LifePO4 builds that are more like 56.8 volts or so... (16cells x 3.55volts/cell = 56.8volts) If I can charge 56.8 x 24 amps then 1363.2 watts would be needed and a 1500 watt power supply to the Riden 6024 would be just about max....

I was running the Riden 6018 and power supply off of another inverter connected to a separate LiFePO4 battery and inverter....as all is one off grid and there is no grid power in any of my PV solar 

the Riden 6024 assembly was waiting for me so with all the snow.....a good time to avoid the outside stuff.....another 10-12 inches of snow again this morning and it is still snowing....i scooped snow until i got froze out and fed the livestock this morning.....

hope that groundhog gives some good news and the snow melts quick....😎😎

sorry for the rambling

>>> the 48 volt batteries (56.8) only have solar PV as I have never used the Riden 6018 on them other than groups of 4 individual cells in parallel for the initial top balancing and let the solar PV charge the assembled LiFEPO4 2P16S .... 

I prefer the sun does the work to charge and the Riden is primarily for initial top balancing (my use anyway) although it did kind of just help out the low battery( still off grid though) 😎👍

in the battery charge mode the Riden 6018 is great for its ability to set it to constant voltage and when charged up >>>> the amps just decrease down to nothing when charged at your desired end voltage..... I like that a lot....Ii did test out the Riden 6024 but waiting on a few parts to upgrade it a bit more....

wow,,,,, that would seem to be difficult the slow charging.....can you put more in parallel or is your limiting part the power supply connected to the Riden 6024??

Yes  that is 10 hours  at  5 amps  and  for  4  Li Ion in parallel is  20 hours charging  at  2 amps .    The  limit of my  dc power supply  65vdc and  max 600 watts .      helpful for the 48 volt LifePO4 builds that are more like 56.8 volts or so... (16cells x 3.55volts/cell = 56.8volts) If I can charge 56.8 x 24 amps then 1363.2 watts would be needed and a 1500 watt power supply to the Riden 6024 would be just about max..           1363 watts is a lot for 16 cells  .    I  find  the max  wattage for charging  with a  temperature  gun in the summer  and at  10 amps and 60 vdc the one battery  reach 180 degree F   so now 2 in parallel  is good and safe .     LifePO4  charging  may take more  amps  but check the temperature  to be safe  .        Slow charging  is safe .     I  leave the Riden 6024  connected to my inverter at night  and the  inverter never shut down due to  undervotage and before  I had to go  outside at  night  to  restart the inverter  when the battery  run down .    

Riden 6024 follow up:

"Kiss Analog" was using the Riden 6018 in his YouTube video and his 1000 watt power supply gave him about 85 percent efficiency.

so 85 percent of a 1500 watt AC to DC power supply may yield ??? 1275 watts hmmm hmmm, and he melted the thin power cord so had to get a thicker power cord.... he does a lot of things good but did not install the cr1220 coin cell battery before putting in the WIFI board, that WIFI board fits really tight and will be rather difficult to remove to put in the coin cell battery (which the assembler has to buy separately from the kit, the power cord is a separate purchase also(not included in the kit either) ; ((the battery charging and test leads also must be bought separately as they are not included in the kits)).

1275 /60 volts = 21.25 amps

1275 / 57 volts = 22.37 amps 

1275 / 56.8 volts = 22.447 amps

makes me think a 1800 or 2000 watt AC to DC external power supply will be needed to get the max 24 amps at 56.8 volts (56.8 x 24 = 1363.2 watts)

1800 x 85 percent efficiency = 1530 watts

1600 x 85 percent efficiency = 1360 watts would be about perfect if there was a suitable 1600 watt external power supply DC to AC available that can put out 65 volts continuously without problems...

probably burn it out if not careful...?????

LiFePO4 280ah EVE cells >>> I like the EVE LF280K cells....

24 amps into 280ah cell would be (24/180= .08C) way lower than the maximum rated 1C charge rate for the EVE LF280K LiFePO4 cells....

I need to take a peak with the non contact thermometer to see how warm the various wires and pieces and parts may be getting....

I normally parallel 4 of the 280ah cells together to do the initial top balancing before assembling into the large 24 volt and 48 volt batteries....

scooped snow off the solar panels and then it snowed some more....😒

the power loss on the conversion of ac to dc then loss at the Riden buck converter is assuming an 85 percent efficiency overall.....assume is a bad word as a gal i know always repeated that >>>  assume makes an axx out of you and me

I do notice the prices creeping up on the different vendor sites as with essentially all products these days...for the Riden 6024 etc....

I have a dedicated 24 volt LiFePO4 charger I bought from a golf cart battery vendor (about 3 years ago)that i can use also for the 24 volt batteries but not the 48 volt batteries....

all is done off grid in my outdoor solar power shed in super cold sometimes/mostly sunny South Dakota.... it is currently minus 2 degrees Fahrenheit outside....hope the sun shines ((((without wind))) >>> as I have a lot of snow to clear from the driveway today in order to get out to the gravel road....darn snow drifts anyway....

there is about 2 feet of snow on almost everything...

have a great day 😎