Triton 2 Charger Discharger Cycler

© Brooke Clarke 2007

Single Channel i.e. only one pack at at time.
Chemistries supported: Ni-Cad, Ni-MH, Lead Acid, Li-poly, Li-Ion
Charge current 0.1 to 7.0 Amps or 90 Watts whichever is lower
Discharge current 0.1 to 3.0 Amps or 20 Watts whichever is lower.

The LCD is a 16 character by 2 line type which works in a multilevel menu scheme.  This minimizes the display cost thus lowering the final price of the charger, but at the price of hiding information making it harder to use the charger.  There are some key concepts that once you get (not by RTFM) then it's not too bad.

Five Battery Types (NOT Four!)

The first thing to understand is that there are 5 battery types: (1) Memory, (2) NCad, (3) Ni-MH, (4) Li-Po/-Ion and (5) Lead Acid.  The Memory battery type is indexed and has 10 possible values.  There is no seperate factory set of values just the 10 channels.  These come from the factory setup, but once you change them there's not way to get them back other than manually programming.  Each time you press the  BATT TYPE key the charger takes on the personality associated with that battery chemistry.  For example any setting you do in the (1) Memory battery type, say like setting it to Ni-MH and setting the charge and discharge currents, will have no effect on the (3) Ni-MH battery type.  This caused me a lot of confusion when first using the charger.

For each battery type you can define things like pack nominal voltage, charge and discharge currents.   In the top Memory battery screen the only thing that can be changed is the index number (1 to 10).  The pack voltage and capacity are changed in lower menus which are accessed with the knob.  You can press the BATT TYPE key when in any of the Battery Type menus and it will take you to the top menu in the next highest numbered battery type.   Type (5) [my numbers, not Triton2] Lead Acid goes to (1) Memory.  Since it's just a button you can only go in one direction round and round the list.  Note that for each index into the memory the pack voltage and capacity is displayed to remind  you what is in that index.

The (1) Memory battery type does not have any action keys, just things that define a battery pack.  So if you are in any of the (1) Memory battery type screens and press and hold down the knob nothing will happen.

The Triton2 stores any parameter change when the knob is pressed causing that parameter to stop blinking.  If you power down the Triton2 right after that knob press and power it back up the change will be remembered.

When in the (1) Memory battery type menu and you press the MENU CHANGE key the Triton does two things.  First it jumps to that action battery type that matches the current Memory battery index you have selected.  Say you have selected a Memory battery type that's a Ni-MH.  The next screen will be the top screen for (3) Ni-MH.  Then all the parameters that were in that battery type will be erased and replaced by whatever was defined in the memory battery type.  This can be confusing if you don't realize that selecting a memory overwrites the non memory battery type.  Note there's a subtle difference in how the memory screens are labeled and the action screens.  The memory screens have inputs saying "charge current" or "discharge current" and the action screens have inputs like :NiCd Charge" or "NiCd discharge".

On any of the action screens you can press and hold the knob to start that action.   The action might be to charge, discharge, cycle starting with charge or cycle starting with discharge.  The next screen will be a Working Screen.

On any of the action screens you can press MENU to get to the setup screen associated with that chemistry.  The setup parameters are different for each of the four chemistries (battery types (2) through (4)).

Setup Parameters

Each of the four action battery types has setup parameters associated with it.  These parameters are related to the charging or discharging of that chemistry more than they are with the pack configuration and so are not part of the memory settings.

NiCd	NiMH	LiPo/Ion	Pb
Sound	Sound	Sound	Sound
Timer min	Timer min	Timer min	Timer min
deg F/C	deg F/C	deg F/C	deg F/C
Stop Temp	Stop Temp	Stop Temp	Stop Temp
Pk delay min	Pk delay min	na	na
rest min	rest min	na	na
Pk sen mv/cell	Pk sen mv/cell	na	na
na	max chg mAh	na	na
na	Top-off chg mAh	na	na

Each setup parameter in the table is independently memorized.  The factory default sound is set to 1 for each chemistry.  It might be better to use a different sound for each chemistry so if  you were not paying attention you would get a warning of a mistake.
 
From any setup parameter screen when you press the MENU key you go back to the action screen that you used to get to the setup menus.
Note that when the Triton2 is working you can not access the setup screens. 

Working Screens

The screen changes from the static action screen to the "Battery Check" screen where the Triton2 checks to see if a battery is connected and that it's not an primary battery that should not be charged.  In a few seconds it goes to a working screen that displays:

Chemistry	C/D/#	mAh
pack voltage	Current	minutes

If you see this screen the charger is working.

STOP  just press MENU MENU.  Sometimes it might take two presses depending on which screen you may have navigated to.  On the first working screen described above just one press will shut down the charger.

Operation Time Working Screen

Turing the knob when in the top working screen displays the time in hours minutes and seconds.  You can go back and forth between these two screens with the knob.

Detail Working Screens

While the charger is working you can press the BATT TYPE key to see details on the current task.
The screens then are accessed by rotating the knob:

• Input Voltage and Output Voltage
• Peak and Avg discharge voltage
• charge / discharge mAh for each cycle
• Battery temperature (requires optional temperature sensor)

This menu does not wrap.
To return to the main working screen press MENU only one time.  You might see a battery temperature higher than you expected and want to stop while watching this screen so to stop press MENU MENU.

After the action has finished you're supposed to be able to access the detail screens by pressing <MENU><BATT TYPE> at the same time.   Sometimes this works for me and sometimes it does not.  When it does work and you have been doing cycling you can press the knob on the page that shows the cycle # then rotate the knob to see the Charge and Discharge mAh for each cycle.  This is very good info to see.  If the battery is leveling off then it has been reformed or if it keeps gaining capacity then it needs more cycles.

WARNING Using banana plugs on the output of the Triton2 was a mistake in my opinion.  The reason is that when you unplug the Banana Plugs you have disconnected from the Triton2 BUT you are still connected to the battery.  If the plugs short together the full battery current will flow!  Something that's all too easy with Banana plugs. A much better choice of connectors would be Power Poles where there are no exposed electrical terminals.  Another option would be to use shrouded banana plugs, like on handheld Digital Multi Meters, but then it would be hard for a hobbyist to make up charging cables.  The Power Pole option allows for easy home cable construction.