I am all charged up, or am I

[Erfolg]

I have been having trouble with my Lipo charger and balancer recently. Still no nearer resolving the issues.

I have a 450mA (2s), remainder (3s)850mA. 1200mA, 2200mA & 3200mA lipos.

Yet my current charger only charges at 1000mA, 1500mA and 2000mA. It seems time for a new charger, with greater versatility.

What versatility do I want. I have been thinking and I think this is what ideally I would like.

a) Greater range of outputs in mA, ideally infinitely variable (but would this be convenient).
b) Must do as a minimum 350mA to 4000mA
c) 2, 3, 4S
d) A numeric output of what is happening. With the trouble I have been happening I would like some indication what is happening and what has happened. I guess I would then need to understand the information.

Any monitoring done, should this be a real time link to the PC, or a transferable file. Although I do like the pug and forget facility of my present device, it does have limitations it would seem.

e) The cost should be reasonable. I like most modellers have a draw full of chargers, most of no apparent use, or I do not know what they are supposed to do. Most were not cheap, yet are pretty basic. Any way I do not want more junk for the draw.

I seem to remember RCM&E did a comparative review of chargers a few Christmases ago, but do not ember any since.

What are others using:

1) Why?
2) Does it do what you want
3) What does it not do
4) What would you buy today

Your feed back will be appreciated.

Regards

Erfolg

[Grant Darnley]

The standard appears to be the pro-peak prodigy, I'm fairly sure it fulfils all the above criteria.

I'm personally happy enough with a Prolux £15 cheapo, only does 3s and I don't think its fully charging my 2170 but it works and is simple to use

[Tim Mackey]

I have several chargeres also, and the pro peak prodigy is very good for the money. However for a LiPo dedicated charger, I like my Astro Flight the best ( Link here ) http://www.astroflight.com/store/store-type-tem.html?item=products:af-109&sid=0001v3Lr3Uk3OI4tfs209M9
It has all the features you wanted, including infinately variable charge rate ( by rotary control knob ). Not the cheapest, but well made and has served me very well over the 4 years I have had it.
Up to 9 cells at 9 amp, and from as low as 1 cell at 50m/a. Should be pretty future proof, and has discharge facility too if really wanted.

[Phillip Powell]

I read with interest the article in RCME on LiPo battery balancer leads and adaptors and I found myself asking what is this problem about are LiPo's particularly prone to cells becoming unbalanced.

Now before somebody patronises me and tries to explain the problem I understand exactly how a rouge cell in a pack can effect the performance of said pack both in the discharge and the charge situation what I don't see are figures showing the incidence of failure resulting in the demise of a model or the long term effects of ignoring balancing altogether and just charging and flying.

I would guess that failure could happen in either circumstance but if for arguments sake 10 people flying the same model with the same power and traction system just ignored balancing and charged with the same peak detect charger and flew every weekend till the motor power cut how much flying time and max power loss would they suffer in a year?

If there is a loss of lets say on average of 5mins in a commencing 20min flight time after ayear then to me it begs the question what if I do a balance charge at the begining of the next year am I back to square one?

[Tim Mackey]

Its not the rouge cells you need to watch out for.... its the rogues :-)

[Erfolg]

Phil

I have a lot of sympathy with your position.

We expect that most equipment to have been evaluated, tested and checked by the manufactures, when we purchase industrial or even domestic products.

The model trade, particularly with electric flight equipment, does not have or provide information of the type you mention. The need for balancing is implied, by suggesting dire consequences from omission. The trade abounds with experts, who give well intended cautionary advice (which any Health and Safty advicer will automatically give). Modellers who push the boundary of the advice are advised that there are risks from their activities.

Warnings which are not based on substance, that is a measure is bordering on Witchcraft. It is just as helpful as telling some one if you go running, you might fall and twist an ankle. Yes it does happen, but this event type can happen to walkers to. Misses out information which might be relevant, is the ground flat, is it a track, the age of the person, is it daytime or night etc.

I do balance my cells, but do wonder if the practice is as effective as the Elephant pills and anti Penguin wires I have recently installed in the garden and roof of my house. You are right in my opinion, we need more facts, less generalised statements from the experts.

Regards

Erfolg

[Brian Ingrey]

Hi Erfolg and others.Just picked up on this thread and have gone through the minefield enough times! I have various sizes of Kokam packs as they seemed to to be one of the best makes at time I started into the foray of electric flight. I bought a Micro Show Flyer sometime ago after reading the review. I decided to change to Poly Pro packs by Overlander and also bought their Tornado charge through balancer.This really is an excellent piece of kit catering for all types of balance plugs. The 2500mAh pack seemed to perform ok after charging with a cheap li-po charger. However,a brand new 3700mAh Poly Pro was fitted to my Overlander Tucano having been fully charged ( I thought) using the same charger. Both above packs 11.1v3s. Between 5-7 minutes the motor shut down and I was lucky to have enough speed to land safely. No Aerobatics-just flying and trimmimg the model.After several attempts at charging this new li-po the charger finally stopped beeping and appeared to charge as normal.
The charger cut out indicating that charging had finished but on disconnecting leads and plugging back into the balancer there was no sign of the 3 green led's.All I got was a red led and 2green led's flashing at the same time. I assumed the battery was faulty and returned same to Overlander with a covering letter explaining exactly what had happened.John .... the MD of Overlander ran through the events with me and then asked what charger I had used.When I told him the make and the supplier he was quite frank with me and stated that they had had a number of battery failures with modellers using this make of charger.
On his advice I purchased their e-STATION 301 DX Digital Charger/Discharger and after charging various li-po,ni-cad and ni-mh batteries can honestely say that this is an excellent quality product. John very kindly replaced the damaged li-po free of charge for which I was truly grateful. His answer to the problem should be a warning to all in that his conclusion was that that the cheap chargers do not always read the correct voltage of a given cell pack and therefore cease charging before the battery is fully charged. What surprised me more was that in the case of the new 3700 li-po the voltage was reached but the unit was putting a gradually reduced charge despite the fact that the voltage was showing 12.6v
Below the voltage reading on the screen display is a charged capacity reading which continues going up until the battery full alarm goes off. I now think that just under £60 I have a charger that will fully charge virtually any pack that I have and have some piece of mind. I will PM anyone who wants to know the make of the rogue charger and I also accept that there are other good chargers on the market.

[Robert Leadbeater]

i use this hyperion charger and am very happy with it also does many other battery types and the mah goes up in 50ma steps.

http://robotbirds.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=9_94&products_id=1313

before i fly/ charge i check the voltage of my lipos with this handy device

http://brchobbies.co.uk/?page=shop&action=additem&item=292

which means that i can spot any unbalanced/uncharged lipos.

[Erfolg]

Postscript

Before I identified the right charger for me (I am only intersted in Lipos), I saw a short piece in the BMFA Magazine.

It is for a Gadget which cycles through your individual cells (within the battery), providing details on the voltage (plugs into the charging socket).

It cost about £7 from BRC, works well.

It confirmed what I suspected, in that the charger somtimes trips out before the full charge or balancing is completed. If that happens I just restart the charger and the balancer takes the battery to full capacity and balanced.

Erfolg

[Erfolg]

I have bought a new charger a little while back, the IMAX 6 that Timbo reviewed on this site.

I am pleased with it to date. It balances the cells whilst charging and gives readings of the volts in each cell whilst operating.

It does a check that you have set the cells correctly before starting. It also has a very wide range of charge rates.

I still occasionally use the BRC cell checker, it just confirms the readout of the Imax. Could use my digital voltmeter but the gadget is quicker and more convenient.

Oh, it cost £45 from Hobbycity including post and packing.

Erfolg