What Charger?

[Stuart Z]

Hi

I have a pair of B6/AC 80w chargers. Have been fine for 2-3 years, now the menu’s have a mind of their own and don’t offer a balance lipo option. Clearly weird and undesirable!

I don’t have a huge demand on electrics as I prefer IC. However now we are heading into the cooler season electric models, for me, become more desirable. I’m looking to get a new quality charger that might be steady and safe over the next several years and wondering what you folks use and rely on?

Any practical suggestions welcome.

Many thanks

S

[Don Fry]

Some time back, there was a similar post. I pontificated that a 50, 80 watt unit was fine. Someone said, get a 250 watt unit, and a parallel charging board, to charge batches of batteries at the same time.

I was a bit miffed at the time. He was not kind about his use of words. The bloke was right. A 250 watt Turnigy Reactor unit, and their (more expensive) fused parallel charging board makes preparing batteries for a session a doddle.

[Dave Hess]

I use a BC168, which is a 1 to 6 cell charger. It can charge each cell with a current of between 0.1 and 8 amps, but I think for 6 S, 5A is about the maximum. Nominally it's a 200w charger that can balance, charge and discharge.with all the normal safety features including temperature control.

The reason it's so useful is that it charges each channel individually through the balance leads, so none of that iteration at the end of the charge cycle or during balancing. It takes each cell directly to the target voltage. Effectively, it's 6 chargers in one box. They're not too expensive at around £60.

You can use a balance board with any charger to charge batteries in parallel, but I'd say that they're not really suitable for our applications because if you put two packs in at different voltages, you're likely to get a fire. After a day's flying, all your lipos tend to be at different voltages, so you'd have to find some way to charge/discharge them to get them the same before you could connect them.

Edited By Dave Hess on 19/10/2018 22:02:47

[Stuart Z]

Thanks for the input folks,

I’ll take a look see what’s out there. I generally only use 2S & 3S cells but want to be able take along 4 to 6 cells at a time, charging only at 1C so higher watts and a balance board seems to be the way to go.

S