Lee Morton Posted January 2, 2021 Share Posted January 2, 2021 Discharger Hi all, been thinking of purchasing this lipo discharger/ charging unit. Not sure if it’s worth investing in a single charger or spending the extra to get a dual charger. Wondering what brands or what advice anyone could give in regards to this. I’m very new so sorry if this is posted in the wrong section! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Hall 9 Posted January 2, 2021 Share Posted January 2, 2021 That particular brand/model of charger is widely copied. I don't know how you might be able to tell if it is an original or not, but the copies (some say they work well enough) can be found quite cheaply. The discharge rate of that charger (for my purposes) is quite low, bigger batteries could take a long time. Could be good for small batteries and if you are buying a charger anyway, then maybe this is a reasonable start. You could add a better discharger later. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shaun Walsh Posted January 2, 2021 Share Posted January 2, 2021 Posted by Lee Morton on 02/01/2021 10:29:16: Discharger Hi all, been thinking of purchasing this lipo discharger/ charging unit. Not sure if it’s worth investing in a single charger or spending the extra to get a dual charger. Wondering what brands or what advice anyone could give in regards to this. I’m very new so sorry if this is posted in the wrong section! Depends on a number of factors: How many batteries do you want to charge/discharge at any one time? What capacity and how many cells do the batteries have? I use 3S 3000mAh batteries and find a dual channel charger capable of 10W per channel discharge rate is adequate. Higher discharge rate would be better but I can discharge half a dozen batteries will little inconvenience should the weather change and prohibit their immediate use. Edited By Shaun Walsh on 02/01/2021 10:55:02 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lee Morton Posted January 2, 2021 Author Share Posted January 2, 2021 Posted by Shaun Walsh on 02/01/2021 10:53:55: Posted by Lee Morton on 02/01/2021 10:29:16: Discharger Hi all, been thinking of purchasing this lipo discharger/ charging unit. Not sure if it’s worth investing in a single charger or spending the extra to get a dual charger. Wondering what brands or what advice anyone could give in regards to this. I’m very new so sorry if this is posted in the wrong section! Depends on a number of factors: How many batteries do you want to charge/discharge at any one time? What capacity and how many cells do the batteries have? I use 3S 3000mAh batteries and find a dual channel charger capable of 10W per channel discharge rate is adequate. Higher discharge rate would be better but I can discharge half a dozen batteries will little inconvenience should the weather change and prohibit their immediate use. Edited By Shaun Walsh on 02/01/2021 10:55:02 I’m using a 2200mah 3S battery currently. I have 2 for my plane, planning on buying another one in near future so that’s were I was conflicted. Don’t mind spending the extra money and investing in a decent discharger. Only thing that’s persuaded me was I’d charged both batteries a few days ago and went to go out but of course weather didn’t allow me to fly so I had both batteries on full charge and didn’t want to destroy the batteries letting them sit with a full charge. Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ben B Posted January 2, 2021 Share Posted January 2, 2021 The B6 is a reasonable basic choice (I've had two so far and still use one of them). It'll do most of what you want to being with Pros 1) Covers most basis 2) Silent Cons 1) Really old design (I think Noah used one to charge the battery bank in the Arc) 2) Market flooded with fakes of dubious quality 3) Not that reliable (I've had 2- the first one let out the magic smoke during a fully rated discharge, the 2nd, which I still use, the backlight failed). Perhaps I got fakes even though both were supposed to be "real" 4) 50W charging is okay until you start parallel charging / charging bigger batteries 5) It's silent because it doesn't have a fan to dissipate heat but that also makes discharging a bit iffy 6) The metal body (used to dissipate heat) has an interesting "feature" on my one in that when you touch it you get a not unpleasant humming/buzzy feeling in your finger. I suspect this is due to the charger that I bought for it having a semi-sleeved earth pin on the plug (which should never be the case) meaning that it's unearthed. It really depends on future use case. If you're only going to be charging 2200mAh 3S batteries in low single figure numbers it's fine. Though personally I'd still go for something like a ISDT Q8 as it's smaller, more powerful, plastic body not metal, has a fan so runs cooler and uses a standard XT30 plug so it's easier to use in the field to charge up batteries / easier to make up or get leads to power the charger. Ultimately it's personal choice. I fly FPV quads so tends to land with the batteries at the same voltage and am not using big capacity packs so parallel charge using a balance board on a 200W charger and then have a separate ISQT discharger (FD100) for parallel discharging. Even if you don't parallel charge (on the basis that you might start with all the packs at different voltages), parallel discharging is something to consider for the future (in that all the packs will be fully charged so the same voltage). Trouble is recommendation depends very much on use case. For the moment running 2-3 3s 2200maH packs a B6 could be okay if you can get one cheap. Meanwhile a Q8 and FD100 is going to cost about 60 quid all in. But then it has much more scope for future because you can then charge at 500W instead of 50W and discharge at 80W reliably (and without the magic smoke escaping like my B6 at full discharge rate). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeffrey Cottrell 2 Posted January 2, 2021 Share Posted January 2, 2021 Hi Lee Not sure if it's the charge or discharge function you are asking advice on. If it's charging then any of the recommended ones will do fine for your needs. If it's discharge, though, I don't think any of the small four button chargers has the capacity to discharge any but the smallest batteries in a reasonable time. Could I suggest a stand-alone discharger? I use one of these and it will discharge at a rate of up to 150W. Couple of words of warning. It uses car headlamp bulbs as the sink, and since these are QH, they get very hot in use (ask me how I know). Also do not touch the glass of the bulbs when fitting them. Apart from that, mine has been in use for quite a while now, without issues. Cheers Jeff Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Bott - Moderator Posted January 2, 2021 Share Posted January 2, 2021 I've been developing a 10A storage discharger for a while. It proved the futility of home built electronics when I discovered ISDT a have a couple of self contained dischargers in their range. I might start a thread about mine soon, if there's any interest. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Carlton Posted January 2, 2021 Share Posted January 2, 2021 How times have changed. My first discharger was a bit of two core cable, a variable resistor and a light bulb. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Bott - Moderator Posted January 2, 2021 Share Posted January 2, 2021 You make a very valid point, Matt. Here's the ISDT FD200 There's also an FD100 at a lower cost. Edited By Chris Bott - Moderator on 02/01/2021 22:06:18 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lee Morton Posted January 3, 2021 Author Share Posted January 3, 2021 Thanks for the advice everyone lots of very helpful and useful information I will certainly use in my purchase of a new discharger. Just after a further bit of advice. Purchased a new battery. Unfortunately it seems like the connection is completely different from my current battery and of course plane. Would I be able to make use of this battery by purchasing an adaptor? Just curious if it would be safe using the adaptor when flying? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frank Skilbeck Posted January 3, 2021 Share Posted January 3, 2021 Yep, I've used several adaptors from time to time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Lee Posted January 3, 2021 Share Posted January 3, 2021 Assuming the Horizon Hobby Smart battery is the original that fits straight into your model: That is fitted with a an IC3 connector. That is identical to an EC3 connector except it has an extra 'Smart' data lead. This can be ignored for an adapter purposes. Your RoadRing battery is fitted with an XT60 connector. To fit your RoadRing battery in your model you need an XT60 Male Plug to EC3 Female adapter, eg this Should the RoadRing be your original battery then you will need an EC3 to XT60 adaptor. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary Binnie Posted January 3, 2021 Share Posted January 3, 2021 On the B6AC fake or genuine HobbyKing openly offer both versions! If it says 'Sky RC' on the front it's genuine, the copies don't have this logo. Who knows?!! The model shop in Zante (Zakynthos) town has fakes for sale, I usually pop in to say hello on holiday. The B6AC discharge current limit is 0.5A, it does for my small capacity batteries. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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