Kraton Charger suggestions

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My understanding this drain mA is for discharging packs. For charge / balancing, it runs UP to balance. about .1v or so away from cutoff, it will start to taper the amps off. By the time the cell is at 4.18 or so, the charge current is down to .1a-.3a. Both my Reaktor and my Hitec X1 act this way. I am not 100% sure when the amps gets ramped down as I am often off doing other stuff while the batteries are charging.

Maybe your 2X 700 has a more aggressive ramp at the end of the cycle?
That makes sense to me. The X2 being a newer charger and way more powerful may have a more aggressive ramp up at the end. Thanks for the information.

cool! that's the one jerry was telling me to get =).. the power supply does it connect directly to the wall? or does it come with a cable to connect to the wall?... I need 4mm female output leads?, really don't know what that means sorry.. the batteries im trying to get have a xt90, .. ugghhhh im a total noob in this right now sorry
It is basically a server power supply and it comes with the cable to plug into your wall outlet and then the charger plugs directly into the power supply.

This is an example of a charge lead that plugs into the battery and the 4mm female outputs on the charger.
http://www.progressiverc.com/xt90-charge-cable.html

This is an example of a balance board.
http://www.progressiverc.com/jst-xh-balance-board.html

This is an example of a balance extension.
http://www.progressiverc.com/balance-extensions.html

These may not be the exact ones that you need (but I have linked the XT90 that is the standard Arrma 1/8th scale connector and I have never seen a battery that used a balance lead other than JST-XH), so make sure that you check the connections that you will be using on the batteries to make sure that your leads and connectors match.
 
You plug the PS into the wall. you plug your charge "input" leads into the 12vdc output plugs in the PS. The input for the charger need to have 4mm male bullets soldered in place.
https://www.smc-racing.net/index.php?route=product/product&path=66&product_id=439


See page 12 -
http://hitecrcd.com/images/products/pdf/420_X2-700-Update-V4b.pdf
You can use a battery, but normally instead of a battery, you will be connecting to the PS.
Mine came with the wires hardwired in and 4mm males on the ends like the picture below BUT I have also had mine for over a year so they may have changed that for newer ones.
upload_2018-2-1_13-49-13.png
 
That makes sense to me. The X2 being a newer charger and way more powerful may have a more aggressive ramp up at the end. Thanks for the information.


It is basically a server power supply and it comes with the cable to plug into your wall outlet and then the charger plugs directly into the power supply.

This is an example of a charge lead that plugs into the battery and the 4mm female outputs on the charger.
http://www.progressiverc.com/xt90-charge-cable.html

This is an example of a balance board.
http://www.progressiverc.com/jst-xh-balance-board.html

This is an example of a balance extension.
http://www.progressiverc.com/balance-extensions.html

These may not be the exact ones that you need (but I have linked the XT90 that is the standard Arrma 1/8th scale connector and I have never seen a battery that used a balance lead other than JST-XH), so make sure that you check the connections that you will be using on the batteries to make sure that your leads and connectors match.


chevy!, Jerry! thank you both!!!!
 
My understanding this drain mA is for discharging packs. For charge / balancing, it runs UP to balance. about .1v or so away from cutoff, it will start to taper the amps off. By the time the cell is at 4.18 or so, the charge current is down to .1a-.3a. Both my Reaktor and my Hitec X1 act this way. I am not 100% sure when the amps gets ramped down as I am often off doing other stuff while the batteries are charging.

Maybe your 2X 700 has a more aggressive ramp at the end of the cycle?
This is where I got the information from. Maybe I misinterpreted what they were saying or maybe they don't know what they are talking about. I don't know what is right and what is wrong for this but figured I would link you to where I saw it so you don't think I'm crazy LOL. Maybe when it does the balancing it puts that number (800mA, 350mA, whatever) into all cells and then discharges the overage from the cells that don't need it and that's why it's a discharging number..?? I really don't have the slightest clue. But yes as you get above 4.18 volts per cell the current does drop quite a bit.

https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?2791505-RCGroups-Review-of-the-Hitec-X2-700
upload_2018-2-1_14-36-37.png
 
Interesting. Nice review too. :) Seeing as he is the Hitec rep, I will assume he knows more than me.

[brainstorming]
Trying to think this thru and make it make sense... Maybe Main charge current applied to the main leads, and discharge current applied to the balance plug for the high cells only, at the same time maybe? That would make the charge load higher for the low cells. Higher discharge capability = higher charge delta between the cells, which makes it balance quicker? Humm... That works in my head, no idea if that is what is really going on though... [/brainstorming]

Actually that make much more sense vs how I was thinking balance happened before.
 
Interesting. Nice review too. :) Seeing as he is the Hitec rep, I will assume he knows more than me.

[brainstorming]
Trying to think this thru and make it make sense... Maybe Main charge current applied to the main leads, and discharge current applied to the balance plug for the high cells only, at the same time maybe? That would make the charge load higher for the low cells. Higher discharge capability = higher charge delta between the cells, which makes it balance quicker? Humm... That works in my head, no idea if that is what is really going on though... [/brainstorming]

Actually that make much more sense vs how I was thinking balance happened before.
I am assuming that they are a Hitec rep but in this day and age of the internet you can't always believe everything you read. lol. I have no idea how it works though. I'm just a drafter and don't have any electronics schooling so what you said earlier and now and what they said all seem plausible to me.
 
Drafter, Eh? Me too.. I drive a PDMS 3d model these days... Not much Acad anymore.
I've honestly never heard of PDMS until now but it looks pretty nice. I started on Autocad, then went to Solidworks, then to Inventor and now am using SDS/2 structural steel modeling software. My favorite and personal favorite is probably Solidworks.
 
Hitec X2 and I think X4 are 50 / 50 per channel.

This is my experience w a 50 watt per channel, Hitec X2, which I use 4S and 5S all the time. After about two months it went bad. Warranty is 6 months, BUT they will only pay for shipping if it goes bad within a month of service. It makes no sense, anything to prevent the customer to file a claim, cheap move Hitec...

The charger works whenever it wants to, and it severely overheats when pushing 3C on those 5000mah 5S batteries. I put a small fan, besides the built in noisy ones and they are loud, to prevent it from cooking.

Buy a charger with the best warranty and one that has the wattage for high capacity batteries. Am locked out, cant return it and I got to pay for shipping.

The only option so one does not pay shipping is to use Paypal, which gives around 6 shipping refunds per year. I messed up and paid w plastic, fail on my part.

I would not recommend Hitec.
Luckily I still got my china chargers which have not gone bad after many many years of abuse.

easily with the car, charger, power supply, batteries, easily almost $1,000 !! wow! lol
I don't even want to know how much I have spent since I started this RC bug many years ago. This is a hobby that is for someone who will put the time and effort into it, and its the usual you got to pay to play dealio...
 
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Hitec X2 and I think X4 are 50 / 50 per channel.

This is my experience w a 50 watt per channel, Hitec X2, which I use 4S and 5S all the time. After about two months it went bad. Warranty is 6 months, BUT they will only pay for shipping if it goes bad within a month of service. It makes no sense, anything to prevent the customer to file a claim, cheap move Hitec...

The charger works whenever it wants to, and it severely overheats when pushing 3C on those 5000mah 5S batteries. I put a small fan, besides the built in noisy ones and they are loud, to prevent it from cooking.

Buy a charger with the best warranty and one that has the wattage for high capacity batteries. Am locked out, cant return it and I got to pay for shipping.

The only option so one does not pay shipping is to use Paypal, which gives around 6 shipping refunds per year. I messed up and paid w plastic, fail on my part.

I would not recommend Hitec.
Luckily I still got my china chargers which have not gone bad after many many years of abuse.
You're talking about the X2 ac, which is 50 watts per channel. We are talking about the X2 700 which is dc power only, which is 700 watts per channel. Night and day difference in the chargers.
 
I have had the x4 a.c. plus for around 3 years and x2 700 for over a year and haven't had a problem or anything overheat or any hiccups. That sucks that you're having an issue with warranty.
 
I gotta say, in all my years in the hobby, this is the first complaint I have heard of for Hitec Customer Service. Most mfgr's I have dealt with want us to pay postage to them. Even Arrma - we pay shipping to them (just got my new BLX185 combo in exchange from my old BLX180). Horizon Hobby though - they did send me a shipping label when I needed to return a dead Prophet Sport Duo charger.
 
I gotta say, in all my years in the hobby, this is the first complaint I have heard of for Hitec Customer Service. Most mfgr's I have dealt with want us to pay postage to them. Even Arrma - we pay shipping to them (just got my new BLX185 combo in exchange from my old BLX180). Horizon Hobby though - they did send me a shipping label when I needed to return a dead Prophet Sport Duo charger.
When I blew the bearing in my Arrma motor they sent me a prepaid shipping label. Maybe because I had the receipt and it was only a year old? How much was the shipping to send it to them? If it's not very much I would just look at is as a heavily discounted upgrade fee to go from the BLX180 to the BLX185 LOL. But yeah it's very common to have to pay shipping to the company.
 
I've honestly never heard of PDMS until now but it looks pretty nice. I started on Autocad, then went to Solidworks, then to Inventor and now am using SDS/2 structural steel modeling software. My favorite and personal favorite is probably Solidworks.

I did some solidworks way back when, thought it was fun. The software I use now, all I do is pull 'block' from a library. I build systems, not objects. This is part of what gets me excited about 3d printing (different thread lol) - I'll get to go back to basics and build objects again. Cad it up, then print it out. :) Looking into Fusion 360 (I think it is called). I also want to play with Google's Sketch-up - I have heard some interesting things about it too...
 
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