Recommend me a battery charger

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Well, hopefully as time goes on, and this thread continues- more people will have a resource to read and learn from.

We can’t help everyone, but same could be said for the arrma cars themselves- many people will buy lesser cars first, either from not wanting or being ready to spend more money, or just not knowing any better yet and learn as they go.
 
Krod877 said:
Hi-tec black edition works amazing $109 ebay.

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This was one of the chargers that was pushed here and on other forums. Owners say its great and they love it. People with decent chargers powered by power supplies tend to hate on it. Its one of the problems with researching which charger to buy. Theres a certain amount of power needed to charge a certain battery type and size in a respectable amount of time. We should really have a guide posted as a sticky showing various batteries and how many watts needed to charge them including the rate and time.
It would really make this question of which charger should i buy more clear to the buyer. After i understood this i set out to find the most power for the least money and a budget of around $200. Read, ask nooby questions and learn what you need or want.
 
... and you can get the dc only version for only $95 and spend a small amount on a power supply to have 325x2
 
Saltystevo said:
This was one of the chargers that was pushed here and on other forums. Owners say its great and they love it. People with decent chargers powered by power supplies tend to hate on it. Its one of the problems with researching which charger to buy. Theres a certain amount of power needed to charge a certain battery type and size in a respectable amount of time. We should really have a guide posted as a sticky showing various batteries and how many watts needed to charge them including the rate and time.
It would really make this question of which charger should i buy more clear to the buyer. After i understood this i set out to find the most power for the least money and a budget of around $200. Read, ask nooby questions and learn what you need or want.
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I wrote something up for a different forum a while back. Maybe I could repost it here and get Woodie to sticky it.
 
There is a lot more to it than that. That works as an entry level how to- but people will still not understand the advertised spec they see on the website or box won't actually be what they get when they plug into their household wall outlet.

Also- as already mentioned- balance current.

Hate to keep saying both of those things- but they make a big difference, especially a power supply.

...And when you mentioned power supplies- you mentioned volts and watts without mentioning amperage, as well as neglecting to mention the 'hobby' safety features-

Are the hobby power supplies worth the extra money?

Yes- things such as ~ Over current, over voltage, over load, over temperature, and short circuit protection. Adjustability. Digital displays that show what is going on instead of just turn on and hope.
 
I agree, I could have wrote twice as much and still missed stuff. This article was meant to be targeted to entry level users.

yes, balance current is important, but it normally will be higher on higher power chargers (but not always).
Hobby vs industrial PSU - yeah, the industrial PSU have all the safety features. They install these PSUs by the thousands, set to run 24/7 for years on end, in unmonitored rooms... Yeah, they have safeties built in. No, no adjustable output. But do you really need to adjust the output voltage? Maybe, for very advanced users. But not most people.

In the end, we all make our own choices.
 
PowerDubs said:
Yea for only a little more, scroll down and check the specs- http://www.smc-racing.net/index.php?route=product/product&path=113&product_id=447
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Man oh man, this appears to be a GREAT charger (either unit).
I was going to buy a new iCharger 4010 but somebody sold me theirs at the race track for 150. It is amazing and does everything I wanted it to do. It charges "not quiet so evenly matched packs" in 50 minutes instead of 2 hours (4s) and I hook my old light bulb strip up to one channel and can discharge from the other at 20 amps and I have it set to balance at 3.85 at the end. 20 minutes instead of a couple days at .3 amps on my venom. Awesome for those packs that you or your guests didnt get to run that day.
The HOTA mentioned above seams like it will do the exact same thing except the higher external discharge rates.
 
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Correction, the iCharger 4010 just charged a 3s (that was at 3.85v/cell) in 27 minutes and a 2s (that was at 3.8v/cell) in 37 minutes all at only 1c charge rate. I'm very happy folks ;)
 
PowerDubs said:
Just for point of reference- was that on 120AC? Single or dual batteries?
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iChargers are DC only. You cannot bog one down if you supply enough power to it. And you DO NOT need a 24 volt power supply to max the 4010 out, for our 1/8 scale surface usage, (unless you wanna charge your 4s or 6s packs at more than 20 or so amps. Just need enough amps at 12 volts. Max amp input on the 4010 is 65 amps so this means you can charge two 6s packs at up to 15 amps each on my 12 volt power supply from rlpower.net. Of course a 24 volt supply would go way up but I don't ever plan on charging that high. This thing is so fast at just 1c charge rate due to the high Balance charge capability. 25 to 50 minutes at only 1c, and you're done.
 
NitroStar said:
iChargers are DC only. You cannot bog one down if you supply enough power to it. And you DO NOT need a 24 volt power supply to max the 4010 out, for our 1/8 scale surface usage, (unless you wanna charge your 4s or 6s packs at more than 20 or so amps. Just need enough amps at 12 volts. Max amp input on the 4010 is 65 amps so this means you can charge two 6s packs at up to 15 amps each on my 12 volt power supply from rlpower.net. Of course a 24 volt supply would go way up but I don't ever plan on charging that high. This thing is so fast at just 1c charge rate due to the high Balance charge capability. 25 to 50 minutes at only 1c, and you're done.
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Every lipo charger I've bought does a high current flow until it gets the packs up to around 4V per cell, then it drops back some. My 4x100w dynamite charges 4 of my 7200/7400mah SMC 2S packs in about 45 minutes from LVC, 30 minutes from storage. I have it set to 10A on all 4 ports.

I made some 7200mah 3S2P packs out of old SMC 7200mah 2S packs that I used as 2S for over a year. My hitec D7 charges two of those in about the same time. It maxes out at 2x20A/2x200W. I set it to 12A I think... not sure why, I think SMC packs can take 2C. Should bump it up to 15A and see how long they take. Regardless, even as 2S packs, they were starting to take longer to charge at 10A, so they were getting tired. I was just trying to repurpose them to use in my 1/10th trucks.
 
olds97_lss said:
Every lipo charger I've bought does a high current flow until it gets the packs up to around 4V per cell, then it drops back some. My 4x100w dynamite charges 4 of my 7200/7400mah SMC 2S packs in about 45 minutes from LVC, 30 minutes from storage. I have it set to 10A on all 4 ports.

I made some 7200mah 3S2P packs out of old SMC 7200mah 2S packs that I used as 2S for over a year. My hitec D7 charges two of those in about the same time. It maxes out at 2x20A/2x200W. I set it to 12A I think... not sure why, I think SMC packs can take 2C. Should bump it up to 15A and see how long they take. Regardless, even as 2S packs, they were starting to take longer to charge at 10A, so they were getting tired. I was just trying to repurpose them to use in my 1/10th trucks.
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That's exactly why this iCharger is awesome. I am only charging at 1c rates and all the batteries are balancing and finishing way faster than my Venom quad (an hour faster on the uneven packs)! Be ause the ending balance charge is so much higher. 20 something to 61 minutes so far on all my 4s packs. Oh yea, after I run batts to LVC, I pop them on the charger and tell it to storage charge them to 3.85 volts/cell and they are done in 25 minutes to put back in the boxes for the next bash.
 
@Jerry-rigged.. Great write up about chargers..??

I'm thinking of replacing my current setup which is too under powered 50W 5A, so I'm thinking of this...??
ISDT T6 Lite 600W 25A Smart Battery Balance Charger running off a 24V / 20A psu..
My current battery selection is a mix of 2s and 3s 5000 to 6600mAh with some 4s to follow soon

Any advice is welcome..
 
ichargers allow adjustments to when the balancing starts and how accurate the balancing is. It also helps that the balancing current is quite high. They are definitely one of the better chargers on the market.
 

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