Recommend me a battery charger

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I got a $100 charger off ebay new in box sealed for $30. AC/DC, comes with two balance boards and a third double board. Comes with power supply and cord, also DC power cord for car. Comes with leads, battery adapter harness. And a lipo bag. Dual channel touch screen. 240 watt dc and 140w ac. It's called laegendary lgd240 dual, it looks like several companies sell the same one under a different name.
 
I'm glad I got a good charger from the start. Only charging at 5 amps on 6s and is pretty fast.
 
I got a $100 charger off ebay new in box sealed for $30. AC/DC, comes with two balance boards and a third double board. Comes with power supply and cord, also DC power cord for car. Comes with leads, battery adapter harness. And a lipo bag. Dual channel touch screen. 240 watt dc and 140w ac. It's called laegendary lgd240 dual, it looks like several companies sell the same one under a different name.
I’ve been using a VENOM DUO for years,, it’s the greatest,,they also have one that will charge 4 batteries....well worth the money,,trust me,,,,,
 
Hobbyking has some good specd chargers, and a lot of 4-5 star reviews. A dual charger for €50 for example. Some youtubers have good reviews as wel
 
I decided I wanted to get something small and portable for field charging instead of lugging around my Hitec X2 400 and my Thunder AC680 just doesn't have enough oomph to charge 2 3s 5000mah lipos at once being only a 80w charger, so I settled on the ISDT Q6 Nano do to it's compact size and the fact that it was only $30.

20201225_185446.jpg


Pros - It has a ton of features for it's compact size(approximately 72mmx72mmx30mm), charge, discharge, balance, storage, IR ect. You can run it off another battery(it has built in low voltage protection to make sure you don't kill the supply battery), making it perfect for field charging or an external power supply for when at home.

Cons - Power input and output connectors are XT60 so you will have to make an adapter to plug between it and whatever you are powering or charging unless you just so happen to have XT60 connectors on your batteries. The switch, toggle button or whatever you want to call it makes navigating through the menus extremely difficult do to it's weird design, you have to tap it to go up or down or hold it down to select, not sure why they felt the need to go with a 3 way toggle instead of the standard 4 way with a center button like very other charger on the planet, it does take a lot of time to get used to and if you read Amazon reviews you will see people mention how bad the controls are. The charger doesn't come with much of anything other than a piss poor excuse for a manual, it does not come with any cables what so ever.

Conclusion if you want something for use while in the field this charger works great, once you get passed the bad controls with 200w at 8a you can almost charge a 8000mah 6s at 1c. If you are looking for something for everyday use at home I would look elsewhere.
 
I’ve been using a VENOM DUO for years,, it’s the greatest,,they also have one that will charge 4 batteries....well worth the money,,trust me,,,,,
Glad you had a good experience with the Duo... I had one used lightly and right that lasted just a little over a year that crapped out. To me their junk . I can’t recommend Venom at all.
 
What is the difference between the two?
Appears that D6+ is a bit stronger on AC, but larger than the D6 pro.
The D6+ is larger because it has an onboard 300w psu, the D6 pro has a 200w psu.

But both are way more powerfull on DC, and weigh less.
So i bought the D6 (DC only) and an external psu, you'll have way more power for the same price.

Actually i got 2, best charger i've owned so far

D6.JPG
 
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Anyone here rocking an Ultra Power UP6+? Feedback?

The UP6+ and HOTA chargers look great but why the shift to XT60 connectors? Why not conventional bullet plugs? It's annoying me enough that I haven't pulled the trigger on either as I'm not fond of having to use adaptors.

Spektrum chargers use IC3/IC5 and are terribly overpriced, but seeing as I'm mainly using EC5 batteries the S2200 may be a suitable choice. Expensive but one of the highest AC ratings I've seen, nice screen, nice menu system, hampered by an awkward looking control panel.

I can't seem to find any modern chargers that use traditional bullet plugs aside from the SkyRC Q200 / D100 but I'm not keen on those chargers.
 
Well, my Prophet Sport Duo has died, so I find myself charger shopping again.

Previously, I had said I was looking at the Reaktor 2x300w 20a DC only charger from Hobbyking, and the
UP120AC Duo Dual 2 Port from Amazon. These two chargers are still on my list, but I am expanding my search a bit before I spend my $$$...

I am also looking at maybe getting 2 single channel chargers. Cost wise, it will be similar to a two port charger. Note - these are DC only, you will need a 12v PSU.

Turnigy Reaktor 250W 10A 1-6S Balance Charger I read this a rebrand of the popular iCharger, and has a very good reputation. It is also sold under a few different brands, like the Banggood.com Charsoon. This is an intresting charger to me because although it is 'only' 10 amps, it can handle 250W - What this means for us, is that it can push that 10 amps regardless of whether you are charging a small 2s pack, or a big 6s pack. At $50 for the Turnigy branded version, this seems like a great deal for a charger than can handle almost any battery you throw at it.


Turnigy Accucel-6 80W 10A Balancer/Charger LiHV Capable - Another Hobbyking charger that I have come across in my research - this one is cheaper $30, and still 10A, but only 80W. So you will still be able to charge your 4s, 5000mah pack at 1c, but anything bigger, and charge times will get long.





So those chargers I mentioned are DC only. And what is the point of trying to save a few bucks on a DC only, of you have to shell out a bunch of money for a 12v Power Supply Unit (PSU)?

I bet most of us have an old, outdated, or dead PC taking up space in our garage or elsewhere. The good news, you can pull the power supply, and easily 'convert' it for powering a hobby charger. For these pics, I am looking at a smallish, 300w PSU. (Forgive me, but I missed some pics at the start of this...)

In a nutshell, when you pull the PSU from a PC, you will have a small box, with a ton of colored wires, going to a dozen different sized plugs. Don't get overwhelmed, we will be removing most of those wires.

First, inspect it. There should be a label similar to this:
View attachment 7511

This is the Faceplate, and it shows all the info about the different voltages available, and how many amps are on each bus. For this PSU, there are 2 +12v bus's. We don't care about the rest. You might do some quick math to make sure your PSU has enough watts for your application. Remember Volts * Amps = Watts. So 12V*8a=96W, on bus +12v1. Not a lot. Bus +12V2 has 174w output. remember we cannot combine these bus's. We can use them to power two different chargers at the same time, though. Assuming the chargers can keep up, bus +12v1 can handle up to a 4s 5000mah at 1c, and bus +12v2 can power a charger pushing 2c to that same battery.

Ok, math over for now. Look at the mess of wires. Note that most all of them are yellow, black, or orange, with a few other colors scattered in the mix. Each color represents a different bus/voltage inside the PSU. All the yellow is +12v, connect to the same solder point inside the case. Same with all the black (Common/Ground), and all the orange(+5v).

Find the green wire. It will go to the big 20-pin plug. Note the position, and find a black wire on a pin near it. Get a paper-clip (or similar small bendy wire) and jumper between the green pin and a black pin. Now plug in the PSU. Did the fan come on? If yes, Great! Pull the jumper. Did the fan stop? Great! the green wire is the on/off switch for most PSU's. If you have a multimeter, set it to 0-20vdc, plug the jumper back in between green and black (this should turn the PSU back on). Now use the multimeter to measure between any black (common) and any yellow (should be +12v) If you got +12v, we are ready of move on. Feel free to check the voltage of some of the other colors. also, look for a square 4-pin plug by itself - it will have 2 yellow and 2 black. If your PSU has 2 +12v bus, these two yellow will most likely be the second bus. The yellow wires may be yellow with a stripe - mine were yellow/black.

Unplug the charger, and give it 1-24 hours to "rest" to self-discharge all the capacitors inside. You can leave the green wire jumpered during this process to help it bleed off the power...

Now the fun part.

Cut off all the plugs, but leave the wires long. Sort all the wires by color, and bundle them together. Open the case, and enjoy cutting that "Warranty void if Damaged" sticker. If needed to get good access to the buses, unscrew the main PSU board from the internal case. Once you get it open, sort out the wires again, and it is time to start cutting -

Clip most of the wires off - leave all the yellow and black for now. Also leave the green wire long.
View attachment 7512

sort out 5 black wires, and clip the rest off. Check out the yellow buses - if there is 2 (like on mine) save the two yellow/black from +12v2 and 2 wires from +12v1. Clip the extra yellow wires. Once I was done clipping wires, I coated the ends with liquid electrical tape. Put the case back together, and I added wire wrap to tidy up the bundles.

View attachment 7513


Tie the green wire to one of the black wires. You could put an on/off switch here, as the green wire tells the PSU to power on.

Divide the 4 black into 2 groups, and match them up with the two groups of yellow wires - 2 yellow and 2 black in each group. Add connectors on the yellow/black pairs and heat shrink if needed. done!


FYI, I used a pair of wires for each power lead, because the 14a this PSU can supply is more than one single 18g wire should take, safely. A pair of 18g is safe, though.


That is all there is to converting the PC power supply to power a hobby charger. Really, though, if you did not want to open the case, you could clip all the extra wires an inch or three outside the case, and tape them all together. Also, if you want to get fancy, you could drill the case to mount bullet connectors on the case - then you would have a clean box with no exposed wires. All depends on how much work you want to do.
The only problem is forget about balancing, discharging, voltage monitoring. I have heard of this trick years ago and as a tech, charging your battery falls into the 'serious' category.

Unless it's just your kids bashing around. Put some kind of timer on that thing.
 
The only problem is forget about balancing, discharging, voltage monitoring. I have heard of this trick years ago and as a tech, charging your battery falls into the 'serious' category.

Unless it's just your kids bashing around. Put some kind of timer on that thing.
That PSU conversion was to power a DC-only charger. No way would I try to charge a battery directly from the PSU. The PSU in that post, I used to power my Reaktor 2x300 for a few cycles (at low charge rates), then I converted a 500W PC PSU and use it for about a year till it died. Now I have 1000w server PSU to power the Reaktor. Has been working great for a long time.
 
I'm sure there's info on here.... But I figure I'd throw this question out there again. I'm an oldie who's becoming a newbie again. Im currently using the old MRC rb 465 charger from the days of late 80's early 90's.
Looking for a charger that will do my Nimh packs and the LiPo's I will eventually have!!!
What do you guys suggest?
Thanks!

How to choose an RC LiPo charger
Here is my setup. I don't see many of these chargers around, but it is a dream. The power supplies are easy to come by, standard company grade computer parts. You can find them on eBay. If it is similar to mine you'll have a 5 volt and 12 volt bus to hookup to. NOTE: The power rating must be around 30 amps. The one I have is 12 volts @ 30 amps and 5 volts @ 80 amps.

I just don't see this charger around too much. But what more could you ask for?
 
Was curious how you like your power supply? I was considering using lipo connection solutions to make a power supply for a icharger 4010duo. Would like to be able to use everything the charger has to offer.
Sent you a PM. They worked fine, but were noisy.
Thought I posted this, but couldn't find it. I ended up replacing my lipo connection solutions dell 72A 24V stacked PSU's with some much quieter HP PSU's. I had bought a single 12V unit, monkeyed with various resistors to get it to work and after trying to pull 30A out of it, it blew up. So I bought 2 more, one for each charger (revolectrix GT500 20A/500W). But I was annoyed I wasn't running 24V. After reading about them I found you have to isolate the ground on one to be able to connect them in series for 24V output. However, the 2 I had weren't the same model and it seemed sketchy to daisy chain them together... so I bought another that matched the less flaky of the two, along with nylon M3 screws to isolate the board.

Ended up with 2 of the HP DPS-1200FB-1A PSU's, both using a 220ohm resistor to turn them on:
2020-1117-24vPSU-HP-DPS-1200FB-1A.jpg


I put 2 sets of bullets on each so I could run a set of wires to each charger. One of the chargers has a splitter to run off to a 3rd charger when I need it for my isdt q6. I cut the bullets with my dremel so they would lock onto the board and soldered them to the tabs on the top and bottom. Figured more contact area would be best.

2020-1130-24vPSU-HP-DPS-1200FB-1A-PluggedIn.jpg


My trusty dynamite DYNC2050 4x100W/4x10A is is still chugging along. I use it to charge up 4 of my 3S packs at 10A, but it self limits to around 8.5A since it hits the 100W limit. I parallel charge 2x3S on one of the GT500's and 2x4S on the other at 15A each. Lets me charge up 8 packs in under an hour to run a 6S truck 3 times and my 4S truck twice on bash days.
 
Thought I posted this, but couldn't find it. I ended up replacing my lipo connection solutions dell 72A 24V stacked PSU's with some much quieter HP PSU's. I had bought a single 12V unit, monkeyed with various resistors to get it to work and after trying to pull 30A out of it, it blew up. So I bought 2 more, one for each charger (revolectrix GT500 20A/500W). But I was annoyed I wasn't running 24V. After reading about them I found you have to isolate the ground on one to be able to connect them in series for 24V output. However, the 2 I had weren't the same model and it seemed sketchy to daisy chain them together... so I bought another that matched the less flaky of the two, along with nylon M3 screws to isolate the board.

Ended up with 2 of the HP DPS-1200FB-1A PSU's, both using a 220ohm resistor to turn them on:
2020-1117-24vPSU-HP-DPS-1200FB-1A.jpg


I put 2 sets of bullets on each so I could run a set of wires to each charger. One of the chargers has a splitter to run off to a 3rd charger when I need it for my isdt q6. I cut the bullets with my dremel so they would lock onto the board and soldered them to the tabs on the top and bottom. Figured more contact area would be best.

2020-1130-24vPSU-HP-DPS-1200FB-1A-PluggedIn.jpg


My trusty dynamite DYNC2050 4x100W/4x10A is is still chugging along. I use it to charge up 4 of my 3S packs at 10A, but it self limits to around 8.5A since it hits the 100W limit. I parallel charge 2x3S on one of the GT500's and 2x4S on the other at 15A each. Lets me charge up 8 packs in under an hour to run a 6S truck 3 times and my 4S truck twice on bash days.
I don't think your charging game is up to spec........................................said no one ever😮
 
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