CB86 Balance charger: Charge up to 8x 1-6S lipos with 6A 75$

Hi there,
I ordered the BC168 balance charger, which some of you guys use with great success, to get the fastest and best balanced lipos I can get. (Used the imax before but I didn't like it charging and then balancing such a long time unable to charge all the cells equally.)

I ordered this charger:

http://www.rcecho.com/BC168-RC-Mode...olymer-Li-Fe-Hobby-Balance-Charger-BC016.html



But then I found this one:


http://www.rcecho.com/RadioLink-Model-CB86-R-C-Hobby-Professional-Li-Po-Balance-Charger-BC080.html

Manual:
http://www.radiolink.com.cn/doce/product-detail-102.html

This one seems to charge through the balance plug like the BC168. But connecting up to 8 lipos isn't a problem.
The charger can charge one batterys one after another or all in parallel.

This way you can connect all your batteries at once, lay back and wait until the charger is finished.


It's just that I don't know what to make of the data sheets:

BC168 vs CB86
8A 6A (but seems to stay cool all the time at 97% efficiancy)
0,001V 0,01V charging precision
150mAh 70mAh charger power usage
lcd LCD 192 x 64 resolution

(bc168 discription: http://www.ebay.de/itm/AOK-BC168-1-6...-/150735495200)

Which seems better?

What do you guys think about that?
Would you recommend me getting the CB86 over the BC168?

Does it mean I can charge a several packs connected in series with this charger?

I like the BC 168 charger but I had it fail maybe due to heat so if this one stays cool I would say go for it.

Says it has six power supplies inside? So plugging eight 6S batteries on it means the eight 6S packs are internally connected in parallel?

It has six individual power outputs. So they are not connected at first to balance them to one level then they get charged parallel to their final Voltage?

There are two modes:

1. You could connect up to 8 lipos and the charger will charge them one after another.

But all with a set amp value (up to 6A)


2. Connect up to 8 lipos and the charger balances them all to the same percentage. Then it will charge them all at once.

So the charger can charge up to eight 6S lipo? That's 48 individual cells. Are the SOC of the 48 cells displayed on the screen like the BC168 does with 6 cells? Are the 48 cells charged individually like the BC168 does with 6 cells?

I'm thinking that any number of battery packs connected to the charger, from 2 to 8 are just paralleled and there's a display of 6 cells on the screen.

So to get back to the original post, you bought the BC168 and that's a good thing, with a parallel board, you can charge eight 6S battery packs at the same time with the BC168 in the exact same way the CB86 can.

In serial mode it will show each cell like the bc168.

In parallel mode it will probably show the cells, too. But each cell will represent every cell connected in parallel.

But I don't really know.

This is an old thread, was wondering how this CB86 charger was working for folks? Anyone using it? Any failures??

My BC168 is still going after 5 years of use, I see many folks have had failures. I restrict mine to 2 amps most of the time, perhaps that helps. I use it for rebalancing packs periodically by bulk charging them and then topping them off to balance. It works quickly that way. It is also good for curating bricks in storage and preparing bricks for connection into a pack. It is also fine for charging a pack that isn't used too frequently by connecting 2 or 3 times (12S or 18S).

The advantage of the CB86 appears to be handling up to 8 bricks by cycling automatically from one to the next (as was mentioned in this thread). I'm expecting the bricks must not be interconnected at the time because this would generate voltages that would damage the switching matrix (unless it uses relays), but this is still useful for curating a collection of loose bricks, for example preparing them for connecting them into a pack or just resetting their voltages periodically for storage.

Also the CB86 is much more available, the BC168 doesn't appear to be sold by very many suppliers anymore.

OK, I bought a RadioLink CB86-Plus. It arrived today. I've been doing some charge and discharge cycles with it. The user interface is a bit weird, but that's pretty common these days.

It is cycling from one brick to the next which is convenient. The bricks must not be in series or parallel when plugged into separate ports.

So far I have two minor complaints. One is that it didn't come with very good input terminal connectors - so I converted it to 30A PowerPoles after verifying that it works. The other is that during 6S discharge (fixed at 1.05A) it smells like it might be cooking a resistor (or all 6 of them?). That current value is fixed so we cannot reduce the heat generation during discharge.

But it keeps working, and no smoke has come out.

The display of information is good (lots), the beeper is loud enough, and the convenience of independently charging multiple bricks is very handy when preparing a bunch for joining into a pack.