Recommendations for a LiPo balance charger.

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x88x

10 kW
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Oct 11, 2010
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527
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So I've decided to take the plunge and buy the batteries for the experimentation I'm going to be doing, but I need recommendations for a balance charger. I'm going to be building my own presently, but I want something to use before that. So, I'm looking for something decently good quality, that can balance/charge at least 5S, and I'd like to not spend more than about $50 if I can get away with it. The batteries I decided on are two of these 5S 5Ah Turnigy LiPo's, and at this point I don't mind having to charge them separately (thus the 5S requirement, not 10S). A power supply is not a problem, I have a 500W computer power supply from a previous build that can put out a continuous 36A on the 12V rail which should be plenty at this point, so a charger without an integrated power supply isn't a problem. In fact it might be better, since that would mean a higher quality charger for the money.

Any suggestions?
 
Not many chargers that i've seen have integrated power supplies.

Some people like Hyperions.

If you are using 10s lipo, nothing... i mean nothing beats the convenience of the 10s icharger 1010b+. You can keep your 10s pack in serial while you charge it; which is incredibly convenient.

I don't know of any other chargers that do this.

It is out of your price range by about $100. But i dunno.. it was worth it to me. They seem to get excellent ratings, are extremely 'dumb proof', well thought out, easy to use, lots of features too ( erm, you can use it as a foam cutter driver apparently.. ). If you're going to buy a crapton of LiPo batteries, you want something that takes good care of 'em, right?

Modified meanwell + battery medic is another option. There are a few members on here who have setups like that. I suppose that's for guys who actually know something about electronics ;)... but it may be more in your price range.
Of course, two battery medics alone are almost $50 before shipping, then you gotta buy the meanwell.

But go on hobbyking and check out the reviews of the chargers. Some of those cheaper chargers can be pretty sketchy.
 
Like I said, I'll be building my own from scratch eventually, so it doesn't need to be stellar, I just want something that'll take care of the batteries properly while I'm working that out. Here's the ones I was looking at.

HobbyKing Variable 6S 50W 5A Balancer/Charger w/ accessories : $17.99
IMAX B6 Charger/Discharger 1-6 Cells (GENUINE) : $24.99
Turnigy MAX80W 7A Lithium Polymer Battery Charger : $32.99
HobbyKing ECO8 150W 7A 8S Bal/Dis/Cyc Charger w/ acc. : $36.99
iCharger iC6 Digital Balance Charger 6cell : $54.79

The iCharger is a little more than I was looking to spend, but if it's worth the difference I'll go with that.
 
Well, what voltage are you going to run at? if you're sticking to 36v, don't waste your time on anything else. This thing will give you all the flexibility you need. I just found out that mine can charge up to 4.15v instead of 4.2v to save the battery life.. way cool.

Notice that most of those run at a very low wattage. Meaning that if you ever want to parallel balance charge a pack, it's going to take foorreevverrrr.

Also, lots of 3-4 star ratings. Look at the icharger.. pretty much steady 5 stars across the board. It really is worth the $ if you're doing 36v. If i spoke any higher about that particular model, they'd have to hire me. :lol:
 
oh by the way, if you leave the window open with the icharger on the screen, you will usually get a pop up offering a lower price. If it doesn't happen for you, try a different browser! i think i paid $138 for mine. Same goes for most chargers on there.
 
I started with the Imax b6 for reasons of price. Mine have worked fine, though sloowwww. Now I have a pair of turnigy 150 watt ones that charge fast enough for my, at most weekly, charging needs. Fairly cheap, cheap enough to be out of stock a lot.

I'd say, if you are going to other means anyway, nothing wrong with a b6 to charge just two packs. I went for something faster so I could recharge a pack of 8 batteries at the race track faster.
 
neptronix said:
if you're sticking to 36v, don't waste your time on anything else.
Click to expand...
I will be going higher voltage later, these are just so I have something to work with to get me started. Besides, for me, building the charger is as much about getting a really good understanding about what it's doing as getting a good charger out of it. ;) For clarification, did you mean the 10S iCharger or the 6S I linked (which I just noticed is out of stock now :( )?

The only thing that worried me about the IMAX B6 was people saying that it wasn't all that accurate in balancing cells..though one of the comments mentioned that it's just because they used high tolerance resistors (1% instead of 0.01%, iirc was their complaint), which would be simple for me to replace.
 
Eh, the b6 is far from the best charger out there. If you read enough of the reviews on the HK pages you see that it's not that prone to "plugged it in and smoke came out" as some others. It's a bottom of the line, cheap charger, but both of mine work fine. Slowww, but functional.

Perhaps when you hammer those packs in RC use they need better balancing. But those of us with 20-30 in 10 ah or more using about 2-5c wont usually see that much unbalancing in the first place. And some folks get all uptight about .01 out of balance. I sure don't.

Be nice if there was a b6 priced 10s charger though, for those wanting to commute at 36v.
 
x88x, well, the hyperion 14s will do 14s but it's expensive ( ~$175 ). That's up to 52 volts nominal, 58.8v hot off the charger.

Maybe you need to evaluate the cost of making your own balance charger VS buying one. What are your plans for making one?
 
neptronix said:
Maybe you need to evaluate the cost of making your own balance charger VS buying one. What are your plans for making one?
Click to expand...
I haven't really gotten that far in planning yet. :p My overall plan is to start with a working vehicle (which I'll have once I get the batteries and charger..granted it's not a very good vehicle..Xtreme x360..but it was cheap and it'll do for my purposes now), and go through each of the component systems (battery pack, BMS/charger, motor, drivetrain, controller, frame, etc), replacing each with a system of my own design (or at least one I build myself). It's less about the cost (though for the controller that is definitely a large contributing factor) than it is about having a thorough understanding of everything that is going on inside.

After reading spinningmagnets' thread I've decided on this 10A 6S Turnigy charger since the B6 can only do 5A and the 6S iCharger is on backorder.
 
oy.. i hope you read the reviews of the turnigy charger. It is not exactly a quality piece.
Sounds like you can only 'calibrate it' once and if you don't adjust some pots inside, it can be off by up to 0.15 volts O_O

And some times, the connection detection to the battery can be finicky..

I have a feeling that these turnigy chargers are basically copies of legit ones, IE iCharger, hyperion, etc.
 
Hmmm, good point about the calibration..didn't see that review.

Grrr, stupid hobbies getting more expensive all the time. :p That iCharger from epbuddy is about $20 more than on HK (it's the next one up, not the $55 one I had been looking at, and it is actually in stock at HK)...but I'm guessing the shipping costs will be at least that. The batteries are coming from the US warehouse, so the charger and a cell-log would be the only things coming from Hong Kong..and epbuddy has cell-logs too...and I am liking the USB data logging on the iCharger. Grrr... That is more expensive than I had been hoping for, but I've dropped more than that on my computer on a whim, so.. Better to have something solid to fall back on than something cheap that might not work for future packs.
 
I have an eco6 charger and it 's a good balance charger.. I also have 2 turnigy's ..junk. One works ok the other has a wiring problem :( The Eco chargers are great starter charger's as they can balance and charge, but like Dogman said slow......
 
I thought the eco6 was a turnigy charger? I've had good luck with my accucel 50w.. if you're worried about calibration you can always check with a trusted meter and recalibrate. I don't think that is a big deal.
 
x88x said:
Hmmm, good point about the calibration..didn't see that review.

Grrr, stupid hobbies getting more expensive all the time. :p That iCharger from epbuddy is about $20 more than on HK (it's the next one up, not the $55 one I had been looking at, and it is actually in stock at HK)...but I'm guessing the shipping costs will be at least that. The batteries are coming from the US warehouse, so the charger and a cell-log would be the only things coming from Hong Kong..and epbuddy has cell-logs too...and I am liking the USB data logging on the iCharger. Grrr... That is more expensive than I had been hoping for, but I've dropped more than that on my computer on a whim, so.. Better to have something solid to fall back on than something cheap that might not work for future packs.
Click to expand...

I'm glad you came around :p
Better to buy something quality the first time than waste money on some piece of crap that you can't warranty ( Hobby king warranty = basically useless ) or costs too much to ship back.
 
I also am using the Turnigy 5000mAh 5s 20c batteries. My bike is a short distance commuter and I use the "lilo" 4.1 charge setting and do multiple charges every day on my 15s1p packs. I started with individual eco 6 chargers and have now moved up to the 200w eco 6-10 charger because it goes to 10 amps and I can parallel charge my three batteries at the same time. This is a picture of my set up. I really like how the eco chargers keep the batteries in balance. I am new so don't confuse me with the pros here. This is a simple set up for me, but so far it works great. Started in September, have about 500 miles on now and have added three more lipos this month, my new "b" pack is in this picture.

Resources:
Batteries (Turnigy 5000mAh 5s 20c)
Charger (eco 6-10 200w)
Charging cable (Bare Ends Parallel Charging Power Cable, added anderson powerpoles) free shipping
Balance cable (5S JST-XH Balance Cable for Parallel Charging) free shipping
 

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...I use the "lilo" 4.1 charge setting...
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nhendrix, I just found that last night (I'm a LiPo newbie). I dont know what "LiLo" stands for, but I will be charging with that all the time now, as I have read many places that a 4.1V charge per cell is optimum for a MUCH longer pack life. The default setting on my "basic" Turnigy charger is 4.2V per cell. edit: the third letter is a capital I (eye), not a small l (ell). Its short for Lithium-Ion (D'oh!, smacks forehead)

A quick Google search of LiLo resulted in a Disney character, and also a nickname of Lindsay Lohan (who, as a coincidence by the way, could probably use some lithium)

edit: lithium compounds are sometimes used to balance brain chemistry in some types of emotionally unstable personalities. BTW, I'm not schitzophrenic, and neither am I.
 
That made me laugh. Yeah, Lilo (lithium ion) is one of three standard lithium battery types and chargers take them to 4.1 instead of 4.2. The wizards around here can squeeze a bit extra top end by dialing in voltages like 4.17 but I figure 4.1 is plenty close enough for what I'm after. Lindsay Lohan, that cracks me up.
 
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