LDM

My Feedback: (15)

is there a good lipo charger that you can plug in , it reads the type of battery , its starts to charge at the correct rate , balances the battery and sets itself to trickle when done ???
I want to fly some e-warbirds but dont understand the mubo jumbo part of chargeing .

Does this charger alos have ac/dc options ???

I know you cant leave them unattended and understand all those dangers , its not that part that concerns me , its charging acuatly , fully ect .

ALso , do I need a speed control that keeps the lipos from dropping below a certain capacity rate while flying ?

I am primarly interested in lipo in the 11.1 /21oo size and smaller

perttime

I think LiPo chargers usually need you to set the number of cells and the max rate. Mine also starts complaining if it thinks that I may have made a wrong selection... and quits when it "feels" that the battery cannot accept any more current.

As far as I can tell, the good chargers work with DC, preferably from a 12V battery (the one in your car will work).

saucerguy

Pertime, mine beeps when it's charged and then blinks off and on if I can't drop everything to yank the battery from the charger, was just thinking how it would be nice if they could just wire it to turn off instead of beep since obviously it's able to figure out it's charged, I'd like to know what model you are using. There are chargers that autodetect the cells and mah's, can't recall right off the bat since I'm not ready to upgrade yet with only 2 lipo's I presently own are 3 cell, one 900 mah, the other, 1320, and the charger is designed only for 3 cell ones. It does have 3 settings, all I gotta do is read the side of the battery which is the proper one, and not go over those numbers and it's been working fine. I have a dedicated car battery I keep charged up in my shop it plugs into, would like to get an AC adapter instead since car batteries aren't very reliable and suck as far as a permanent power source if you were running regular equipment from it, non lipo charger included, learned that tangent delving into wind/solar power systems to draw upon in order to get off of the grid, these guys all reccomend marine batteries instead since they are much better built, so if you are going out to buy a dedicated battery for your's, it's reccomended to go that route.

Subscribing to this thread, hope one of the lipo charger guru's come up with something better, a built in balancer would also be awsome.

perttime

I have a [link=http://www.schulze-elektronik-gmbh.de/prs11_e.htm]Schulze isl 6-330d[/link] charger (had a little money burning in my pockets when I bought my charger). It will charge just about anything but nobody had heard about balancers at that time (been a couple of years).

Oh, it does make noise when it quits. I guess it wants to let me know whenever something significant happens.

The Schulze LiPoCard II looks like a pretty smart solution for up to 4S LiPos...

hawk3ye

Hi.

I use this one in the link below for my 3 cell 11.1 2100 mah Lipo pack, this one does have a trickle charge when it's down.

http://www.hobbieguyrc.com/shop/cart...oduct_id=16895

You follow the instructions on hooking it up, configuring it, and then you hit the start button and check on it occsaionally until the battery is charged.

And yes, you do need to look for an ESC that is Lipo friendly, there should be settings in the ESC that will allow you to set up the thing so that it doesn't drain the battery below the minimum voltage.

some stuff to look out for when you charge or handle a Lipo battery (this is from reading the Lipo manuals btw) is that you never want drop it or give it a sudden shock (like from crashing), if you do, you want to watch it for a few minutes to see if it bulges or anything because if it does there can be a high change it'll explode. Yeah. Explode. It is also recommended you charge the thing in a ceramic pot or something in case it explodes as well.

These are worst case senarios - I've handled one as a "newbie" for the last 6 months and I've not had any issues, and believe you me, I WATCH the thing charge since it charges on my Bimmer's battery lol!

Flypaper 2

FMA Cellpro is what you're looking for. Does all you asked for. Plug a batt. in and it decides the charge rate. Charges in less than an hr. balances the cells at the end of the charge. beeps when it's done and shuts off the charge. Doesn't matter if you leave it on the charger.
Google fmadirect.com to check it out.

LDM

My Feedback: (15)

Thanks guys great feedback from everyone

HeatFire

Just wanna answer this thread though it's "done"

putting money into a lipocharger with balancer and got quality is well worth it.. i bought one without lipobalancer.. ended up buying one anyway.. LIPO cells aint as friendly as nimh when it comes to overcharging..

got a Graupner.. the only thing it wants me to do is to check the cells and sett the correct amp and timer..
really easy.. it's allways good to double and tripple check that the charger detects the battery right..
and you should charge it at a surface that doesnt burst in flame to easy.. anyway i bought a charger that also shut the loading off earlier then other charger.. just for beeing sure that it dont overcharge the battery..


sorry for my english.. it's really rusty..

LDM

My Feedback: (15)

I contacted FMA and purchased a cellpro , price was good and it really fits my e-stupidity ,
you set it and forget it , dont worry I watch it , but it is easy !!!!!

JoshGordon

We offer a digital balancing charger that will work with 99% of the batteries out there. I don't know of any charger that can set the correct charge "rate" automatically.

You will definitely want to make sure that you do not let the voltage of your LiPo battery packs drop below 3.2v per cell.

We also have a Battery Education section on our website that should answer most all of your LiPo questions.



Joshua Gordon
Common Sense RC
www.CommonSenseRC.com
Toll Free 866-405-8811

Flypaper 2

Read up on the Cellpro.

LDM

My Feedback: (15)

cell pro determines the charge rate