Best charger?

Best charger?
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Best charger? - 8/3/2002 4:17:05 AM

bobbie100

Posts: 9
Joined: 6/30/2002
From: Worcester, UNITED KINGDOM
Status: offline

I'm about to start on electric flight (an IC only guy 'til now) and want advice on the best charger. I'm somewhat limited on budget so best means most cost effective, not the most expensive. However, I don't want something I'm going to be unhappy with after a couple years when I have a room full of electric flyers!

I want to be able to charge Tx/Rx & motor packs at home and at the field (from my car's cigarette lighter). Do I do all this with one unit or do I need different units for different tasks? What about removing "memory" effects? Do I need a separate battery tester (advice on which)?

Apologies for so many questions,

Confused Bob

< Message edited by bobbie -- Aug 2 2002 11:31PM >

Post #: 1

Best charger? - 8/4/2002 1:58:19 AM

Hangtime

Posts: 347
Joined: 6/5/2002
From: Babylon, NY, USA
Status: offline

Getting started with a decent charger is critical to success in electric flight.

HiTech's CG335 will support packs up to 24 cells if I recall correctly, making this the least expensive and most flexible motor pack charger I've seen lately. It does not however have any cycle capabilities, and no doubt you will want something that can cycle and slow charge big nicad packs eventually. Make this larger, more competent charger your second charger purchase.. if you wind up with a 'room' full of electric planes, you will certainly need more than one charger. Aveox, Graupner and SuperNova are all pretty good units.

I'm not aware of anybody putting out a charger that can support more than 8 cells at fast rates off of house current.. at least; not here in the US. Something to do with UL listings.

You can however purchase a 12v 10-20 amp power supply that will power any 12v source charger.

Hope this helps..

(in reply to bobbie100)

Post #: 2

Best charger? - 8/4/2002 1:39:51 PM

Steve Lewin

Posts: 904
Joined: 3/18/2002
From: Reading, UNITED KINGDOM
Status: offline

Unless you have a resonable budget you will not be able to buy something which you will still be happy with in years when you have more and probably bigger electric models.

I'd suggest a Schulze isl6-330 as the charger you are least likely to grow out of but it's not cheap at around �120 (cheapest of the Schulze chargers).

Lower down is the SuperNova at around �75. Good value for money but limited. E.g. it won't handle the new Lithium based batteries (Schulze) does and it doesn't have software upgrades for even newer stuff like the Schulze.

Both of those will also cycle though that's not as important as many people think. The alternative is just to start with a cheap charger until you decide you're going to like electrics. IMO the Hitec CG340 at around �25-30 is superb value and it will still be useful as a backup when you've bitten the bullet and gone for the Schulze

.

No good chargers work from the mains. You need a separate 12V power supply. You can get one from Maplin etc or use an inexpensive PC power supply.

Steve

(in reply to bobbie100)

Post #: 3

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