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Scorch -> Great Planes new DC charger/cycler (11/20/2002 2:23:52 AM)
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In a nutshell, here are my first impressions of the Triton. It is housed in aluminum and plastic. It does have a substantial feel to it, but I have never had anything like this before, so I have nothing to compare it to. It comes with a booklet manual, and five flow charts and a one-page instruction supplement to setup the charger. That is pretty good, but I’d like to see some rules of thumb on charge and discharge rates of various sizes of cells and packs. It is not specific. This is a problem for a novice such as myself. I know a battery is slow charged at 10% of its’ rated capacity (overnight). I also know, a cell should be discharged to 1.1 – 1.0 volts per cell (also called out in the manual) that’s about the extent of my battery knowledge. The manual does warn you if you don’t know what you are doing, get help or you will destroy your battery pack. I have heeded this advice. I hope we get a good thread going on the hows and how-not tos of the Triton and fast charging/discharging in general.
You need a 12v power supply that can provide 13 amps, or an automotive battery for power. Don’t power it off your 7amp gel cell in your flight box. I am going to build a power supply from an old ATX computer supply. See QST magazine, May 2002 “The St. Louis Switcher”
Triton does have an auto mode (that you!), but it warns not to use it with packs smaller than 600 mah, and AA cell size. The setup seems pretty easy with the exception of choosing discharge and charge voltages and currents. I understand the steps involved, I just don’t know what to choose for some of the values.
There are a number of warnings about Lithium Ion and NIMH battery packs. I only have Nicds, so I have not read that yet.
When I do know what to choose, I have 10 memories to setup for my special packs. For example, I have a 4 cell, 4.8v, 270 mah pack. I can choose 250 or 300 mah for its’ capacity in the setup menu. What should I choose?
What seems to be a really good feature is it will charge then discharge 1- 10 times automatically, or discharge then charge 1 – 10 times. I understand the advantage of being able to discharge, then charge. For example, I have a PBF with that small pack on it. I would think it would be a good idea to pull it down, then charge it back up to keep as much capacity as possible.
All in all, it looks promising. I hope others will teach us novices how to get the most out of our Tritons.
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