The sign man

My Feedback: (1)

I have 10 planes hanging on a wall in my shop. I fly every weekend and switch planes all the time. I would like to know if anyone has come up with a way to trickle charge a group of planes with a single charger, maybe 3 or 4 of them at a time or maybe, all of them. I usually keep each plane charged with a standard wall charger that has been converted to a trickle charger with an ACE trickler. ACE made a switched one and an automatic one. I'm running out of these units.

mulligan

Charging in parallel is generally a no-no, but I can't imagine how it would affect things if you were only trickle charging (the packs would have to first all be fully charged- separately).

IF the batteries are the same chemistry (i.e., NiCd or NiMH), close in mAh rating (say +/- 30%), and same number of cells, you could simply run a wire with parallel leads coming off of it, and use a simple, cheap (manual, non-peak detecting) AC charger with an appropriate total mA setting. For example, if you had five 1000mAh packs, you could trickle them in parallel with a 100mA rate selection (total mAh rating / trickle charge rate of 50).

hotpursuit

Can an unregulated freshly charged 6.0v receiver battery damage the receiver or servos?

hookedonrc

I have 6 planes and 2 radios that I switch between constantly. I have an ACE Digipulse 6 station charger. You can program each station to the MAH that you need and it switches to trickle automatically. It only charges NIMH's and NiCads though. It is a little on the expensive side $84-$89, but a small price to pay for keeping your batteries all in good shape. There are many other chargers that are just as good and maybe better, this is just the one I chose. I also cycle the batteries periodically even when not flying.

rctrax

I build my planes so that I can get at the bat's and remove them when done flying for the day to charge. that way I only need one or two packs and just take and put a pack into whatever plane I'm going to fly that day with an extra to put in if I run out of juice before the day is over, Then I can field charge the first one so it is ready when the secomd pack is low. I can't imagine needing more than that in one day.That way I only need two or tree packs for all my planes and it iliminates have to keep all 10 or whatever number of planes charged up all the time.

mulligan

Damage, no. But in some combinations of servo brands and receiver brands, you can get a bit of jittering until the battery voltage comes off its peak.

The sign man

My Feedback: (1)

So, you are saying that I probably could use the ACE trickle charge unit which is connected to a Futaba Class 2 charger that supplies 50mA, and run it to 5 planes (if they all have very similiar battery packs) Useing a comon ground and common hot ending in a charge jack at each plane.

Geistware

My Feedback: (16)

I would say go with LiPo's and when you charge the pack, it will say that way for months.
If not, then get a field quick charger and charge them on the way to the field.

mulligan

You don't need the ACE unit at all if the charger is supplying 50mA. The ACE trickle unit simply cuts the supply current down to 1/5 of the normal charge rate (when charging one plane, the wall charger supplies a normal overnight charge current of about 1/10 battery capacity, so when the ACE unit engages at peak voltage, it cuts the current down by 1/5, and you get your desired 1/50 trickle rate), which you don't need to do with the setup you describe (basically with 5 planes, the current is going to be divided by 5, and 10mA will go to each plane). If you use the ACE unit, a trickle of only about 2mA will go to each plane- too low!

50mA seems a bit low to trickle 5 planes, unless the packs are small (600mAh). Again, you want to aim for a supply current that is 1/50 of the total capacity of the packs you are trickling, and you want to be sure of the other conditions I mentioned before (same chemistry, capacity, cells).

patternwannabee

My Feedback: (1)

I have 2 of these:

[link=http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXHS77&P=ML]TME Charge Minder[/link]

Each is hooked up to a power strip.

For each battery, I have a wall-wart plugged into the power strip.

At start of charge, the TME unit supplies full current to the connected power strip for 16 hours, then goes to trickle by pulsing the current 1/4 on, 3/4 off for 1/4 of the overnight charge rate.

You need a wall-wart for each battery that will supply c/10 for that battery. Unfortunately, it's hard to find wall warts to charge at more than 60-70 ma, but if most of your batteries are the standard NiCds and Nimh, you should be ok.

In the instruction manual for the TME units, I think they claim the units can handle up to 10 or 20 chargers each.

Since I don't have as many planes as you do, I use the second unit just for trickle.

I'm not sure how the ACE unit differs, are they meant for only one charger? Check the current ratings. Maybe you can do the same?

DadsToysBG

My Feedback: (35)

Look at the Hughs RC charger. It will do 4 batts up to 8 cells. Start charging on Sunday night and forget it until the next flying day. Dennis