Bonefrost

My Feedback: (6)

How long should I charge my glow starter?Tx and Rx batteries?

r/c sweden

Depends on your charging rate and your batteries capacity (mAh)

dbow

My Feedback: (1)

I can remember my first set of nicads, I charged them on the standard $5 wall charger. I would wait for what seemed like an eternity for them to charge which should have been overnight. I just seem to always decide to run my car, then realize the batteries are not charged. Well then I have to wait about 10 hours for the old wall charger to get around to doing anyting real to the packs.
It didnt take me long to pick up a peak charger, Tekin BC112C which is one of the best chargers ever made in my opinion. As far as I know they dont make the Tekin chargers anymore, but you can see one blink across ebay every once in a while.

So obviously my opinion would be to invest in a peak charger. A peak charger will treat your batteries far better than any wall charger could ever dream of.
Depending on how often you use your batteries is how I would gauge what type of charger you will need. Some might say that the wall charger would be fine if you run your car every once in a while. I would have to disagree with this because peak chargers have come way down in price and offer more features for the money. I think tower has the superbrain for roughly $40 which would be a great charger.
Duratrax also introduced a new line of chargers which are also sold by Tower. For occasional general use I would not suggest getting something high dollar , that would be like killing a gnat with a sledgehammer.

Tower also usually has a tech notes section on thier products which will depict common functions and tell you a little about the product. This makes it easy to compare products and make a decision based on your wants and needs. I really hate some websites that list a product price and a picture, they dont tell you anything about the product at all but they want you to buy it from them.

Anyhow, a lot of the new peak chargers will auto sense the pack and set the charge parameters without you having to do anything...but plug it up.
Different size cells and different types of cells sometimes like different charge rates and have different beahaviors. A nimh battery is certainly a different animal in comparision to a nicad.

You will have to do some research and be more specific in your questions to get more specific answers on chargers and batteries.
I would make sure that the charger you buy charges nimh and nicads. Also since you want to charge your glow heater battery, make sure the charger is capable of charging only one cell at a time. I think with a good peak charger and a couple of hours all your batteries will be ready to go. Keep in mind that AA batteries (TX and RX) dont like to be charged at high rates, if you dont get an autsensing charger keep your charge rates low.

Dbow

Bonefrost

My Feedback: (6)

Thanks for the insight.I just have the standard cheap recharchable du-bro kwik klip and a tower hobbies(1600mAH) glow heater.The charger says 125mA.


My radio is a Futaba Skysport w/ Tx Battery 9.6vdc 600mAH. Rx Batt 4.8vdc is in plane.Charger says 50mA.

Tx battery says 15 hrs. @ 60mAH is that right?So just over 15 hrs.?

The radio in my truck has the excact same battery set up.

How long on the glo heater?

All my wall chargers also have red lights on them.Will those go out when I'm fully charged?

Thanks,
BONEz'

dbow

My Feedback: (1)

Not sure if the lights will go out or not, as for how long?

OVERNIGHT

Get a peak charger

Jay7318713-RCU

i have been charging mine for sometime 10hr sometime 15 or 20 if i forget to unplug for about 2 years now and race almost 2 or 3 time a week. so i dont really worry so between 10-20 hrs is safe

Bonefrost

My Feedback: (6)

Thanks for the info everyone.
BONEz'

barelias

got a question, i have a tiger moth with battery packs 7.2v,600mah, and a jr max 4 radio. would the Tekin BC112C be a good one to buy .there is one to buy for 35$ ? how does it look and is that a gdoo charger?
thanks in advance

dbow

My Feedback: (1)

The Tekin BC112C is an exceptional charger of the days past, probably one of the best from the past. While they can still be good chargers I would advise to go with something more recent. I say this because Tekin went out of business some years ago. This means that you really do not have any support from the manufacturer on that line of chargers. In addition you will find that chargers out for sale will have various revisions of the Tekin Software.

Some will charge Nicads and NIhms and some will not charge the nihms, the BC112C is capable of charging Nihms but it just all depends on the version of software it has.
There is one guy that does work on these chargers, he upgrades and makes some repairs and charges a fairly reasonable fee.

Thing is though that you can get something like the Great Planes Triton for just a little over $100, you will need a power supply for this charger also but it will charge anything.

Nicads, Nihms, Lithium, Gel Cells, whatever you got it will charge it, discharge it, cycle it, so on and so on. I speak so highly of this charger because I love it. I would have nothing else.


For the budget, grab something like the superbrain, Duratrax also makes some great chargers.
The Tekin was great but it cannot live forever, technology just moves too fast.

Dbow