Dustinxxx

My Feedback: (1)

Just got my first trex 450 (clone), but it didnt come with a charger or battery.. i googled it and there were so many choices. What would you guys say i should get.. preferably not to expensive and im a broke college student lol.. THanks in advance.

aircrash

Something inexpensive that works is this charger : http://www.ebay.com/itm/Balancer-Cha...item1c111dc496
I have it and it charges the 1800 - 2400mah fast.
You`ll need a power supply too. Something like this: http://www.ebay.com/itm/AC-Power-Ada...item5d304453bb that is good even for bigger chargers or this http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-AC-DC-12...item1e639a5013 which is cheaper and good for this charger.
I don`t know about the power supply sellers though. The seller of the charger is good.

Battery... a cheap one to start with is this http://www.ebay.com/itm/BQY-11-1v-11...item4602704ba8
You`ll need XT60 plug and some soldering job though.
You can take a better battery though with XT60 plug pre-installed but for more. If you can afford such then it would be better.
A 11.1V 2100 - 2200mah is good to go.

Red Baron Gary

My Feedback: (59)

I have used Hyperion chargers and batteries with great success. Their batteries are pricey, but after many charge and discharge cycles the cell voltages are spot on. Also the latest of their batts can be charged at up to 5c rate.
Gary Smith, aka Red Bron Gary

augerin2

Send me an e-mail at [email protected] I've got one for sale on e-bay cheap. Good enough to start out with.

Von Ohain

Cell voltages will be spot on with any battery after countless charges and discharges (on series connection, which any battery is anyway).
This is because all cells in a series connection has to deliver the same amount of current (Kirchoffs law), and hence current can't escape anywere no matter how cheap or expensive the battery is.
However, self discharge might get the cells out of balance over long time, but that is:
1. independent of charge/discharge cycles
2. a very low factor which is significant only with long term storage.

So, I wouldn't take cell balance over charge/discharge cycles as a sign of quality. It would yield exactly the same with any battery anyway.

To get to the question:

Charger:
Do you have an old PC power supply (ATX)?

If yes:
Pc powersupplies is the most powerful and best quality power supplies you can get anywhere for no money.
So use it if you got one, or alternatively get one if you don't.
Then, I recommend the Imax b6 or b8 as an entry level charger.
It will charge anything you got from the 12v Lead acid battery in your car, to your 3 cell helicopter lipo battery.
Its intelligent, it balances lipo batteries for you, and it gives you some useful data aswell (how many mah you spent of your battery, for example).

If no:
Get a b6ac or b8ac.
They are a bit more expensive than the b6 or b8, and I hear the integrated 230V/110V power supply of them is not as good as the rest of the charger, but I never tried them myself.
Anyway, just nicking a ATX power supply from an old computer will yield you a very good power supply to run your charger from.

Battery:

Turnigy 3s 1800mah - 2200mah is spot on for you, you'll find them on hobbyking.com for a steal price.
They are good batteries for a reasonable price, I use them for everything I got of r/c electric power.
Zippy is good too, about the same.
Its hard to get better value for money than these.

pushinoldrc

My Feedback: (46)

Ihave found that cheaper batteries do have different internal resistance characteristics between cells, and therefore do go unbalanced rather quickly. This usually indicates a problem in the highest voltage cell as it has not released as much stored energy due to its higher internal resistance.
Ihave had some of the blue turnigy batteries come out of the box with this issue, and once received a 3000mAh 11.1v battery that had a puffed #2 cell.

Iusually charge my batteries in balance mode so that I can watch for problems occuring.
Bryan

Von Ohain

Internal resistance has nothing to do with cells going out of balance either.
The only thing that can cause cell unbalance is if a different current is running through each cell.
And since the cells is series connected, the only thing that can cause cell imbalance is self-discharge.

Your cells should be balanced at top charge, and the next time you check cell balance, you shall check it at the next top charge.
If you balance the pack at top charge, and then check it when its drained, then you get all kinds of strange results.