Time Pilot

I have been using the Hobbico MKII for a couple of years now. It needs a 12V source, as you're likely aware, and it does a fine job of charging Nimhs and Nicads. It's lowest charging rate is 200ma, which could be an issue once you become a battery guru and want to charge smaller packs at a rate 1/10 of their capacity (eg. charging a 650mah cell would be first charged at 65mA). You can often do this charge off the wall charger that came with your radio, if you want to go through the trouble. In the end, you won't cause WWIII by not doing this if all you want to do is fly and have fun.

It only charges Lipos to about 85-90% fully charged, which may or may not be an issue with you. It only charges Lipos at a max rate of 1 amp, which may be of concern to some with really large capacity Lipo packs. It will charge up to a 3S (11.1V) pack.

The two outputs are good to have, especially when you've got a number of packs that you need charged.

I like the fact that it will time out after 2 hours when charging nicads or nimh's (I don't think it times out with Lipos). I know that if the charger should happen to miss peak, it will not continue to pour current into the battery and cause other problems.

If I were serious about flying electrics and was looking for a charger for Lipos, I would not buy this charger if it was my only charger. I do use the MKII for lipos, but once the MKII has done what it can, I finish the charge on another charger.

GWS has a wall charger for 2S and 3S lipos (under $10). You can always use one of those to top up the charge.

If you stay with electrics long enough, you are probably going to want a charger with features like the Triton and some kind of device that will allow you to balance the cells in a lipo battery (so all the cells in the battery are at the same voltage).