With winter building season upon us, cycling my transmitter and receiver batteries has been on my mind a lot. I did some shopping around and found that a good basic TX/RX cycling unit from Hangar 9 or Hobbico started in the $60 to $70 price range. I decided instead of simply purchasing a battery cycler, I may as well take the plunge and invest in a top-of-the-line charger unit with cycling built in.
Tower Hobbies had the MRC Super Brain 989 on sale for $139.99, and I had a super saver club code for $30 off plus free shipping for January. Yesterday UPS was kind enough to deliver my new charger, and I've been working the thing over ever since!
This is an impressive unit. Lots of features, lots of power. Temperature probe included. 10 amp AC power supply included. According to the manual, you can even charge off this unit while it's attached to a car battery and the car is running.
I've been throwing everything I have at it. I've been cycling NiCd and NiMh flight packs, transmitter packs, receiver packs, unbalanced LiPos, and charging balanced packs using my Equinox balancing unit in Interface mode.
I was concerned before I ordered the Super Brain 989 that all of these features could be a problem if the menu system were difficult to manuever or the data displays were hard to read. Neither concern has turned out to be valid. I've been able to set up charge and continuous cycle modes quickly and intuitively. The data output is clear, informative, and easy to read.
Just to mix things up a bit, I even ran my Hobbico Quick Field charger Mk II off the MRC 10 amp power supply, and the Super Brain 989 off a 15 amp Radio Shack power supply that I have.
If you've been thinking about purchasing a Super Brain 989, I can't think of a single reason to talk you out of it. This is a powerful, full-featured, easy-to-use charging and cycling system that can charge most any battery from either AC or DC power. With Tower offering this charger for $50 off MRC's suggested price, plus offering additional discounts on top of the sale price, now might be the best time to pick one up.