buchtes

My Feedback: (7)

need some input:

how well does this field charger perform? Is it worth the money or another piece of undesirable Hobbico Electronics????

sigflyer

My Feedback: (5)

I have found that the Hobbico MKII works Great for the $49 asking price. All I charge are receiver and transmitter packs. So far I can find no reason to spend more money on something that may or may not do the job any better. I'll have to admit that all of the Hobbico items I have purchased have performed as expected.

dbow

My Feedback: (1)

I bought this charger to use while waiting on my Triton to come in (Triton was out of stock for weeks).

It has charged my batteries on the way to the field and a few times complete charges at the field.
I like that it charges both packs at the same time. I have had no problems at all with it.

The only problem that can come up will be with your field battery.
If you plan to top off packs and such, a regular field battery will be fine. If you plan to charge your packs totally off of the field charger then you will need a hefty battery.

I can also say that all the products that I own from Hobbico have been excellent...no problems.

Dbow

mulligan

I also am very happy with this product. I think it represents a step up in the Hobbico line of auxiliary equipment. This charger is very easy to use, pretty quick charging (2 A), can charge two packs of NiCd, NiMH, and Li-ion, and has many fool-proof features. Never a problem or even a hick-up; worked right out of the box without really a need to read the manual.

In short, if it was a woman, I would marry her.

- George

PigMan Buggerus

My Feedback: (6)

Mine seems to work great. No problems yet. And you can't beat the price.

buchtes

My Feedback: (7)

thanks for all the input on this charger Guy's, I ordered one last Night.

David

Geistware

My Feedback: (16)

Mine work flawlessly!

3D Joy

Mine just destroyed my 6V Nimh due to not detecting peak and charging at about 1 amp a 2100mah battery. If it destroys another battery, the charger will be sold for nothing, that's for sure.

joel_jones

My Feedback: (111)

I LOVE MINE.. THE GUYS AT THE FIELD USE MINE EVERY WEEKEND..

HAVE HAD IT FOR 2 MONTHS.. NO PROBLEM...

I USE IT QUICK CHARGE AT THE FIELD...

JJ

PigMan Buggerus

My Feedback: (6)

Mine just fried my 9.6 transmitter battery, melting the case of my Futaba 9c. thankfully the transmitter still works, just some slight case damage. It seems that only 1 port is bad on my charger, the other still works. I guess I will be buying an AcuCycle Elite as soon as I get the cash together.

joel_jones

My Feedback: (111)

HOW LONG ARE U CHARGING THE BATTERY.. I OWN A HOBBY SHOP AND I SELL THESE EVERY DAY... WE HAVE HAD ON PROBLEM..

CAN U EXPLANE HOW U ARE CHARGING >??? DON'T WANT TO SELL SOMETHING THAT IS BAD.. WE LOVE OURS..


cOMMENTS??

JJ

PigMan Buggerus

My Feedback: (6)

Honestly it has been a great charger for over a year, it seems that one of the chargers has gone bad. I had a 1500 mah receiver pack, and now my 1500 mah transmitter pack, both were fried by the charger on seperate occasions. I set the knob to 1.5, and pressed the button twice to charge Nihm batteries, which were what the packs were. Both seemed to be taking a long time, and when I checked, they were hotter than hell and cooked. The other charge port seems to still be working fine. Like I said, I will be getting an Accu-Cycle Elite. It seems to be a higher quality charger.

3D Joy

The charger is supposed to stop when the battery is full so I wait until it stops. I always make the simple multiplication to know about when the charger should stop but I forgot to check two times and the second time, the battery fried.

PigMan Buggerus

My Feedback: (6)

Yup same here. I thought it seemed to be taking to long, and sure enough, it was.

3D Joy

The same for me, I will purchase the Elite, You can "decide" what voltage is your battery, it's not the charger that decides it so no possible errors here.

joel_jones

My Feedback: (111)

IF U WANT I WILL REPLACE THE UNIT (IF U HAVE HAD IT UNDER 1 YR.. ) SEND ME THE RECIPT AND THE UNIT AND I WILL SEND U A NEW ONE..

IF U WANT..

[email protected] FOR MORE INFO..

JOEL

PigMan Buggerus

My Feedback: (6)

Mine is over a year old, and no receipt, so I won't be able to take advantage of your offer, but thank you anyway.

Geistware

My Feedback: (16)

THE best thing to do is check the pack when it begins to charge.
If you have a 5 cell pack set for 1.5 amps charge, you could get 8.5 to 9 volts on the pack. THis is normal. Make sure it is not at 9.5-10 volts. If so, then it thinks it is a 6 cell pack and not a 5 cell one.

3D Joy

Then if I have to check voltage, it should be built in... Anyway, that is good advice. Thanks.

3drc tim

My Feedback: (6)

I purchased three of them at the beginning of the season. They scare me. While I like all the features, I fried two 6V nickle metal hydris right out of the box. I can only figure that the charger did not see the peak and kept on charging. A call to Hobbico is in order to see if they have an upgrade or if they know about the problem. I never have had a problem with my Robbe charger.

Tim

Geistware

My Feedback: (16)

Always check to make sure the voltage is correct if the pack it partically charged.
If it is a new fully discharged pack, you should not have any problems

cloudancer03

My Feedback: (22)

I own and use routinelt a triton charger..but I have really aggravated myself and wished I had the mk2 instead..the trition is excellent bnut as of yet I dont use electrics and the trition excells there.capable of chrging li-po batteries.and nickel..I am your average subday flyer and use mostly nicads and started with nickel hydrides..the hobbico is what I should have..and the mk2 does more than opne pack..lol I might be one of those guys borrowing yours lol.. oh and the mk is simplicity..the triton is like my computer radio you have to really learn it or get frustrated as I did for several months..

3D Joy

Hi cloudancer,

We can plan an exchange then ?? I think that it is no good if I have to check voltage to make sure the charger makes good "decisions" as to what battery voltage to charge. I know now that it is better to charge when the battery is low and certainly not use it to simply top off a battery that is halfway discharged, like for the second day of a funfly, when you have done only 3 or 4 flights.

Highflight

My Feedback: (4)

C'mon 3DJoy, I'll go out on a limb here and state that I'm "pretty sure" that the INSTRUCTIONS for the MkII state very clearly that you should be careful when hooking up an almost full charge pack because the charger may see it as the low voltage of a different (higher mah) pack and then charge accordingly. That's how you fry a pack, and it isn't the fault of the charger, but of the operator.
I don't think you have much of a beef when it's in the instructions. At least I think it's in the instructions; tell me if I'm wrong. Besides, there's no need to charge an almost full pack at the field anyway. I check my flight battery after every flight and I don't charge until it needs it where the nominal is 4.8 or 4.9 volts (under load, of course). I charge both Nicad and Nimh packs that way, and I've never had a runaway overcharge.

When used properly, the MKII is a fantastic product. My problem is that it works so well that too many of the guys without fast field-chargers keep coming to me to give 'em a boost thus using up my puny little 7amp gell cell that I also use for my starter. In fact, one of the guys with a Hanger9 field charger prefers to use mine because his won't even start charging a pack with too low a voltage like the MKII will. If it wasn't for me, he would have been done flying for the day a couple of weekends ago.

One of the things that I do just for the heck of it is to plug in my little Radio Shack digital multimeter (the little one about the size of pack of cigarettes) into the jacks in the MkII designed for the purpose. That's a very simple way to make sure that the MKII and the battery pack are talking to each other correctly because you can always check to see that it's reading the voltage that you expect.

Highflight

Wayne Miller

Hi,

Most people have had a great deal of success with this charger. There are people who do have problems and this is mostly related to trying to recharge a pack that is already fully charged. The problem is usually overcharging caused by the way the charger detects the number of cells.

If you start to charge with a partially discharged pack, the charger can detect the proper number of cells easily. If you have a fully charged pack (maybe a little over voltage), the charger may think that you have a one cell larger pack that is in the discharged state instead of a smaller pack that is fully charged. Example: A fully charge 4 cell NiCd or NiMh pack may reach as high as 5.4 or 5.5 volts, a discharged 5 cell pack can be 5.5 volts - in this case the charger may select the wrong number of cells (5 instead of 4) when it samples the voltage before it starts to charge.

This will cause the charger to try and charge as if the pack has one more cell than it really does. Thus causing overcharging and overheating.

The best way to avoid the problem, is to discharge the battery for a short time by leaving it connected for just a few minutes to be safe and remove any excess charge.

There is a discription of this charger, related problems etc. at the following site, you should take a look at it. It may help.

http://www.geistware.com/rcmodeling/...ry_charger.htm

Hope this helps.

Fly4Fun,

Wayne Miller