http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...?&I=LNTUM3&P=G
Ofna Quick Charger - Looks like a good deal from Tower fast charge for both Tx and Rx batteries. I'm looking for a charger for both nimh 4.8v 4 cell 2000mah and 9.6v 8 cell 1600mah.

I think with this one you have to be careful to NOT leave charging for a long time?

Also looking at Tower Peak charger, maybe this is better - has trickle rates.

Looks pretty good, but it only charges one at a time. Usually, if I'm quick charging a plane, I'll go ahead and charge the tx back up while I'm at it so that I'm not down again in an hour or two waiting on the transmitter to charge. however, most of that has been corrected now by going to a 1500 mah tx battery, which will basically last me all day.

I use the hobbico quick charger that does both at one time. However, for the money, this seems to be a good deal. It does not say, howver, if it comes with a transmitter charge adapter, just a Z connector, so if you were gonig to charge your tx through it, you would have to buy that adapter, I'm sure.

If you want to charge both TX and RX batteries at the same time you should get something like the Hobbico Quick Field Charger. It will do a quick charge on both your transmitter and receiver batteries at the same time.

[link]http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXCTZ5&P=ML[/link]

Ken

He posted 2 chargers to use at home. If he bought any of the other recommendations he would need a power supply to charge at home.
I don't like your first choice. 1.1A fixed charge rate will charge your batteries in a couple of hours each but if you always fast charge your batteries they will not last you as long. (when you fast charge NiCad and NiMH one of the signs it is charged is it starts getting hot)
I like the Tower Peak charger better because you can adjust the charge rate and don't have to cook your batteries on every charge
http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...?&I=LXTSA4&P=7
My personal choice is the Accu-Cycle it does not peak detect but is not a fast charger and the highest setting, 125ma, will charge all your batteries overnight. I use this charger on all my 2,000mah receiver batteries and my 2,100mah transmitter. It does charge both at the same time and uses AC power source.
http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...&I=LXL357&P=ML

I only saw one charger in the OP, which was the peak charger. He mentioned wanting to quick charge. I personally would not have a need for an AC quick charger. All quick-charging should be done at the field, meaning you should go with a DC powered charger. At home, you should charge your batteries in a more responsible manner to make them last longer. JMO

The only charger in the link provided by the original poster is nothing more than a peak detecting wal wart (AC imput only) fixed charge rate for everything. That rate is quite high and not something I would care to charge a 1600mAh (one of the capacitys mentioned by the OP) battery at even for a fast charge.

It further may be likely that some 600/700 mAh batterys end up being charged with this thing and of course they would be thoughly cooked. To me this is a bottom of the barrel choice.

I think the you are going to have to pay somewhere between seventy and hundred bucks to get any kind of versatility and for a multiple use charger, A charger being used with a wide range of battery capacitys it must have a varible output to properly match you batterys capacitys.

There are many choices out there and you will get alot of recomendations here of more appropriate units.

John

Of course, in my opinion, the best charger would be one that peak detects, and can be used with both AC and DC inputs. The closest I've seen so far is the one Missileman suggested, http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...?&I=LXTSA4&P=7

It has a digital display for ease of reading and, as I said, will operate on both AC and DC inputs.

I have an older Accu Cycle charger and use it at home. I usually run my batteries through the cycle of discharge then recharge, and do that several times before using them again. This often takes a few days to do properly, but it usually restores NiCd's that are giving indications of being 'bad'. RadicalRC has a FAQ section where Dave Thacker talks about chargers, batteries, re-charging, cycling here:
http://members.aol.com/davthacker/abattfaq.html

It's pretty interesting what he has to say about charging batteries and batteries that are frequently labled as bad. This is definitely worth a few minutes of your time to read.

Meanwhile, I also have a Triton charger and an ICE charger as well as a pair of Sirius Field Chargers. All of these, though, are field chargers and will run on only 12 - 15 vdc (car battery voltage). And they work just fine.

I also have one of those Sears emergency car jump starter packs. It contains a sealed lead-acid battery with a build in charger. I keep that plugged in at a 120vac wall socket at home and just grab it when I head to the field. It has two output ports, one, a pair of female banana plug jacks (red for + and black for - ) that I put in, and the other is a fused cigarette-lighter type of plug. And I've used it to charge batteries as well as a backup battery for my electric starter.

CGr.

He didn't link both chargers but did mention 2 chargers he was looking at.

My goal is to find a way to charge both of my batteries in one night at home. I didnt think my wall wart that came with Futaba 6EX had a high enough output for 1600 batteries however it is (i think) 100ma, which is close to what Missileman seems to be using. Point is to avoid bringing charger to the field. Maybe i dont need a new charger after all?

There is no way you are going to charge 1600 Mah batteries in one night with a wall-wart charger. Those will charge a 600 Mah battery in one night, but not 1600 Mah. If you want to be able to charge TX and RX batteries overnight you are going to need a new charger.

[link]http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXL331&P=7[/link]

I have a couple of these around and they do a great job. There are 4 power taps on them with varying capacities, so you can charge different rated batteries.

Ken

It becomes a simple math issue. First of all, take a look at your wall wart charger. It will show two separate outputs. One for 4.8 volts @ xx mah and the other for 9.6 volts @ xx mah.

The xx is the output current rating of the charger ports.

Just for the sake of calculating the time, let's just assume the RX charge port on the wall wart charger is 4.8 @ 100 mah (yours may be something else, this is just for information and calculations). Ok, then 1600 / 100 comes to 16 hours. Add about 10% for overhead and you will come up with somewhere around 17 to 18 hours of charge time. Definitely not overnight. The overhead, by the way, is heat and wasted, and there is not a thing that can be done about that. It's just there and you have to factor that into the charge time because heat is wattage (current X voltage).

This is, of course, if your battery is completely dry. If it is not dry, which it probably will not be, then the times will be less. The only way to really know is to discharge the batteries using a cycler and re-charge. This is if you want to know the real capacity of your batteries. If you just want to charge them, well, you will find out how much time it will take by just putting it on the charger and see how long it takes.

I'm not trying to be funny here, just that you really don't know exactly what is left in your battery. You can guess, if you know the load (close to precise load) that the batteries will be under during the flights, times the number of flights, minus the capacity.. then you will know what's left and how long it should take for your charger to recharge that battery pack. As you can see, it's not that easy to do. But, what you CAN do is put it on the charger for a specific period of time and charge it overnight. It should be pretty close unless it was completely drained.

Using something like a Hobbico Accu Charge.. the charge LED will blink when it's done charging, when it'd detected the peak charge voltage and switches over to trickle. Otherwise, using a wall wart charger, well, you will never really know, but as I said, you can pretty much guess that after x number of hours on a battery that has had x amount of discharge.... you get the picture.
CGr.

I have to dissagree with you Ken, -"IF"-your wallwart charger is charging at 100ma as stated and assuming you never run a battery dead an overnight charge (12 hours) is plenty. That said, be carefull about stated charge rates.
Some chargers, like that wallwart, state a 100ma charge rate but may split that when charging 2 batteries at the same time, so in effect your really only getting a 50ma rate, in which case Ken is correct. You need a better charger if you want overnight charging.

Generally speaking, the batteries that came with the TX and RX should be able to be fully charged in a full overnight charge. That does not mean start at midnight and stop at 6:00 AM, either. If you want to be sure, then perhaps replacing your charger with one of the commercial types mentioned will give you what you want. The ability to charge quicker and visual indication of how the charge proceeds.

Thanks for the help. Ken, that Hobbico Multicharger is EXACTLY what I was looking for! Can charge everything I use in one night, or faster or slower depending on what I'm doing and condition of batteries.

At some point as you advance in the hobby, a good cycler is nice to have. That way you can condition your Ni-cads plus see if they are starting to lose capacity and need replacement. The Hobbico Acu-cycle Elite is great. Sure it's a little pricey but it has a lot of nice features and will even charge 3-cell lipos if you ever end up with an electric plane.