PeterP

Looking at getting back into flying pattern again after an extended break. I plan to fly an electric in due course so I am putting a shopping list together for some gear

What is the current choice of charger for charging 10cell F3A packs.

Regards,

Peter

Hokie Flyer

Peter,

You've really opened a big can of worms here.  there are alot of good chargers on the market, each with a loyal fan base.  The big questions are how are you going to charge (1x10S or 2x5S) and how quickly do you need to charge.  If your batteries are 5S packs in series and you don't need a rapid turnaround on your batteries, you might want to look at either the HiTec or Turnigh 4 port chargers.  I just bought the Turnigy and a power supply.  This set up will work nicely for me since I fly with a fairly large pattern group and I have 4 sets of batteries and am not able to fly 4 times in a two hur period.  If you charge as a single 10S, the FMA Cellpro 10s and the ICharger 1010B and 3010B are very popular. 


Rob

Mike Wiz

My Feedback: (2)

I like my FMA Powerlab 8. It will handle a pair of 5 cell 4000 packs at up to 10C. Of course, I don't push it that hard but as battery technology improves, I may down the road. It's great for every day stuff too. Check it out!

smcharg

My Feedback: (1)

F3Aunlimited now carries the FMA series of chargers. The Cellpro 10S will charge either 2 5S or 1 10S at up to 10 amps. Most lipo packs are recommended to charge at 1C which, for a 5000 mah pack would be 5 amps. Some batteries, like the Hyperion 25C battery 5000 mah are "capable" of charging at 5C which would be 25 amps (Hyperion says without damage). The Cellpro 10S is certainly affordable for it's quality at about $135 US. You will still need to buy the balance boards of your choice based on the battery you select but they are around $8 US each.

One item to note which is clearly marked in the instructions is to plug the negative side into Ch. 1 and positive into Ch. 2 if you are charging a single 10S pack (or 2 5S packs in series). The other thing I ran in to is the balance boards come with two types of connectors on it i.e. Thunderpower and Polyquest. Each board has two leads and it would stand to reason that each lead is for the two different types of connectors. Not true! As you are looking at the front side of the board with the leads on top, the right lead is only for charging 6S packs. The left lead, regardless of the type of connector you have is the one to plug in to the Channel ports. FMA swears that most of the leads are marked as such but this wasn't true on mine.

You may charge purely off of the balance boards (4 amps max) or you may connect the balance boards and the output wire to charge up to 10 amps. You cannot charge without the balance boards connected. The amperage limit may be raised in firmware updates that are free and easy to install once connected to your PC. It's rather automatic and has lots of little settings to play with. The default works fine as well if you don't like to tinker.

wagen017

Since you are in Australia easiest would be to order the iCharger 1010b from HobbyCity. If you are in a hurry and your batteries can take it you could go for the 3010B.

I have 2 1010B's and charge at 1.5C so the pack is full in 25-30 minutes. With 3 packs I can fly 2-3 flights per hour.

volkert

nmartin

Hi Pete,

Great to hear you’re returning to pattern again.

Any of the chargers mentioned above are good options. I would like to also add the Hyperion DUO III in there as well. ...It’s arguably the most popular relative to here in South Aust, followed by the CellPro 10S and then the ICharger mentioned above.

Whatever charger you do eventually choose, there is some merit is always buying the same type. Then all chargers can be programmed identically - hopefully then avoiding any "memory-fades" when charging between differing capacities/chemistries, etc. and on different chargers. (...Some PC interface capability may benefit the programming.)

On other note, if in the future you decide to get one of the "mini-me" pattern planes (e.g. SebArt’s 50e line), then you would obviously want the charger to do that as well. So your 10S (for 2m pattern) could be made up from 5S+5S or even 6S+4S. Therefore the 6S could be used in the "50e" plane as well. So you may want the capability to independently charge two 6S packs.

Cheers,
Neil M.
Adelaide, South Aust.

patternflyer1

My Feedback: (11)

Cellpro 10S is pretty good and is what I use. The new TP charger should be out soon though. Interested in trying that perhaps. Just don't like that it only charges 8 cells. However, it will charge up to 2 6 S packs so if you run 2 5's it's fine for that. I wire my 2 5's as a 10. Easy fix for that though. Will be interested to hear more about it. Saw it at the AMA show.

Chris

Chris Moon

My Feedback: (8)

For F3A use, the Cellpro 10S can charge a 10S pack up to 200W output. The Cellpro Powerlab 8 would charge the packs as multiple 5S packs together but can put out 1344W. So if you don't hard wire your 5S packs together, you can use the new Powerlab 8 at very high charge rates if you so desire. This would be a change for many F3A guys who hard wire their packs together and would now need to be able to charge them separately. I have not tested the Powerlab 8 yet, but have some coming tomorrow and will try one out right away. I do know the big EDF jet guys love the Powerlab 8 for it's ability to charge at very high rates.

Mike Wiz

My Feedback: (2)

Just keep in mind with the Powerlab 8, to utilize it's output to it's full potential you need power supply capable of delivering 24VDC at 50 AMPS. It works well with plain old 12VDC too it just dosen't charge super fast like some of the new batteries comming out are capable of. This is the way of the future, IMHO. We can recharge our packs so fast that there is no longer a need to own many sets of batteries. FWIW, I really like the USB interface. It makes it so much easier to access the different functions of the charger and it also graphs everything so you can monitor the condition of the pack and in fact each cell within that pack. I also appreciate it's function for putting the packs into storage voltage. It will either charge or dischares as the case may be to 3.8 volts per cell. It can even charge the individual cells through the balance taps. I haven't done that one yet.

I know all this ability sounds complicated but it's not. I find it easier to use than my TP 610 but not as simple the old AF 109s.... nothing is that simple. Too bad AF didn't keep up with the state of the art.

Anyway, this is my second plug in this thread for the PL8 so I'll give it a rest now.

wagen017

problem we run into now is where to find on the field 24VDC/50A. We have just a single line to our field with 220V/16Amps. So how many chargers can you run parallel on that?

Volkert

Mike Wiz

My Feedback: (2)

220 volts at 16 amps is 3520 watts. That's plenty of power but I don't know of any chargers that can run off 220V AC. You're going to need some type DC power supply. Look at the power supplies that amature radio gear suppliers sell. I have one that can handle 220 volts that I bought from MFJ. Here it is. It is limited to 45 amps output at 13.8VDC, which is a little less than half of what the PL8 is capable of but all that I need so far. If I wasn't clear above, the PL8 will run off 12VDC just fine. You just tell it what the limitation of your power supply is and it won't exceed it. You can save a few different power supply settings too. It has a few of the more common ones preprogramed in there already. If I wanted to go to 24VDC I'd probably look at getting a pair of golf cart batteries or some such thing and mounting them to a trailer hitch carrier.

wagen017

that's a cool powersupply Mike!

I now use a 30 amps 13.8V p/s that works fine for my iCharger 1010b. The charger is then the limiting factor.

Volkert

nonstoprc

My Feedback: (90)

The Powerlab 8 charges up to 8 cells (not 10) at a time. That probably is the drawback.

Mike Wiz

My Feedback: (2)

Actually you can parallel charge 2 8S packs at once so you can charge the batteries for up to a 16 cell power system. You just have to have the packs seperated. It was specifically designed to do it this way. I don't hard wire my packs together anyway so I don't see this as a limitation.

platnuim1

My Feedback: (62)

Can anyone give the approximate charge times for 5S 5000mah and 2 5S 5000mah packs in series, at a 1C charge rate?

Also the times if you have charged the above packs at a higher rate?

Thanks

can773

My Feedback: (1)

In general (it depends on how deep you discharge),

1C ~ 55-60 min
2C ~ 35-40 min
3C ~ 25-30 min
6C ~ 10-15 min

You get diminishing gains in time with higher charge rates, your best bang is going from 1 to 2C (5A to 10A).

ExFokkerFlyer

My Feedback: (4)

24 V power supplies are available but a bit pricey. There are a couple threads on RC Groups about tying two server power supplies together to get 24V and that can be done fairly cheap. ThunderPower just announced their new charger that is rated at 800W or so, but I imagine that is also at 24V+. I gave up waiting for that one a couple months ago (isn't that always the way?) and instead bought one of these [link=http://www.hyperion-world.com/products/product/HP-EOS1420iNET3]Hyperion 1420i[/link]. Works great, will charge up to 14s and it's max rated output, again at around 24V, is 550W. Last week I paired up a couple of my 6s 3000 mah Trex 500 batts and charged that at 2C no problem. My 10S 5000 pattern packs will probably top out just shy of 2C, but I haven't tried it yet. The only draw back to the Hyperion is that it reads the internal resistance per pack, not per cell. But in the end, it stil gives you a good idea of the health of the battery.

I gave up on the Cellpro. Had one for a month and had to send it back and it was repaired under warranty. That was last summer, then about 4 months ago it burned itself up and I inquired to how much it would be to repair and it was $60 plus shipping... so I bought the Hyperion instead and have been really happy with it.

Tom M

Mike Wiz

My Feedback: (2)

The definition of 1C is basically a 1 hour charge. That's why Chad's numbers look like they do. Of course, with different chargers the times very a little and again that's why Chad has given you a range. So 1C regardless of battery size will be a 1 hour charge. 2C will be a half hour charge and 3C 20 minutes.... again regardless of battery size. It's the capacity of the battery that causes us to use more or fewer AMPs durring the charge, right? A 1C charge for a 5000 mah battery is 5amps. A 1C charge for a 2500 mah battery is 2.5 amps. Of course, your charger has to be able to handle the voltage at that current. Some chargers can charge a 3S 5000 pack at say 2C but if you up the voltage (cell count) to 5S with the same capacity it exceeds the charger's ability at 2C and you have to step back to a 1C charge rate. Usually though, the charger MFG will have software that handles this built into the charger.

bem

My Feedback: (1)

Hi,

ThisHyperion charger (with a 28 volt, 50 Amp or similarpower supply) could be one alternative that should be more then enough:
http://www.allerc.com/hyperion-eos-0...de-p-6044.html
http://www.amainhobbies.com/product_...er-7S-20A-500W

/Bo

Mike Wiz

My Feedback: (2)

I tried to buy a Hyperion Duo last year and it was always out of stock. Either it's really popular of there is some other supply problem. I believe it's a good charger.

There are also very good offerings from Shulze. I've never owned one. They were always out of my price range. Apperently, they have lowered their prices but they still aren't cheap.

nonstoprc

My Feedback: (90)

How does the charger balance each cell, in the 2x8= 16 cell case? I thought it can handle up to 8 cells, right?

Mike Wiz

My Feedback: (2)

I wish I could give you a technical answer but I can't. What I know is that if you use their parallel charging leads and balance taps the charger tracks all the cells. You can even watch it sampling and bypassing certain cells if you have it plugged into your PC. It's very cool! Go to the link I gave in post #3 of this thread and click the features tab and it explains it. I noticed when there that it won't parallel charge 8S of just any brand of battery. It will do 6S in parallel mode for any brand and 8S parallel only for Celpro batteries. I'd don't own any single packs larger than 6S so that isn't a problem for me. I have parallel charged a pair of Zippy 6S 4000 packs on it. It works great! I really have been impressed with it.

nonstoprc

My Feedback: (90)

No, you do not have to be sorry, as the feature is not yet available and if so belongs to a different (called peripheral) product.

Here is the quote from FMA site (http://www.fmadirect.com/new_applica..._features.html):

"COMING SOON! Industry’s first Smart Parallel adapters available to maximize available power potential. Safely connect two packs (2a-6s) of equal cell count/capacity together in parallel; charge, discharge, cycle, or monitor on a single PowerLab 8 unit. These items will be peripheral products, available separately, not included as a part of the actual PowerLab 8 unit.".

The powerlab 8 unit itself charges up to 8 cells.

Mike Wiz

My Feedback: (2)

I don't know why the website says comming soon. I've had mine for months with the parallel connectors.I bought it as a package deal right from that website.It works just as I said it does. I've parallel balance charged 2x6S packs on more than one occation. Would you like me to take some pictures to prove it to you?

Chris Moon

My Feedback: (8)

I think these new high powered chargers are going to make us re think our battery arrangements. If we are going to take advantage of charging at more than 1C rates, we will need to charge the 5S packs in parallel and not be able to hard wire them together like many of us (me included) have done in the past. If you are happy with 1C charge rates which have worked fine for years, then hard wiring your packs will still be an option. More choices - something that is always a good thing.

BTW - Powerlab 8 chargers are in stock now with the smart parallel adapters. Loading them onto the web site today.
Also, the new Thunder Power TP820CD is like the Powerlab in that you will need to charge parallel 5S packs.