I just bought a pretty good lipo charger complete system but it does not come with a power cable and it says in the manual to use 11-18V DC for input.

I was just wondering what difference is it going to make if I use a 11V DC cable and a 18V DC cable.

Do you mean power supply?

yes

What charger is it?

it's a charger I bought from my LHS, it's not from any of the big brand names. but I think it's pretty feature packed.. It says for power input. you need DC11V to DC18V. My friend has the same charger and he uses DC18V power for the charger.

I use 13.8v propeak ones and they work well.

It wont make any difference at all. the charger is designed to operate anywhere between 11 and 18 volts DC.

Ok, it says

Operating voltage range: DC11.0-18.0volt - AC to DC adaptor (DC11.0-18V/5A)

what does the 5A means?

So if I use a 18V power adapter with 5A, then it would work right??

or is the V relative to the A?

A 5 amp power supply would be the minimum requirement.

Most well made power supplies are bulky because they use giant transformers and capacitors. I use one like this:


I actually use a 25 amp because I have several things that it powers. If you have any plans on charging at 4amps, then I would reccomend something a bit larger than 5 amps though. The one in the picture is a 10amp and costs about $50 with shipping in the USA.

The relationship between volts and amperage is defined in Ohm's law I=V/r but you don't need to concern yourself with that where chargers and power supplies are concerned. You just have to know what your power requirements are. For your charger to be able to charge a battery at 4 amps, you have to have at least that much plus whatever is necessary to operate the charger. 5 might do it, but you want to play it safe and have some extra juice. 6-10 amps for a single charger is fine. If there is the possibility that somewhere down the road you want to operate two chargers at the same time then double the amperage, or get 12-20 amps.

I have this adapter and the output is 19.5V with 3.34A, so I guess that wont' work

RCtruckRacer thx for the reply.

So are you saying that the output anywhere between 11V-18V is fine right? and the A can be as high as you want right? if the charger says 5A, that means the minimum right??

if you find an old computer, take the power supply out of it and you can do a little wiring to get it to work. thats what i did and mine works fine.

I dod the same ting, computer power supply, works fine for me![8D]

That is correct. The 19.5 volt may work if the charger doesn't go into error. My guess is that it won't.

some good deals on power supply's,

http://www.etronics.com/showcategory...entoryFilter=1

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applicatio...223&CatId=1107

will this power supply work. Output is 12V 6A, 72 Watts. I I think the plug will fit according to the specification

That should work fine. (I've not used it)