Buying Lipo charger, thoughts need help...?

[Spihc]

Hi,

Going to buy a Turnegy Accucel-6 (or a Imax B6) tomorrow, but I have two thougths that need some peace first. Maybee you guys can help?

1. Looking at lipo chargers I have stumbled upon so called "adapters" for balancing, what are these and why?... How do I know what connectors my future cells have?

2. The power supply thing... I heard that one can use a pc Power Supply, but a "normal" would be prefered, like this, http://cgi.ebay.com/Power-Adapter-12...d=p3286.c0.m14, would it work??

Hope you guys can help.

Regards

Tobias

[Marvin]

Originally Posted by Spihc

1. Looking at lipo chargers I have stumbled upon so called "adapters" for balancing, what are these and why?... How do I know what connectors my future cells have?

There are four main types of balance connectors:
JST-XH (or Align), TP (for ThunderPower), PQ (Polyquest), and the weird ones that LRP/Nosram use.

The first three are common connectors, whilst I've never seen a Lipo, other than an LRP/Nosram one that uses the last connector.

The PQ plug is not that popular for car use and the JST-XH is the most popular.

Originally Posted by Spihc

2. The power supply thing... I heard that one can use a pc Power Supply, but a "normal" would be prefered, like this, http://cgi.ebay.com/Power-Adapter-12...d=p3286.c0.m14, would it work??

That will not really work. It can only provide 5A to the charger, which will need something more like 5-6 for the peak part of a charge. A better choice would be something like this. It can provide 20A, at 13.8V and can be used for other things like soldering irons, which won't run on your linked item.

[Spihc]

Hi, thanks for the response.

I guess I will have to wait and see wich connectors I have on my "future" batteries vs wich I have on my charger.

Regarding the power supply, I will make a try with a PC PSU, Cand really understand why a 5 amp is not enough, but still I am not the most knowing in electronics...

[mark christopher]

that power supply will work fine thats all thats in the bantam BC6

[Marvin]

Even if you are only charging the battery at a couple of A, the charger itself is not 100% efficient, so will require more current. A low quality charger like the Turnigy you mentioned is unlikely to be more than about 75% efficient. Therefore, if you are charging at 4A, the charger actually requires 5.33A. You are going to be very limited with the computer power supply.

[Spihc]

Hi, hmm, I am confused.

Tunrigy, low quality? I have not read anything bad about it, oposite.

The power supply, from a computer, often has over 15-20 amps, as far as my knowledge is... How can that limit my need for... say 4-6 amps...

Please help me here? Am I totally wrong?

[Marvin]

You were suggesting using a 5A power supply from a computer, you'd never said anything about 15-20A, which would be fine.

The Turnigy charger isn't that great, but it will do the job. The main problem is that you are limited with the cells you can balance, due to the 'built in the side' JST balance board.

Unless you want to resolder any packs you buy with JST-XH balance plugs, you will be stuck to brands of battery that use that type.

[Spihc]

Originally Posted by Marvin

You were suggesting using a 5A power supply from a computer, you'd never said anything about 15-20A, which would be fine.

The Turnigy charger isn't that great, but it will do the job. The main problem is that you are limited with the cells you can balance, due to the 'built in the side' JST balance board.

Unless you want to resolder any packs you buy with JST-XH balance plugs, you will be stuck to brands of battery that use that type.

If the JST connectors aint enough/wont fit I will buy one of those adapters, like this one: http://www.hobbycity.com/hobbycity/s...idProduct=7351, I hope they will do they trick. Will go for Intellect, 3 Racing batteries, think they do JST.

Regarding the Power Supply, the one I linked in my first post, is one option, my other option is to take a ATX power supply and convert it to a DC power supply, such as this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26oqItOY3lE

Maybee I did not make myself understood, english is not my first language as you might have seen.

Would it be better with a Computer PSU?

[Marvin]

No, I got that you wanted to use a computer PSU. The only thing there is I thought that the maximum amps put out by one of the connectors was 5A at 12V.

That adapter board won't work I'm afraid. That's for chargers like THIS one that don't have balance ports built into the side, but an adapter port to use different boards for different batteries.

The charger you've picked has one of those 'boards' built in, so you cannot use another board without rewiring the batteries to have JST plugs.
The white block on the side of the charger is the balance 'board', but there is no port for other balancing boards to be used.

Having seen the power output of the charger (50W), the PSU should be able to provide enough power: 5A * 12V = 60W. Multiply this by the % efficiency (say 80% - most higher quality chargers are 85% so this is a conservative estimate), so 60W * 0.80 = 48W, so it barely limits the charger.

The reason I said it would limit the charger is that I use chargers with 180W charging capabilities, so it would definately not be enough for me.

[Spihc]

Hi, aaaah I understand, 180w of charging is far more then my "cheap" charger can put out.

Will try and use a PC PSU as first choice, if I fail in that part one of those adapters is a alternative.

Found one more though: "RCS Power Supply 13,8V/8,5A", this will produce a strong current, enough I guess.

[Marvin]

Yeah, that should be fine. I'm used to charging 18.5V at 6.6A so I need real high-end stuff!