Help, tips, Info, Comments: On Triton Charger.

[jtice]

I have been looking at chargers for over a weeek now, and was planning on spending this much on a charger, but, I want something very versitile, so I dont out grow it, and have to buy another charger later on.

I have heard alot of good things aobut this Triton charger, but am not sure about the best way to use it, and setup a charging system.
http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXCJG7&P=FR

Id like to hear what you think of it, and how you have been ussing it, and what batts, and # of batts you have been charging.

First off, I have a 12V power supply, and is 10 Amp. Its not a cheapo, and is supposed to have low ripple.
Is this enough to power the Triton?

Heres the main thing I am wondering about.
I know that the Triton is really made for charging battery packs, such as in remote control cars, planes, etc.
It can charge 1 to 20 cells.
But, how should I go about making a batt holder for it?
I know I can easily make a 4AA holder, and set the charger to 4 cells, and thats fine, but,
What if I want to charge 2 cells? Am I going to have to make a diff batt holder for each # of cells?
I think it only charges the batts in series, is that correct?
If so, I cant use it like a regular batt charger, IE, placing just 1,2,3,4, etc # of cells in it.
It looks like the best i will be able to do, is make a bunch of 2AA holders, and fine a way to connect them all together.
But, then, I can only chage in multiples of 2 /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif

Any ideas on how to go about this?
I know just buying a nice $40 AA charger would be better, for AAs, but I wont something versitile, and that I can charge packs with later on.

Thanks for the help guys.

-John

 

[Hallis]

Would the battery holders that are designed to work with that expensive Maha charger work? just hook leads up to them and away you go.

 

[jtice]

Opps forgot to mention this...

Will the Triton be able to charge a multiple AA pack as well an AA charger, that monitors each cell seperately?

My batteries will not always be discharged the same amount, IE: the batts will be out of different lights, electronics etc.

Would I be better off with a regular AA charger?

 

[3rd_shift]

When batteries are charged individually, they can be monitored individually.
The 2 way radios' battpacks at some of my security posts didn't have that luxury. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif
All it took was one bad cell to ruin the pack. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon8.gif
And since these packs weren't designed to be disassembled and reassembled with the good remaining cells, we ended up throwing many good cells to the recyclers. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mecry.gif

 

[Hallis]

I think to monitor each cell individually you'd have to charge them individually.

 

[js]

JT,

I love my Triton, and the power supply you have is probably good enough, but IIRC, the Triton people recommend 13 amps or higher. However, if you're not charging at high rates or high cell counts, 10 amps is probably enough.

That aside, I think that it would be WAY more trouble than it's worth in your case. Just buy a $40 consumer cell bat charger. There are consumer chargers out there that will handle all sorts of cells--AA, C, D, 9V, etc. And the amount of money and time you would need to spend on making up battery holders would be equal to or greater than the cost of one of these chargers made for loose cells.

The standard CPF advice holds: get them both. I would in your case. Because the Triton will not monitor each individual cell or 2 cell pair. It looks at the "battery pack" as a whole and thus ALL batteries should be at very nearly the same state of charge.

Just my 2 cents. Take it or leave it.