Need advice on a good charger and cells for my P7 mag

[BUZ]

Need a good charger and cells for my newly acquired P7 3C mag.


I'm looking for a good smart charger, wayne/ElektroLumens recommended that I get a charger with a chip what exactly does that mean?


Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Al Combs]

Need a good charger and cells for my newly acquired P7 3C mag.


I'm looking for a good smart charger, wayne/ElektroLumens recommended that I get a charger with a chip what exactly does that mean?


Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated!

A smart charger for NiMH is one with a negative DeltaV cutoff. That is when the battery gets fully charged, its voltage actually starts to drop a little. A smart charger is capable of detecting this.

I bought a Vanson BC1HU from BatteryJunction because it was inexpensive. One thing is since C cells will take overnight to charge, it might be better to get the set with 8-batteries so you can have a charged set of 3 on hand while you use the other set. The other thing is, the BC1HU would only be charging at 0.16C at 800ma vs a battery with a capacity of 5 amp hours. Negative DeltaV is difficult to detect at that low of a charge rate which might cause problems as the batteries get old. So far mine works OK.

Ideally the rate should be between 0.5C and 1C. The cap C you always see, refers to the battery's capacity. So a 5 AH battery should be charged at a rate between 2.5 and 5 amps.

Here's one that comes close, but a lot more money. The MaHa C808M for $90 is a much better charger. Thomas Distributing also sells Low-Self-Discharge batteries. Basically if you kept a charged set of normal NiMH's around for a few months, they'd be dead by the time you went to use them. Eneloops by Sanyo started that type of battery claiming they would retain 85% of a charge after 1 year. LSD batteries and a MaHa C808M is a much better combo if you have the extra money.

 

[spencer]

IMO don't get the Tenergy cells. I have heard that they are a mixed bag of true capacity. If you are going to order from Battery Junction, I would say that the Titanium's are a better deal.

 

[BUZ]

Thanks for the info so far!


Would this be a good combo:

http://www.all-battery.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=8

http://thomasdistributing.com/shop/...html?SP_id=&osCsid=74i021ltntgcilfhl3jhcnvrc2

 

[Al Combs]

Thanks for the info so far!

Would this be a good combo:

Yes but...

Would this and this do as well? If you buy them both from the same dealer, you can save on shipping.

 

[precisionworks]

I just bought a light from Mac that uses one AW C-size Li-Ion, and looked for a couple of days for a charger. After looking at dozens of sites & chargers, I bought the DN Power G2 Plus from XUS Hobby. $119 for chager + $39 for the power supply. About three times more than I'd planned to spend, but looks to have enough versatility to charge any battery I may use.

 

[marschw]

I just bought a light from Mac that uses one AW C-size Li-Ion,

Which brings up a good point, does the 3C mag in question need Li-ion or NiMH C cells?

 

[alfreddajero]

If your looking for a good charger thats versatile then i would recommend at least checking this one out.....i have one and two others and like this one more because it charges up lithiums as well. All you would need is a carrier for your cells that you can get at radioshack.

http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXLCJ6&P=ML

 

[precisionworks]

That's a nice looking charger-power supply combo. If I'd known about it yesterday, I would have gotten that one instead:mecry:

 

[alfreddajero]

You can always return the one that you got and get this one.