RC racing charger, any good for charging batteries?

Here I am again, still looking for a proper charger :sick2:
I hope I'm not too much of a spammer :sweat:

What's the common opinion on RC racing chargers. I guess those people are even more demanding of their chargers than we are, so they must be good?

I'm looking at this one:

Ansmann Xbase charger. It can charge one battery(pack) at a time.

image

It costs less than a fully featured 4xAA charger, but it seems very capable of charging just about anything, including LiPo and Li-ion. It would seem a very good choice to recondition older nimh cells and also a safe charger for li-ion cells.

Who has experience with these types of chargers (not necessarily this ansmann) and can tell me their opinion?

Thanks

Hello Raymond,

The specifications look good. Let us know how you like it.

In general, the hobby chargers do a better job of charging than most consumer chargers do. It all comes down to the charging algorithm they use.

Tom

I use an R/C charger for all of my nimhs. In fact, I don't have anything else other than my LiIon charger. The only thing I can think of is that those multiple bay chargers that charge each cell independently may be better.

I saw that I linked to the wrong one this one doesn't discharge, they have a model that also does discharge/refresh. But that one needs to be fed from a 11-15V supply (I have one, so not a real problem)

It's about €20 less expensive than a very complete computerized multibay charger/analyzer. I will compare specs later tonight and make a decision.

It will be the convenience of the multibay charger vs the flexibility of the RC charger. If I buy the RC charger, I will have bought the 2 li-on chargers I have on order now for nothing

Maybe I shouldn't overthink it so much and just buy one (they're all good)

I use a tekin BC112C for my NiMH cells. its an older model but the firmware has been updated to charge NiMH cells. Highly programmable with a very easy to read diag display. The catch (in theory) is your cells should be fairly closely matched, although I have used it with unmatched cells before with no ill effects.

edit, heres the URL...
http://www.teamtekin.com/chargers.html

I wasn't actually planning to charge multiple batteries (battery packs) at once, it's main use would be testing and regenerating batteries, and charge li-ion batteries. For charging, I already have an accupower AP2020-1. That's a great charger, but it's somewhat slow and only charges (no gimmicks : yellowlaugh: )

I plan to use it in combination with this loading bay

I'm still debating between this option and the charger I mentioned in this thread.

I've printed out the manual of both chargers, and will place an order later today

And after careful consideration: The RC-charger is on it's way to me

(and my li-ion only chargers are in the mail and already obsolete )

Raymond, if you get the hobby charger, you can pick up a 4 place Voltcraft battery cradle from Conrad too. I have one and it is perfect with a hobby charger. You have the option to charge from 1 to 4 batteries at a time and you can connect multiple cradles together.....like 5 of them max for my Triton2.

I think you would like that better than just the one battery cradle. Eventually you will want to expand your battery charging capability to more than just one.

Bob E.

I use a Hyperion 5i AC/DC, which charges practically everything (including LiFePO4) and runs off mains power. It also has conditioning features.

As for the Ansmann it seems pretty good. Too bad it lacks a LiFe setting.

I have the hyperion 5i too, AND the swallow advanced. The only downside with those are that they only have 1 channel. If you connect the batteries in series, they will charge uneven if they are not perfectly matched. The same in parallel, you risk destroying the batteries if you put them together and they are not matched.
You also have to remember to do the right adjustments, like the right number of batteries in series, or ells...
This chargers are made for battery packs, not singel batteries.

For anything other than battery "packs" i prefer a normal charger with several channels.

I'm not planning to use the charger for simple daily charging of AA's, I have a nice universal charger for that.

I'm going to use it to test and regenerate batteries I have lying around and that seem to have deteriorated somewhat from neglect. I also want to use this charger for the safe charging of li-ion cells.

And last but not least: I want to see if I can revive the batterypack in my dad's streamlight SL20X.

I received an email that it has shipped, I chose a shipping method where it gets delivered to a nearby servicepoint instead of at home, so I can pick it up in my own time. Hopefully, I'll get a message later today that it has arrived

I've had the charger since yesterday, and have only had the chance to play with it for a few hours.

So far, I've discovered that it charges Li-Ion batteries to a conservative 4.17V. My trustfire RCR123's that came complementary with my order have a capacity of [email protected] discharge, a rarely used 4 year old nimh 5Ah C-cell has gone from less than 100mAh to over 1.5Ah and was still improving when I got bored, and finally a faulty cell in the batterypack of my dad's SL20X has gone from 30mAh to over 1Ah and is currently still charging.

I like my new toy

the triton is a very good charger, charges up to 24cells (more of a charger for rc airplanes

here is the one I use, ICE this only charges up to 10cells (more of a charger for rc cars)

Raymond said:

a rarely used 4 year old nimh 5Ah C-cell has gone from less than 100mAh to over 1.5Ah and was still improving when I got bored

Click to expand...

I put it back in the charger this morning and the cell is still improving. I't's currently at 3200mAh and it's still discharging (it's now at 1.185V, I set the discharge voltage at 1V).

It's amazing what a decent charger can do for batteries!

Will this work? http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXRST9&P=ML

yes it will, doesnt work on lipo cells though and remember it can only charge 8 cells at a time

and cheaper chargers will false peak once in awhile, so if you think that it finished charging early, just charge it again dont even think about it lol

I guess i'm better off just buying the charger made for the batteries i'm buying.