iCharger: impressions & comparisons to cheaper hobby chargers.

I have used a Turnigy Accucell 6 and a Turnigy Accucell 8 for a while now to charge my Li-ion cells and some NiCd & NiMH cells too. They are both good chargers that have lots of good features and are very versatile.

But now my iCharger 106B+ has arrived and I notice many little things where it is just 'better'. There are some major ways that it is better too like the 10A max charging rate compared to 6A for the Accucell 6 and 7A for the Accucell 8, the 250W max charging energy compared to 50W or 150W, the max discharging current of 7A instead of 1A or 5A.

The settable termination (not really the right term, but you guys know what is meant by it) voltage for LiFe, LiPo & LiIo is a pretty big thing - you can set it at 4.30V for those new 4.35V Li-ion cells. When a new firmware upgrade comes out it may change to 4.35V, but 4.30V would be pretty darned close to a full charge anyway.

The ability to discharge batteries at up to 7A and up to 250W when powered from a 12V battery by using regenerative discharging is pretty impressive. (it will discharge the battery and use that energy to put some charge back into the 12V source battery)


The little difference can be fairly important though like a better UI that saves some time on certain settings changes or offers some 'on the fly' adjustments.
Some that I have noticed so far:

When you go through the options you have Li-ion battery => NiMH Battery => NiCd Battery => Pb Battery => Settings.
From the Li-ion battery menu you have charge, discharge, balance charge, etc
On the iCharger when you go to charge a Li-ion cell you can set the battery type (LiIo, LiPo, LiFe) as well as # of cells & charging current. On the Turnigy chargers if you have been charging LiFe cells then the Li-ion charging menu will be for LiFe and you would need to get out of that menu and into the settings menu to change to LiIo or LiPo battery type.
This really isn't vital and many people only have LiCo chemistry Li-ion cells so they wouldn't really care, but for those that charge their LiFe cells & their LiIo cells fairly regularly then it is nice to be able to quickly change the chemistry type without having to go to the settings menu and then back to the Li-ion menu.

I will still recommend the Accucell-6 for those on a tight budget that are just wanting the necessary features to charge a wide variety of battery types - this charger will handle what most people want to do. But someone wanting more from their hobby charger (like data logging) will be paying more and I would recommend the iCharger range to anyone wanting a step up from the cheaper hobby chargers.



Edit: Info spread out over a few posts to break up the big wall of text

On the Turnigy chargers you can set the safety cut-offs in the settings menu.
On the iCharger you can also set the safety cut-offs in the settings menu. But you can also change them while a battery is charging - you have access to time, temperature & capacity cut-off settings that you can alter when you realise that the Li-ion cell you just started charging will take over 3 hours and your time cut-off is set to less than that (or whatever).

The fan control settings are pretty nice to have - you can set the fan to off, on or auto. On auto it doesn't come on just because you are discharging a battery, it only comes on if the charger needs the cooling.

You can save 10 settings for charging different batteries and the cut-off settings can be saved along with the other parameters. It looks like it saves ALL the settings on each of the 10. You can also name each setting - so you can really set everything up just the way you like it for a particular batter type and name the save so you know which battery the settings are for.
For me this is pretty useful - I can set a capacity cut-off of say 3000mAh for my 18650 cells and a 5500mAh cut-off for my 32650 cells and a much lower one for my 10440 cells. The default 5000mAh cut-off is hardly going to do anything to protect a 10440 cell if something goes wrong is it?
On the Turnigy chargers you can save the basic battery parameters and the capacity cut-off, but not the time or temperature cut-off. You can't name the saves so you'll have to remember which is which or keep a list handy. When you go to load the settings you can see which battery type and the cut-off capacity and the number of cells, so it might not be too hard to know which one to load.

I think that most of the cheaper chargers like imax and GT and HobbyKing and a bunch of others are almost identical in menus and functions. I only mention Turnigy because that is what I have to compare my iCharger to.

My iCharger cost me $80 + $15 shipping from HobbyKing and they are also available for $100 from ProgressiveRC with free shipping. For $95-$100 are there any chargers that are as good? At the moment I'm thinking this is probably the best hobby charger available at this price point (that's why I bought it) - anyone wanting to offer a different opinion?

I think the best hobby charger:
Under $40 delivered - Turnigy Accucell-6
Under $100 delivered - iCharger 106B+
Under $150 delivered - iCharger 208B ? (any others that should be recommended instead)
Under $200 delivered - iCharger 3010B ? (any others that should be recommended instead)

Though of course there are different features that people are interested in and different specs that people are needing so for some people there will be other chargers that they would choose instead.

Under $40 delivered - Turnigy Accucell-6
Under $100 delivered - iCharger 106B+

Both units are great, with the iCharger being somewhat overkill for flashaholic use. If one is into R/C flying, R/C cars etc. where you need to charge lipo packs, then I think the iCharger is great, but the Turnigy is still a wonderful and cheap charger with lots of capabilities. The one area that the Turnigy is slightly lacking is when charging NiMH.... Charging single cells seems to be a bit of a problem for one of my two Turnigys. A temperature sensors added to the battery seems to keep it from overcharging. Charging multiple NiMH in a battery holder (4 cells = 4.8V) seems to work fine. The iCharger is more tweakable and more sensitive to full charge in NiMH, but in Lilo or Lipo mode, it's very much the same as the Turnigy, only that you can tweak the iCharger more.

The 208B and 3010B are very nice chargers, but if your main use is flashlights.... I think they are over kill. I'm a bit of an R/C hobbyist and I'm served quite well with the lower powered chargers.

One last caveat on the iCharger 106B+, it's very configurable........ which means complex if you start poking around in the menus........ the Turnigy is dead simple in comparison and for flashlight only use..... I don't see a need to step up in price/features. If you have money to burn, like to read manuals and have an understanding of all those charging parameters.... then by all means, step up to an iCharger..... ANY iCharger! It may not charge your batteries any better...... but at least you'll have something to play with! <grin>


Regards

Kaptain "I generally connect plus to minus, and run everything else to ground" Zero

kaptain_zero said:

Under $40 delivered - Turnigy Accucell-6
Under $100 delivered - iCharger 106B+

Both units are great, with the iCharger being somewhat overkill for flashaholic use.

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I would consider the iCharger to be a higher quality unit with some potentially VERY useful features for the flashaholic - like the ability to charge Li-ion cells to 4.30V.

But the Turnigy Accucell-6 costs less than half the price and will charge up LiCo, LiMn & LiFePO4 cells of all sizes just fine. So the question to ask yourself before buying a dearer charger is "do you want or need to step up to the dearer/better charger?"
For those that want to spend the extra and have the more configurable charger I would say that they will be very happy and that the iCharger is well worth it.
For those that don't want to spend that much and are happy with a more basic charger I would say that the Accucell-6 will do a fine job of getting their cells charged.

I just realised that there is another feature that I have already used that I haven't mentioned - charging at less than 100mA. On the Turnigy chargers and most other cheap hobby chargers you can charge from 0.1A up to whatever their maximum is. On the iCharger you can go below that to 0.09, 0.08, 0.07, 0.06 or 0.05A - this can be pretty handy for charging very small batteries. I have used mine to charge a small rectangular 9V battery that is 100mA and is supposed to be charged at 10mA for 14-16hrs, I figure 50mA for 2.5hrs is already pushing it and I wouldn't want to charge it at 100mA.

What are these new 4.35v cells you speak of? Are they on the market yet?

The three features I wish my Accucel ebay special knockoff had but doesn't.

1. 10 amp charging. Mine does 5 amp.
2. Adjustable termination voltage. I have no way of fully charging the new 4.35v cells and I wouldn't doubt that even higher voltage cells are in our future.
3. At least 5 amp discharging for testing. Mine only does 1 amp discharge.

flashflood said:

What are these new 4.35v cells you speak of? Are they on the market yet?

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Yes, they have been discussed on these forums.
Here is something I found on a quick google: http://www.batteryspace.com/li-ion-...eable-cell-3.7v-2800mah-10.36wh---lg-bra.aspx

Colonel Sanders said:

The three features I wish my Accucel ebay special knockoff had but doesn't.

1. 10 amp charging. Mine does 5 amp.
2. Adjustable termination voltage. I have no way of fully charging the new 4.35v cells and I wouldn't doubt that even higher voltage cells are in our future.
3. At least 5 amp discharging for testing. Mine only does 1 amp discharge.

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I haven't really needed more than 5 amps for charging yet.
The adjustable termination voltage is nice to have, especially on a more expensive charger that you don't want to replace as soon as a new chemistry comes out that has a different termination voltage.
Not long after buying an Accucell-6 I bought an Accucell-8 because it had 5A/25W discharge instead of the 1A/5W of the Accucell-6. I have some 5Ah Li-ion cells (32650) and 1A discharging doesn't really test them fully and takes around 5 hours per cell.

Now my 2 main chargers are my Accucell-8 (good for my 8 x IMR 18650 cells from my Elephant II light) and my new iCharger 106B+ (good for everything buy my 8 IMR cells). I am very happy with these hobby chargers as they give me what I need & want in charging & testing capabilities. Both have thermal probes and both can handle data logging. The Accucell-8 has 8S/7A/150W charging capability and 5A/25W discharging, the iCharger has 6S/10A/250W charging capability and 7A/20W discharging - plenty for my needs. Both have a brightness adjustment setting for the display which is one thing I wished the Accucell-6 had.

KiwiMark said:

Yes, they have been discussed on these forums.
Here is something I found on a quick google: http://www.batteryspace.com/li-ion-...eable-cell-3.7v-2800mah-10.36wh---lg-bra.aspx

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Ah -- thanks Mark.

I debated between the iCharger and the FMA Cellpro Multi4, and went with the latter. Like the iCharger, everything is configurable and observable over USB if you're so inclined (I am), or you can just use the simple back-lit LCD menu. I rarely need to charge more than a couple of cells at a time, so the 4A limit of the Multi4 was no problem. Power seems to drive price, and since I really don't need much power, the Multi4 at $59 was a great deal.

I chose the HobbyKing eco8 as a low cost alternative. About $45 delivered. Similar to other clones. usb, temp port, 5 amp discharge. Found in stock (at the time) and delivered in three days from usa warehouse. Recommended.

secondhandsmoker said:

I chose the HobbyKing eco8 as a low cost alternative. About $45 delivered. Similar to other clones. usb, temp port, 5 amp discharge. Found in stock (at the time) and delivered in three days from usa warehouse. Recommended.

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As long as it handles what you want and has the features that you consider important and works reliably then all is good!
What you have sounds similar in features to my Accucell-8 which is way better then the current Accucell-8 - they dropped the price but they took out the thermal probe and they don't even have a USB port any more. It is still a good option for a higher watt version of the Accucell-6 but a dearer option with the USB & thermal probe would be nice.

Do you know what wattage the discharge will handle? I tried checking the manual for that charger but it only gave the 0.1-5.0A specs and no mention of total watts. I would assume that an 8S pack wouldn't be able to discharge at 5A because there would be too much heat generated (8 x 3.7V x 5A = 148W). If you tried an 8S pack and set 5A, but it only drained at 0.8A then that would suggest 25W was the limit.

I think the eco8 is 25w discharge. It discharged a 12v sla at 1.9A.

secondhandsmoker said:

I think the eco8 is 25w discharge. It discharged a 12v sla at 1.9A.

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5W discharge. That's the thing that really makes most of the low end hobby chargers a big compromise for those looking to do some battery analysis, the low discharge power. Still, for $36.99 that sucker is a bargain.

secondhandsmoker said:

I think the eco8 is 25w discharge. It discharged a 12v sla at 1.9A.

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Yep, that definitely sounds like 25W. It would appear that the Eco8 is a cheaper clone of the Turnigy Accucell-8150. On the product page it states 5W, but that doesn't sound right because when you download the manual it mentions up to 5A - the 5W models are usually up to 1A.
The only thing that worries me about the Eco8 is the failure rate - these seem to be pushing the bounds of cheapness.

If my Accucell-8150 (older model with USB & magnetic temperature probe) died on me and needed replacing then I think I'd spend the extra and get another iCharger - probably the 208B so I could charge my 8S set. It would cost quite a bit more, but only the once (for years after the money is spent I'd still have the quality & performance).

KiwiMark said:

On the Turnigy chargers you can set the safety cut-offs in the settings menu.
On the iCharger you can also set the safety cut-offs in the settings menu. But you can also change them while a battery is charging - you have access to time, temperature & capacity cut-off settings that you can alter when you realise that the Li-ion cell you just started charging will take over 3 hours and your time cut-off is set to less than that (or whatever).

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Ok, I know this post was from a gazillions years ago, but wanted to add my $0.02 in case someone does a search and finds this.

I use the cheapest Turnigy Reaktor charger, the 250W 10A. It also lets you change time, temp, and capacity cut off settings during charging. I literally just tried it to make sure.