Question on a New Charger

I am thinking of upgrading my current battery charger, if I want to charge a 6S 5000mah battery at 5amps, how many watts do I need per channel on the charger??

5 x Voltage. Say 25V, then 125W. Suggest min 150W. I use 250W.

Stuart

Looks like I will have to charge them a bit slower, a quad charger with that spec is silly money

Chris, I have GT Power quad charger rated at 240 watts. But what they really mean is 60 watts per channel. I have found that 60 watt charge will do 4 cell 4000maH Lipo fine at 1C but add more cells and you really have to reduce the rate and watch paint dry.... As Stuart said you would be asking for more than 60w for 5000 at 5amp

As you are always in a hurry :whistle: may I suggest an iCharger 306B (which I have). It has a small footprint and at 12 volts give you 500 watts. (1000 watts @ 24v) Pushing around the £100+ mark though so maybe it's lesser siblings, 106, 206, 208. Google them. i have seen quite few 2xx series up at the field.

iCharger is a good brand. I got the 106B+ which does up to 6 cells at 10A. I can parallel charge a few batteries at a time and it does not take too long. The 206B can charge at up to 20A which means you could parallel charge packs in even less time...but you will need a suitably capable power supply to go with it. Phil's 306B is an even more capable charger at a higher price but it is ugly (sorry Phil).

In theory the much cheaper Turnigy chargers from HK will do just as good a job

The charging station at Cashmoor won't take that sort of load if you are talking Quad chargers.
5 Amps at 25V needs at least 10 Amps at 12V (x4) = 40 AMPS!

Wouldn't be charging 4 at a time at the field

It was looking at a way of charging quickly at home, at the moment my charger will just about cope with charging 1 x 6S and 1 x 2S at time, so I have quite a few hours of charging to go flying for the day

I have been looking at the "Dynamite Prophet Sport Quad 4 X 100W AC/DC Charger" , but will have a look at the iChargers

That looks to be good value for money, and being Ac too means you don't have to worry about over-loading a power supply. My only concern with these quad chargers is that when they blow you lose 4 chargers at once.

And 100W per channel is just about enough for your 6s packs.

Chris,

Would this charger be for your helicopter batteries? If so, it is despicable that you should be asking these honourable members to give up their hard earned knowledge and time to help you in your pursuit of flying lawnmower gratification?

However if your inquiry is regarding charging batteries for the Yak you never fly then, fair enough I've got a iCharger 106B+ and a cheap turnigy 60W thing that looks pretty much the same. My current thinking is that I'd rather have a number of smaller wattage chargers and a decent power supply, it's more versatile in my mind. I charge up the RX batteries on the Turnigy and the flight batteries (3 at a time) on the iCharger. When I get more batteries for the mythos/atlas I'll look to get another charger for them.

It had never even crossed my mind to consider the aesthetic qualities of a charger, with all the leads they all look a mess.

What's your current charger?