What charger

[wouldbeflyer]

Can anyone recommend a charger for use with 6x6s batteries on a board with a 13.8v x 20amp supply.I have been told that a higher voltage will be needed if I want to do it quicker but I am in the dark about this so any help would be good.My new power supply might have been another poor choice

[SGD]

Have a read of this guide to parallel charging LiPo's, it's very helpful in explaining the principals.

http://www.rchelicopterfun.com/paral...-charging.html

What's the capacity of the batteries are you looking to charge?

[KevDavies]

I would say the power supply isnt man enough for parallel charging 6 x6s lipos

On a budget Turnigy do a great 1000w charger for about £75 which will suit your requirements. A bit more money you can get an iCharger or a Powerlab and they are industry standard.

Power supply a coolice 25v 1150w PSU will be all the power youll ever need

[wouldbeflyer]

3000mah and with my b6 its taking 3 hrs because it maxes at 2.2 amps if that means anything

[jimmyhorns]

ok, well there are two issues here :

1) your charger is only 50 watt in power.

2) your power supply


to charge 6 x 6S 3000mAh at 1C (so this will take about 45 mins to charge from 25%) you need 450W of charging power.

Because no charger is 100% efficient, you will need a power supply about 10 to 20% higher rated than this, so about 600W

so your charger needs to be 9 times more powerful, and your power supply about 3 times more powerful than you currently have.

I have the PL8, and its slightly little brother the PL6 will do you fine at 1000W. Its therefore worth getting a 1000W powersupply and as mentioned coolice on here does some very nice converted server PSUs that are a cheap and effective way of powering a charger.

other than the PL6 there is the icharger 'equivalent' the 306B, which is a little cheaper.

[wouldbeflyer]

Ever have the feeling that you are out of your depth................Thanks for your help guys

[SGD]

Understanding charging a single pack can be troublesome to start with and parallel charging even more so but here goes.

A chargers and power supplies is essentially all about Watts. And Watts = Volts X Amps so your PSU is capable of outputting 13.8V X 20Amp = 276 Watts

The iMax B6 charger is only a max output of 50 Watts so if we do the maths again with a single 6s 3000mAh pack being charged we have 22.2Volts X 3Amps would = 66.6Watts but as the charger can only output 50Watts it drops the charge rate down to it's maximum at 22.2Volts which is 2.2Amps (22.2V x 2.2Amp) = 48.84 Watts

If you want to charge 6 X 6s 3000mAh then you treat the six packs as one larger capacity pack of the same voltage, ie 1 pack of 22.2Volts but with a capacity of (6 x 3000mAh) 18000mAh so your charger would need to be able to output a minimum of 22.2V X 18Amp = 399.6 Watts

But like Ken has said if you can stretch the finances to get a decent PSU and charger now you won't have to replace them when you progress to bigger heli's with bigger packs.

[wouldbeflyer]

I think that was very good of you to take time sharing your knowledge with me,thanks .I will spend the rest of the evening trying to make sense of it.Tomorrow I will start another search for hopefully the correct kit this time.
Cheers
Martin

[Grumpy]

If you can say what size your six 6s batteries are (in mAh) and how fast you want to charge them (1c = about an hour, 2c = about 30 minutes, 3c = about 20 minutes) then we can tell you what minimum power you need from your charger and power supply.

[cyclo]

Here is the link to a useful calculator: The ProgressiveRC Charging Demand Calculator

You input the number of lipos, the size of the lipos, the charge rate that you want, and the number of lipos you want to charge simultaneously in parallel and it will give you the estimate of the size of the charger and power supply that you will need.

[cyclo]

Another calculator if you have more or less made up your mind to use either an iCharger, an FMA charger, or a Hyperion Charger: Charger and PSU calculator

[wouldbeflyer]

Very helpful,I will do my best to get to grips with it.I think its a must if I am to progress.Cannot believe how tech this hobby is,I thought hovering was hard

[Chris Currie]

As mentioned, the coolice PSU is what you need, all the power and very reasonable costs. I got mine last year and Ian was great to deal with, having a chat with him made things much clearer so I'd recommend giving him a shout. Coolice PSU's - Coolice Flight School

For chargers I couldn't decide but went for the PL6 package with balance board etc. recently. It's not cheap and I'm sure there are other chargers on the market that will do the same job however for me the reputation of the revolectrix stuff was too good for me to look elsewhere. It's also a perfect match with the 1150W PSU if you want to charge bigger or faster in the future.

Hope this helps!

Chris

[wouldbeflyer]

Ok Chris,that is what I wanted,someone who has found kit that works and can recommend it.I keep buying in the dark and getting it wrong.I have been trying this calculator but it just will not work for some reason ,personal experience and *I tried that * are the way for me with my mind full of preparation ,hovering ,orientation,overcharge and a million other things as I try to get to grips with this

[Chris Currie]

I'd definitely recommend the combo, so many people use it and for the packs you have it will be ideal, and will work for bigger packs if you go to 5000mah in the future. The chargers and PSU's around 500W will still work and work well, it just boils down to charge times, put simply, more power means quicker charging. There's obviously more to it than that but for me I'll stick with what I have for a long time!