Parallel charge board requirements?

[davew]

I have a PL6 on its way to me. I'm assuming it will come as a bare charger.

Assuming that I need to buy balance boards for balance charging my different packs (JST, XT60,EC3, EC5) then can I just buy the cheap ones from eBay or wherever?

I'm told that the "proper" ones are fused. Why and is this a function that I'm going to need? Thanks

[cjcj1949]

There is no need for fuses if you take care and do nothing wrong and your lipos are all good. Not everybody thinks parallel charging is a good idea. It is convenient though. I would buzz out any parallel board and make sure that all connections are good and that there are no shorts. Fuses will stop lipos being charged at very high currents and prevent tracks being burnt out if you connect out of balance lipos together. Tracks on a cheap board make good fuses.

[jimmyhorns]

The connector on the PL6 is not a usual balance connector, so you will need to get an adaptor of some form to connect a generic balance board to the PL6.

I bought my connectors for the PL8 from Rs components to do that, but they come in packs of 10 so lots of waste

[davew]

The connector on the PL6 is not a usual balance connector, so you will need to get an adaptor of some form to connect a generic balance board to the PL6.

I bought my connectors for the PL8 from Rs components to do that, but they come in packs of 10 so lots of waste

Why can't things be more simple!

Do you have a link to the RS item?

What have others done?

Thanks

[davew]

Ah, sorted the cable adaptor - thanks to Sacko on a previous posting I found.
Now on order from ProgressiveRC in the states - $7.49 delivered.