Lipo Charger Question
 

Hey, last year I bought Huang's Lipo charger for $45, used it a few times and had no problems, but it seemed to balance oddly and I know Lipos are touchy to charge. I'm a bit skeptical of the quality. Should I invest in a better one? If so, what do you guys recommend?

Thanks
Warbird

The imax B6 is a fantastic charger, I use it, does LiPo(+balance), NiMH, NiCd, and lead acid!

Thanks! Where did you purchase it?

I'm also wondering if anyone else has experience with Huang's charger?

Thanks.

Try ebay, can't remember what site I got mine off of, but make sure the kit comes with an AC power supply, or you have to buy one seperate.

Alright, thanks.

juggles has em

http://www.airsoftparts.ca/store2/in...oducts_id=1302

edit: +1 on quality, the b6 is a very good charger btw.

You can also check out your local hobby shop that sells RC car/helis

these will also work just fine and might be a bit cheaper.

On a side note I would also suggest picking up a lipo charging bag for when you are charging your lipos. lots of people might say they are not needed but I can say (from my RC car/heli days) that these $20-$30 bags have saved my house/garage a few times. Better safe then sorry IMO

I have a clone of the B6 and it workes awesome. just got it, but just balance charge and you are good. as long as the one you have balances you are fine

I have the B6 purchased from Jugglez worth what I paid and its programmable and you can select your charge amps. Buy it from AirsoftParts.

B6 is nice.

You can get it for under 60$ from some other online stores though.

Imex, Integy, Turnigy and some others have rebranded this charger. If it looks the same and is called "something6", then is very, very likely is the same (color is irrelevant, the overall shape is important)

I have the turingly accel 6 , (or what ever its called) B6 clone.. got it last weeks so far its works well!

Balancer block goes POOF!!
 

I have a (i believe) B6 clone...the Venom Pro charger. Works great, has a balancer block, thing is.........
I was balance charging a new LiPo last night, all good until I go to unplug the batt from the block. Little puff of smoke comes out of the balance block. Can a LiPo actually send some charge back? I had unplugged the charger and the traxxas plug from the batt, balancer was last and ... Poof!!

Any thoughts?

It's about 35$ at hobbyking/hobbycity.

The Imax B6

A LiPo does send voltage to the balancer... that is how the thing know if the pack is balanced or not.

It is not a copy/rebrand of the B6. And comming from Venom I am not surprised it burnt. I am using some batteries from them and they don't even last a practice race...

What I meant actually, was, feedback enough to fry the balancer? My venom lipo has lasted me a full season so far (including Claybank 2009) without a single problem, that's charging with the Venom Pro.

This was what I had in mind when I thought it might be a B6 clone...
http://www.airsoftcanada.com/showthr...94#post1153394

Between my Aftermath Kraken and my Venom charger and LiPo's , well, here's to moving on up!!

May I ask how to charge a new battery using the Imax B6? How many amps, ect? It's a 11.1v 1100 mah.

Thanks
Tim

It shows you in the manual (and in english too)
for 1100mah charge at .9 amps, typically 1C, but I like to be a bit under.
(1C of 1100mah = 1.1A)
And use the balance charge. It's the same thing as charging, but it balances the cells.
And you don't need to deep cycle your LiPo's (discharge and charge), just top them up and put a storage charge on it over winter :)

So when you start charging in balance mode, or for anything LiPo related, it'll bring you to a screen that tells you how many cells it's detecting, and then you just confirm that it's 1S or 2S or 3S, whatever, just hit start. Then it's charging.
While it's charging you can hit "status right" And it'll show you the voltage of each individual cell.
Now because you can't put more than 4.2v INTO the cells, don't stop the charger at 4.20v, because once it reaches that point it's actually only 70% full. So it'll stay at 4.20v until it's done charging.
I'm just saying it's not like a NiMH where a 9.6v battery gets charged at 10.6v until it's full.

1500mah = 1.5
2200mah = 2.2

ect

Thanks!

How long should a 11.1V 1100mAh lipo last under average game conditions (say 8 hours of skirmishes, using 1-2s bursts of full auto)? Is one battery typically good for the whole day? two?

Also, if it takes about an hour to fully balance charge an 11.1V 1100mAh lipo @ .9 - 1A, if I need to charge about 4 packs (2 AEGs, 2 batteries each) prior to game day... this quickly becomes a 4 hour exercise. Is it safe to fast charge them?

No. Don't fast charge LiPo's. Charge at 1 C or lower. (take the mAh of the pack and divide by 1000 to get the 1C rating of the pack...i.e. 1100mAh = 1C of 1.1A. Charge at 1.1A or lower.)

In practice it won't take an hour...since they're usually not completely dead and you're just topping it up.

But yes...if you're charging 4 batteries it could take 4 hours. Start earlier, the day before, rotate through your batteries...etc... (not at 2am for a 8am start time for game day ;))

How long it'll last in your gun with your shooting style is hard to tell....measure before using, use, measure, use, measure, use and get a sense of how long it's lasting. It'd be completely different for a different rifle.

I suppose you could measure it accurately and calculate how much power each shot is drawing...if you figure that out come figure it out for my gun too.

I measure my battery life by # of mags, just keep shooting till you run out of juice, then you'll know how long it lasts!
But an average from one gun to another cant be established since they differ so much.
For example Danny and I had the same internals in our rifles, same battery, same wiring, same fps, but he was using a systema magnum and I was using the stock G&P M120 motor. He'd get 12 mags out of a battery and I'd get 32.

I tried charging a 7.4v 1200mah 20c battery on my imax b6 charger but the charger kept giving me an error message "over voltage". I have two different brand battery and both are giving the same error message. I set the charger to 0.9a and 7.4v(2cell). I dont know what am I doing wrong. But i have no problem charging my 11.1v lipo batteries. Any ideas? ty