Will this power supply work?
 

Hey guys I am going to be upgrading to a good battery charger. I am thinking of getting the Great Planes Electrifly Triton2 DC Computer Charger or the DuraTrax IntelliPeak ICE. They are both DC and would need a power supply.

I have a power supply at my house. It is a Radio Shack 13.8v, 3A power supply. Will this work? It is only 3A so would that mean the chargers couldnt charge at 4A or more since the power supply is 3A? The input volatge is fine at 13.8volts but I am curious if this will work.

I found the owners manual from Radio Shack.

http://www.radioshack.com/graphics/u...0504_PM_EN.pdf

Thanks

A 3amp PS will not work for an ICE. I think you'll need at least 10. More would be better.

no
most use a 23-24A power supply.
i think radio shack sells one like this.
it looks like the competition electronics one.

ok thanks for the quick replies. Any recomendations for a good power supply?

the competition electronics :sneaky:

you really dont need anything above 10 amps, you just need a little bit above what your charging at. IF you plan on getting another ICE in the future, go ahead and get a 15-20 amp so it would be possible to run two chargers. radio shack makes some decently price power supplies in this range.

PS's
 

Get a power supply thats around 20-25 amps, a 10 amp power supply limits you to one charger, buy the 20-25 amp and that way when/if you start running more equipment you'll have all the power you'll need and won't need a second power supply.

I would go with eather a much more or a competition electronics power supply. I have the much more, and like it alot. 3 amps is not capable of running a charger, especially if you had more than one.

You got it correct, either the ice or the T-2 will work fine on the small ps. At about 12 volts output (7-8 cells) they would run 3 amps or so. On 4 cells you could charge at 5-6 amps, on 12 cells you could only charge at about 2 amps.

I use the Radio Shack 15 amp power supply and 2 Orion Advantage chargers. Never had any issues, been running this set up for 2 years. Good price on the power supply also. In my opinion, getting a "name brand" supply is paying for the sticker on the box.

Yea I definately want to be able to run 2 chargers off of the power supply. I always go with my brother so it would be nice if we could have just one power supply for our 2 chargers.

How is the quality of the Radio Shack ones? Is it necesary to get an R/C specific one? All the power supplies I see only have one output no matter how many amps they are rated at. Can you somehow split that for two? Who makes one that already has 2 or more outputs?

I think it may just be cheaper to get 2 of these.

http://www.amainhobbies.com/product_...oducts_id/5172

You can build a distribution box or buy one.

There's also some stackable banana jacks/plugs that allow multiple chargers to be used on one output.

Here's really the two questions that need to be asked when deciding upon any power supply.

1 what is the max rate and number of cells you will do.
2 will you use the impulse charge? if so at what power?

It is quite common to see these discussions go back and forth between users who have a particular power supply and "it works good" to "it doesn't work" and very likely a 1/18 scale racer with mini-batts can use a small 4-5 amp cheapy power supply on 2 ice chargers.

And a boater with a large boat will require a 15-20 amp ps.

try this one

http://www.hobbypeople.net/gallery/158301.asp

I have decided on the intellipeak Ice.

1. Currently I use 6 Cell 4200mAh and 5000mAh NiMH but will eventually go to 2s LiPo or maybe 3s LiPo.

2. I dont even know what that is. :blush: