Looking for a second charger
 

I currently have this charger. I use it for everything. It works great. Only thing I don't like is the fact that it has a 10hour time out.

But anyway, I would like to have a 2nd charger for numerous reason. I just don't know what to go with. I know there are higher dollar chargers and lower dollar chargers. My first question is, am I missing any features that the higher dollar chargers offer? I know there are some in the $200 range, but do I need a charger like that?

And I could go cheap... My second charger only really needs to be able to charge 2s lipo packs. Do I need a balancer? Because my TP610c balances with every charge, how important is it to balance lipos? Do I need to balance every charge? If I don't, how often do I need to balance?

--pakk

I have 2 of these, work great, but you will need a 12V power supply as well. About 50$ shipped from overseas, US warehouse is currently out of stock.

http://www.hobbycity.com/hobbycity/s...lancer/Charger

If you're running nothing but the best lipos like Orions, balancing is not critical, but still advised. You at least need a way to see how closely the cells are to being balanced. Its kind of ironic, but the cheaper lipos need more attention to cell balance since they tend to get out of balance more often than the high quality lipos do. You risk overdischarging one if you're not balancing. With Orions or other high quality lipos, thats not much of a risk admittedly, but as expensive as they are, I'd want to maintain them as best as I could.

The linked charge above is a suprisingly full featured charger. I have one and have been amazed at how much it can do. For a $50 charger, its going to be hard to beat.

I use a balancing charger and its just too easy to balance everytime I charge. I don't see any reason not too.

Could either of you tell me if and what the time out is on that charger? My 610c has a max operating time of 10hours. I would also want something that can charge for longer periods.

--pakk

I don't understand why the long operating time is needed?? 10 hours??

Because I charge my 2000mah aa @ .1 amps.

--pakk

why??? I charge my AAs at .8 and I don't have any issues with the capacity going down, etc with them

Last time we got itnto this, he was restoring some NiMHs that had been idle for a loooong time......

This is why. With every cycle, I seem to be getting longer and longer run times.

--pakk

Why not just get a standard overnight wall charger then?

I have one, but it charges at .3 amps. Because I am in the market for another charger that does everything, why not try to get one that does everything I want it to do? If that charger has no time out, then I get my charger that charges all my lipo's and nihms as well as charge my AA at .1 amp.

So does that charger have a time out that can be disabled?

--pakk

On my Accucell-6, in setup, there is a feature called "safety timer" which is what you're asking about. The maximum setting allowed is 720min or 12hrs. The other time based feature is called "waste time" and if person that set this up had decent English, that would have been wait time - its the time delay for resuming charge/discharge when charging and discharging.

Accucel-6 will run 2hrs longer than your TP610C.

Almost forgot - that safety timer can be set off, completely disabling it letting charger run until you turn it off.