Hey all! Great site you have here!
I am just getting back into this hobby and I have not been able to find a simple quick charger like I had when I was younger. All it was was two wires that connected to the car battery via alligator clips and a battery connector on the other end.When the nicad was connected to the charger the wires got warm and when they cooled off it was charged.Complete charge was about 20 minutes.
Anyone heard of such a thing and where might I find one today.

Thanks,
Danno

you shouldn't age yourself like that...


batts nowdays CAN NOT be charged like that, you need a peak charger... otherwise they go BOOM

I would recomend one of these, it will charge most batts and is still farily cheap.

This is prob similar to your older one except it can use AC or DC. I got started with one of these an still use it on NiCd stick pacs (starters).

If you're not going to use lipo, this this is a cheaper alternative, but still a peak type charger which is necessary for NiMh.

Otherwise if you are going to ever consider using lipo, go with the Onyx 230.

no, he probably didn't use a charger, I used to do that with my NiCds...

I remember 15 minute quick chargers too. A modern charger can be used as a quick charger, you just push higher amperage to the pack. The new chargers are much better for batteries longevity though, those old ones had no regard for the condition of the pack.

Hehe, another example that new stuff frequently isn't as new as some think it is.

I started with a charge cord, it also shut off on pack temperature. Think it would work fine for nimh, just like using a temp probe that is an option for some modern chargers.

Not so good for lipo though!

You would be better off with one of these from hobbypartz.com.

http://www.hobbypartz.com/thac6smbachw.html

Guess what the OP was referring to is what the plane guys refer to as a zip charger. Literally a pr of wires of certain length and guage attahed to car batt and the batts you want to charge. I misread when I saw the word charger. A pr of wires is not a charger, its a pr of wires, lol. You can search RCGroups in the battery/charger thread and prob figure out how to do this.

Plane guys use them to charge a123s since zip charging can't seem to hurt
a123s with high current.

Yeah, sounds like that’s what the OP might have had. The one I had was slightly more sophisticated, it had a temp probe that attached to the pack, and a little shrink wrapped area that probably had some simple shutoff circuitry. If I remember correctly it was around $10.

Ah! I think I may still have two of those - I think they came with my original RC 10's!