Charger Question - high amp or multi?
 

I am shopping new chargers. I currently have a Venom Pro that does well for my needs, but showing it age. It still balances very well, and charges everything I need. It just seems to be working all the time to keep batteries topped on race day, and battery logistics comes into play sometimes. I do have multiple packs, but running 2 classes about the 3rd heat it feels harried sometimes insuring batteries are topped.

Would a smarter choice be a higher power charger (10+ amps - if packs will handle it) along with my old venom, or a multi pack charger (example only - Hitech Multi Charger x4). Is it better to charge one pack (both for the battery care and time wise) at 2C+, or many packs (or different kinds of batteries) @ 1C.

OR for that matter, just get more packs, and keep pounding my trusty ol' Venom.

Nothing wrong with a Venom Pro charger, but its just a 50watt, 5amp max charger. As long as you're doing 2S lipo at 1C, its ok. Its when you want to charge at higher than 1C (to cut charge time) or try to charge a few lipos in parallel, you run into power limitations.

According to the lipo manufacturers, there's no diff in charging at 1C versus 3C or even 5C if the lipos are rated for that high of a C charge rate. There's just the time difference.

Part of the ques is what lipos do you have? If they are all diff cell counts and not amenable to parallel charging, a single, powerful charger prob doesn't make a lot of sense. The quad type charger may be better in that case since it can literally charge 4 completely diff batteries at once. Quad type charger is however only 50watts and 5amps max per port so you'd still have the limitations of the charger you have now.