Charger and/or battery recommendations
 

Hi everyone. Looking get into rc touring racing and need to pick up a lipo battery charger since my old charger was a Tower Hobbies NiMh charger. I will probably pick up these batteries: Turnigy nano-tech 5800mah 2S2P 30~60C Hardcase Lipo Pack, Turnigy nano-tech 5300mah 2S2P 30~60C Hardcase Lipo Pack, and/or Turnigy nano-tech 5300mah 2S2P 50~100C Hardcase Lipo Pack.

I have been looking at AC/DC and DC only chargers for all the different brands from Orion, iCharger, Turnigy, HobbyKing, to Hitec and Duratrax.

After my research, I am leaning towards the Hitec x1 touch AC/DC. I just want to make sure that the charger is good enough for a few years and will not become obsolete soon. I also want a charger that does not take hours to charge. Are there any advantages to picking up the hitec X1-200 Touch instead and a separate power supply (I saw someone selling server PSU as power supplies on another forum for $35 shipped)?

If anyone has any recommendations on chargers and/or batteries, please let me know. Thanks for any tips in advance.

i got back into rc after many years away and picked up an LRP single port charger - 2 months later sold it and bought myself a 4 port hitec charger. I just don't think 1 port is enough these days so I would definitely recommend getting a charger with at least 2 ports

Thanks. Would you recommend the new Orion Advantage One Duo? Or something else around $100 -$150?

u can buy a turningy reaktor 300watt dc charger. u can charge your battery up to 20amps/h. it has single port. However u need buy 5 port parallel balance lead. put your 2s batteries parallel, then charge it. Be careful when u are buying dc charger. It is important to have powerful charger ports, if you want to charge your batteries faster. Nowadays, lipos can be charged up to 5c. If you have 50w port (or each port for multi-port chargers), u can charge your 5.8 amps batteries at maximum 1c. If you buy higher voltage batteries(lets say 4s, if u bought 1/8 scale buggy) then those powerless ports become more problematic. Here is a example; you got a 4x 4s 5 amp batteries and u want to charge it within 1 hours. put them in paralel, then they become 4s(14.8v) 20 amp lipo. Since the charger is 300 watts, 20amp/h x 14,8v is less than 300watts. That means u can charge it within 1 hour. But you cannot do it with 50 watts charger. It costs 60dollars+shipping. However you need a psu. Computer psu's are cheap nowadays. You can buy 400watts Evga brand computer psu from amazon. It costs 30 dollars. most of the powerful chargers requires psu.

http://hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store...e_Charger.html
http://hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store...6xJST_XH_.html
http://www.amazon.com/EVGA-80PLUS-Ce...=evga+400+watt

those are the things that u will need, if u buy.

You would be better off getting a server power supply over an ATX power supply. The server PS will hold voltage better.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Instructions to make it work for a charger PS:
http://www.ultimaterc.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=174225

I built two of these a few years ago and I'm still using the homemade power supplies. People always ask questions about them too when they see em' :ha:

Thank you for posting. Do you think that charger may be overkill for my needs? I will not be getting into 1/8 and will probably only need to charge up to 2s lipos. But the price does look nice at only $65 and together with the $35 power supply I'd purchase, it will be right at $100.

Thanks for posting. That is the same server power supply that I saw for sale for $35 on another forum. This looks like it adds the power button, which is a good idea. Thanks!

Are DC chargers a lot better than AC/DC ones? Or is that just a way of kind of future proofing since you can keep the same power supply and just upgrade the charger when the time comes? I was leaning more towards AC/DC since the power supply was integrated which makes things simpler and easier to carry around if I needed to bring a charger to the track.

I believe most chargers will be able to produce the most power while using DC. I'm sure someone else here can answer that better than me though.

probably difference between dc chargers and ac/dc charger is location of power supply. ad/dc one has embedded power supply and another one has external power supply. The important specifications for a good charger are power, good balancing ability, quiet fans, less heat generation and could be some extra features like measurement of internal resistance of lipos and so on. you stated that you need a fast charger. So, why 300 watt charger would be unnecessary for you. I gives you the power you need up to 300watts. Only disadvantages of a 300w power supply could be extra weight that you should carry. With the second psu option, you can buy a charger around 80 dollars. Dont spend crazy amount of money for a known brand but powerless charger.