Im planning to buy a thunder t610 dc charger. I have a few questions on whitch power supply to get.

1. The specs say it requires a 11-18v power supply. What atvantages/disatvantage are there between a high voltage power supply and a low one.

2. How many amps will i need? I assume 10 because the charger goes up to 10 but i may be mistaken

3. Are the homemade power supplys from ebay any good? There 12v and like 40a

4. What would a good power supply be? I want 2 ports so ican add a charger when i get another (is there an adapter i can use) and i have a budget of $60

I guess a lot of it depends on the batteries you intend on charging. I run a 13A unit and have no problem charging my 2S packs at 19A on both channels. Check out Feathermerchantrc.com they are doing the same thing that Fantom and Max Amps are doing, which is converting server power supplies.

I'm running a single server PS. It's rock solid at 12.5V even charging at 30A. From my understanding, efficiency is the only reason to run more voltage. I can run up to 29V input on my 730i.

I had a small computer power supply at first, it was drug down to around ten volts charging at 13A.....it was not happy.

1. Higher supply voltage, within the voltage limits of course, will generally run a little cooler. The charger will adapt to the supply voltage, with higher voltage the current/amperage is reduced, which is what generates the heat.

One possible issue to be aware of, if the supply voltage is about the same as the pack the charger has to switch between boosting and reducing voltage. Like charging a 3S pack from 11V to 12.6V with a 12V supply. This can result in some instability and less than ideal performance.

2. As mentioned in general it depends on the voltage of the pack being charged (or may be charged in the future). Need to consider power/watts, not just the amps. Charging 1S or 2S at 10 amps takes less power supply amps, 4S at 10A takes considerably more. Also need to include some allowance for the charger, as it consumes some power.

A generally safe estimate for a 10A charge using a 12V supply is about 4.4A for each cell in series. 1S needs about 4.4A, 2S about 8.8A, and so on. Up to a maximum of about 21A for the 200W power limit of that charger.

3. The server supplies are generally pretty solid, although be aware they are usually used units. New these supplies are fairly expensive. Also watch out for fan noise, some can be fairly loud.

PC ATX supplies are hit and miss best I can tell, some models work fine some not so.

There is a large thread on rcgroups that has been going on for a couple years about converting server power supplies for this very purpose. I would search rcgroups for server power supplies, as certain models putting out 13-14V and amperages from 30 up, I wouldn't even bother with a desktop PSU, especially after I read those posts. I believe the originator of the post is in a country, Australia, if memory serves me, that lives on 220V so they were getting 100A, 13-14V servers. It is all diy (which you will be the bulk of my posts), but very doable.