This is the one they sell for it, 224watts, will power the charger at its max -

http://www.hobbycity.com/hobbycity/s...y_for_Chargers


Read the reviews posted on HobbyKing - its not without complaints. Since a supply tends to weigh a lot, you may be better off buying one that doesn't have to be shipped internationally.

Any power supply that has 220watts will run this charger at its max. This is a good one with a solid rep -

http://www.progressiverc.com/index.p...emart&Itemid=1

Will this power supply work with that GT A6 charger? I know it only puts out 130 watts, but that will allow me to charge almost 3 times faster than my current 50 watt charger...correct?

http://www.amainhobbies.com/product_...-138V-10A-130W

It will run the charger, but allow only charging up to about 110watts output. In other words, as long as what you're charging doesn't exceed 110watts, you're fine. Even if you set up for a charger that would rewuire more watts, it will charge, but you will see the charge current reduced to stay under the power supplies wattage (plus some inefficiency thats eaten up by the charger).


Depending on what you're trying to charge, that smaller power supply could make charging take significantly longer. You can gte a 100watt AC/DC charger and not have to bother with a power supply at all and have 2x the power as a 50watt charger. It all depends on what you're trying to charge.

I would like to charge my new 4 cell lipos (5000mah) at a 1C rate. I'm ok with not being able to charge them at a full 2C rate...cuz I've heard it's a little risky, depending on the battery quality (even if it says 2C capable).

You should be ok with that power supply...

5A*14.4V= 72W

You would even have room to crank it up a tad if you needed to.

5amp x 16.8v = 84watts (you have to calc this on max cell voltage, not 'nominal' voltage, unless you're going to try and only charge to 3.7v/cell).

Plus, the charger has a ballpark inefficency of 20%, so to deliver that 84watts,charger would need 101watts from the supply.

You don't hav ethat much spare room allowing for the 20% inefficiency, you can charge 108watts. If you don't believe the inefficiency, put a wattmeter like the plane guys use on the chargers input side and see how much more comes in than goes out. I saw some figures this morning that indicates 20% may be low.

You're good for 4S 5000mah at 1C.

Be aware that power supplies are almost always advertised for peak amps, not continuous amps. True of everything from wall warts to megabuck industrial supplies. Linear or switching design.

Sure, your supply may appear to be fully capable of producing the full amps, maybe even a touch more. It should, for a while anyway. But at the cost of more voltage ripple, voltage sag, heat, and reduced life & reliability.

I agree with Duster, the charger inefficiency can certainly be greater than 20%. It will typically vary a fair amount depending on how much of its maximum power is being used for example.

In my opinion this is not a place to scrimp, I suggest getting something larger than it appears is needed. Not to mention most of us end up adding additional chargers over time anyway.

Cool thanks for the info. What's the difference between these two "106B+ iChargers"?

http://www.amainhobbies.com/product_...er-6S-10A-250W

http://www.hobbycity.com/hobbycity/s...idProduct=6792

The Protek costs a little less, but which one would you guys recommend out of these two?

There was a Hyperion table I found this morning and it listed their chargers with a 27% inefficiency by the minimum wattage posted in the table to run the different chargers at full rating.

I was a little surprised at the figure.

Does anyone know if there's a difference between these two chargers that I listed above? They have the same model number and specs, but totally different cases. Which one do you guys recommend between these two?

There is no diff other than the label - iCharger rebadges that 106b for Amain's store brand Protek.

These guys also have them and free shipping

Make sure you grab an adapter board they are pretty handy, can be a pain plugging directly into the charger

http://epbuddy.com/index.php?main_pa...&products_id=1

Cheers

David at ProgressiveRC is the iCharger dealer -

http://www.progressiverc.com/index.p...&id=1&Itemid=1



Thats not really free shipping - just added shipping to the price.

Good point, wasnt thinking about that.

That figure is a little surprising...

When I charge my 2s batteries @ 6A on my Hyperion (rated at 50W), the battery will get to 8.3 before the current cuts to 5.95 or whatever, then the battery gets to 8.4 and it switches to CV.

But 8.33*6=50

IDK, just doesn't seem like its that inefficient.

It does get warm (major sign of inefficiency) after running it all day, but I always assumed that was just the built in power supply, and not the actual chargercharging mechanism.

There are some the things to consider such as the length and quality of the charging lead, the quality of the components inside the charger, and correct me if I am wrong, but a newer high quality battery should have less internal resistance thus making the charger's job easier (more efficient).

The charger does have 50 Watts of output power. But it takes more input power into the charger to generate that 50W of output. Power is required to operate the control circuitry, the light energy for the display has to come from somewhere, etc.

I have the DC version of the 606 and it generates heat too. Probably not as much as the AC job, as the internal power supply (and external ones) has inefficiency as well, as you suspected.

Regarding the lipo battery, yes they are quite efficient in their charge, very little wasted heat is generated in the battery itself. But unlike ni-mh or ni-cad, as they degrade & increase internal resistance over time, instead of requiring more voltage and thus power to charge at a given current, the lipo will switch from the fast CC mode to the slow CV mode sooner in the charge cycle. Peak power requirement is not impacted, but rather time is increased. This is due to the inherent need to carefully limit the maximum charge voltage of lipos.