For those of you whom use Li-ion Batteries:
What kind (brand) of charger do you use? Do you like it? Would you prefer something else other than the one you use?
Why do I ask? I don’t like mine. I have an MRC Super Brain. (highly recommended by the model airplane and car users.) I also have a Maha (recommended by TOC.–Takes days to fully charge a 14.8 4400 mah bat.)
Please post all particulars. Likes, dislikes, etc.
I have the Tenergy TLP-4000 Universal 1A Smart Charger for Li-Ion/Polymer Battery Pack (3.7V-14.8V 1-4 Cell) and my batteries are mostly all Tenergy Li-Ion 18650 14.8V 2200mAh Rechargeable Battery Pack w/ PCB Protection.
I really haven’t thought much about likes and dislikes, I just plug it in after running and soon thereafter, the green light is on indicating its charged. I’ve never thought about how long it actually takes. Since the charger is only $25 I guess I could buy another so I could do concurrent charging if that was ever necessary. I pay little attention to it as I find other things to occupy my brain.
I have a small layout, 160 feet of track, and perhaps run an engine for about an hour or so when the mood strikes as I am not heavily into operation.
About the only thing that I’ve noticed is that the first charge after I receive the battery takes about 4 or so hours.
Hope this helps.
I have the same one as Mark mentioned. I have no complaints. It gets the job done. For the price you cant beat it. After the first charge when new I usually takes 2 hours to get a full charge.
John - I also have the Tenergy TLP-4000 Smart Charger and I use Tenergy 14.8v, 4400mAh Li-ion batteries. Excellent performance and run time. Strongly recommend these products.
Allelectronics.com is currently running a sale on the Tenergy 14.8v 2200 mAh battery packs for $15.00. Great Deal! I ordered 8 packs and they arrived in 3 days. http://www.allelectronics.com/make-a-store/item/lbat-148/14.8v-2200mah-rechargeable-li-ion-battery-pack/1.html
I have the tenergy B6S Smart Charger. Had it for three years and love it. Easy to work. Charges my NiMH and Li-Ion batteries. Had a MAHA for years.
JB, I have the Tenergy TB6AC “Intellegent Digital Balance Charger, with Built-in AC Adapter.” It even butters the toast when it pops out.
I think its great.
I have:
1 Supernova 250s Charger
1 Tenergy TB68 Synchronous Balance Charger/Discharger
1 iCharge Liplus Balance charger
I’m happy with all three.
I use the TLP 3000 & 4000’s from All battery. I plug my locos in after running them and let them charge over night. The outlets the chargers plug into are on a timer that I turn on and it always shuts off at midnight.
Terry
What is the advantage of a “Balancer-charger” over the first two which seem to be just chargers?
Does a Li-ion need to be balanced before a recharge?
If you use a charger that doesn’t balance, does it matter?
John Bouck said:
What is the advantage of a “Balancer-charger” over the first two which seem to be just chargers?
Does a Li-ion need to be balanced before a recharge?
If you use a charger that doesn’t balance, does it matter?
I have absolutely no freakin idea…
John Bouck said:
What is the advantage of a “Balancer-charger” over the first two which seem to be just chargers?
Does a Li-ion need to be balanced before a recharge?
If you use a charger that doesn’t balance, does it matter?
I have absolutely no freakin idea…
They were recommended, but can’t remember why.
I don’t know the technical terms but a balanced battery pack is more efficient and lasts longer both in life and operating time. What those times are I don’t know it could be minutes days or years.
A balance I believe fully tops off each battery in the pack or makes them all the same instead of 1 battery at 3/4 and 3 at full charge.
Terry
I also use a Tenergy Universal Smart Charger for LiIon/LiPo, but it’s labeled Model 0211. It’s simple; just set the switch for number of cells and plug it in. Charges in about 2 hour. Works for me!
I also have a Tenergy Balance Charger/Discharger that works with all types. I picked it up from Bruce a year ago at the Dran-N-Brag swap table and used it to recondition Frankenbattery…
Bruce sold it 'cause he had no idea what to do with it!
Balancing chargers are only useful if your battery pack has the balancing connector, or you make your own like I did above. I’m told Packs will live longer if they are kept in balance but none of my packs have the connector so they don’t get a balance charge.
Thanks, Guys! I’m learning.
Jon, The packs we get from All battery, Cordless Reno’s etc, don’t have a extra balancing connector.
Which means that the balancing charger is overkill, right? Or does the PCB board on the battery handle the balancing?
Another question. Why do some battery Manufacturers have their plugs backwards? Two companies come to mind. After a few phone calls, one of them says theirs is right. The others say theirs is right, and the others are wrong. This is a disservice to the end users, who could damage a battery, an Airwire board, etc.
They should be standard!
John - Yes. No balancing connector, no advantage to the balancing charger. The PC board will detect a severe imbalance and shut down the pack. Once that happens you need to tear the pack apart to balance it (if possible) or toss it in the recycle and get a new one.
Note that the battery pack in my photo has no PCB. The balancing charger doesn’t require a PCB to charge safely. Using a pack without one is dangerous without monitoring circuitry. The R/C guys use LiPo packs which don’t use the PCB. The are balance charged every time and closely monitored during discharge.
Re plugs - most of the packs I buy come with none. I add a Tamaya style plug following R/C car polarity standards. Sounds like the debate between NMRA and Large Scale track polarity!
Some of these chargers seem to be well beyond my education level.
When I built my 3 truck Shay last year I changed to Li-ion batteries instead of the NIMA that I had been using for years.
Got a Tenergy Vantage B6 + charger and never could make the damn thing work correctly.
First off the instructions were very incomplete, for me anyway. Then I finally got it set up and running, more or less, if I touched the charger even with a finger I would get a static shock and the charger would go blank. At this point you had to start the whole setup process over only to have it happen again. Finally threw the thing in the junk box (kiss 75 bucks goodbye) and went down to the battery store and bought a Tenergy TLP 2000 universal charger. Now this is technology that I can handle. Plug it in set the battery size (14.8) hook to battery and wait for the green light. Seems to work great but have to admit I have only ran 5-6 charging cycles.
As someone already mentioned I don’t want to spend my time learning to be a battery charger technician I want to plug it in and forget it while I concentrate on other phases of the hobby. I expect a charger to operate much like a telephone (land line not cell) pick it up and it is ready for use every time. Don’t have to be a technician to use a telephone, why a battery charger??
Just my opinion
Your mileage may vary
Rick
Gents, Allow me to add to this discussion a bit:
The Maha is extremely old technology and has bee out of production for more than 5 years. It is not good at all for Lithium -ion stuff. Move on.
We train guys live off the residual technology of the race car, airplane and boat hobby worlds. All three of these applications are very high current demand compared to what we do. An electric airplane consumes hundreds of amps under max load, and a race car is intersted in draining every electron it can within the space of a 5 minute race. Their ideal is to coast over the line with a dead battery.
WE, on the other hand, want to drain 2-5 amps for 2-5 hours. So , when a pimple face 17 year old part time guy at the hobby shop tells you that balanced stuff is better and last longer, it is within the context he already knows. he knows noting about trains in the garden.
When you are at the park and your plane is out of juice, you want to get flying as quickly as possible. The battery is discharged, may even be hot. So you better charge it correctly and evenly.
Our needs are different . Very low demand, and the lack of balancing capability does not really affect us. We also do not and will not pay big $$$ for hand matched cells in a pck, for max performance.We go slow and long, not fast and short.
A nice smart charger like teh tb6s from tenergy will do just fine at our low charge rates of 1-3 amps. The even lower tech tlp-3000 types are not really smart, and do not effectivley max out a lithium battery, but are so low cost they can work for us very well. The main problem is fixed charge rates a nd fixed cell counts.
I sell tenergy. My prices are very close to those on the tenergy site.Tried some of the other packs, vendors etc, saw too much failure rate and overall expense.
My battery costs are very low compared to others , and we guarantee our stuff for a full year, not 90 days as on the all-battery site. Plus, I will offer you answers to any question based on more than 25 years of experience. Finally we have offered free shippin g on electronics orders for over 10 years. Battery university 101. One more simple tip. The entire lithium pack industry is built around what is called a 18650 cell. These are manufactures in a limited number of configs and ratings. So most all packs will fit into certain rating categories, such as 2200/4400/2600/5200/10400 milliamps etc. Quality may vary depending on source or builder, but ratings a re similar. - on paper. So, when you see another pack offering differnt numbers, or numbers higher than usual, be careful and suspicious, these are not real numbers and you will not get that perfornmance as advertised in the real world. If you want, compare the actual manufactureres ratings with the secondary pack assemblers, to fully understand.
Jonathan
Very good summary Jonathan. Thanks!
So; I have a “dumb” smart charger (a Tenergy cheapo) and the balancing charger in the photo above. Would I be better off using the balancing charger without any balancing input as it can be programmed?
John, I have been using the tenergy TB6B for some time now and have been very happy with it. It handles all my needs and most of the clubs problems.