Best charger

[cheese82]

Hi all, was wondering what the best charger would be for me to charge a 3700mAh 7.2V NiMH HUMP battery and 2700mAh NiMH hump battery? These are my two batteries i use for the buggy champ. At the moment i use a ansmann AC30 which is ok but if i'm wanting to fast charge these batteries i have to do 2 or 3 30min charges as this charger has a safety cutt off of 30mins plus i never really know when they are completly charged. I've heard the Ansmann Racing xBase Deluxe Charger is pretty good but don't really know enough! If anybody has used this charger or could recommend me one that would be great. Thanks

[Percymon]

Hi all, was wondering what the best charger would be for me to charge a 3700mAh 7.2V NiMH HUMP battery and 2700mAh NiMH hump battery? These are my two batteries i use for the buggy champ. At the moment i use a ansmann AC30 which is ok but if i'm wanting to fast charge these batteries i have to do 2 or 3 30min charges as this charger has a safety cutt off of 30mins plus i never really know when they are completly charged. I've heard the Ansmann Racing xBase Deluxe Charger is pretty good but don't really know enough! If anybody has used this charger or could recommend me one that would be great. Thanks

I've got the xBase charger in time for Xmas and its pretty good, logical and easy to use. It'll take mains AC or 12v DC feeds so if you want to charge from a car battery then you have the option.

Its downfall is its inability to charge LiPo batteries, or at least balanced charging. If you don't want to progress to lipo then thats not an issue.

I did progress to lipo, and hence bought a Turnigy Accucell 6 charger, plus a power supply - overall cost slightly less than what i paid for the Ansmann, it and does everything the Ansmann does and a lot more. Its a clone of the Imax B6 charger. I bought mine via UK ebay, but www.hobbyking.com sell them (possibly available from their eurpoean warehouse to speed up delivery and reduce shipping ?).

My Ansmann is pretty much redundant now, only been used at most a dozen times, so is like new. Feel free to PM me if you are interested at all.

[cheese82]

Hi thanks for the info, i think i might look into the Turnigy Accucell 6 charger it looks very good plus its cheaper. Does it come with a tamiya connector? Thanks again.

[Percymon]

Hi thanks for the info, i think i might look into the Turnigy Accucell 6 charger it looks very good plus its cheaper. Does it come with a tamiya connector? Thanks again.

Nonit doesn't so you'll need to buy a 4mm banana to tamiya charge lead. You'll also need a 12v/5a power supply and a mains lead.

[Panther]

I just bought one of those off ebay for £25 and it came with all the extra connectors including the Tamiya one. It didn't include the 12v transformer but luckily I have a universal one that should fit.

edit:Charger

[cheese82]

Right thanks everyone. I've just got one off ebay as well i paid slighly more (£28 with postage) didn't get the tamiya connector but managed to order one off the same person for £2.00 so not to bad. I realised after that i needed a power supply (11v-17v) but i think i have a 12v one thats used to power my external hard drive so i'm hoping that will fit! It looks a really good charger though looking forward to using it and getting the most out of my batteries

[Panther]

I think most people just get a 15V 5A power supply for a laptop (around £5) as they work quite well. I think Toshibas have the correct fitting although I may be wrong.

I might go for one of them if my 12V power supply doesn't work.

[cheese82]

I think most people just get a 15V 5A power supply for a laptop (around £5) as they work quite well. I think Toshibas have the correct fitting although I may be wrong.

I might go for one of them if my 12V power supply doesn't work.

Yeah i've just bought 12v/5a off ebay for £6.50 without power lead as i have one. I realised my hard drive adapter was 12v/2a which isn't right!

[DooBeDooBeDo]

I use an old standard PC power supply (ATX). Basically free as I had a few kicking around, the one I'm using is good for at least 18A at 12V which is way more than I need.

[Panther]

I now have a Toshiba laptop power supply with a 15V 5A output but the coaxial connector is the wrong size. I got it from the local scrap store and they also gave me the correct sized coaxial power plug to fit the charger which I will solder on. The correct size is a 5.5mm outside diameter with a 2.5mm hole in the middle (there are about a million different sizes of these things). The Toshiba power supply had a 6.3mm outside diameter.

If anyone wants something off the shelf that will fit, just google "12V 5A power supply 5.5 2.5" and you'll find tons of them starting at around £5.

I hope this is helpful to anyone looking for a power supply for one of these things.

[Panther]

I have just looked through the clear as mud instruction manual for the Accucel 6 and just to clarify for anyone having the same issue:

To get the thing into Auto mode from Manual on the NiMH program, first press enter to get the charge amps flashing THEN press both the + and - together to toggle between Man and Aut.

The voltage level is fairly self explanitory but the charge current should be 1c according to the instructions which means that my 3000mAh battery can be charged at 3A and my 1800mAh at 1.8A etc...

Discharge cut off level is 1V per cell so it will be 6V for my 6 cell battery and my discharge amps I have set to 1A as it doesn't seem to say much about it in the manual and I was unsure what to set it to.

I altered the capacity cut off to just over the battery capacity as some of the energy will be converted into heat but I have left all the other settings such as sensitivity (the automatic charge shut off once the battery is full) at the default level.

After all that I think you just set the discharge/charge cycles to 1 and hold down the start button.

If it blows up or goes on fire I'll let you know.

[cheese82]

Thanks for the info. I'm really pleased with this charger got the hang of it now!