Lipo Charger

[rcyogi]

Hi guys,

Need some help here, I will be getting 2 of the new Orion Lipo bateries,
and not sure what charger to get. I have it down to the Duratrax Ice,
and the Great Plane Triton. Which one you guys think is better, they are both the same price, but the Triton looks smaller. What you guys think?

Thanks. :confused:

[___rollin___]

To my knowledge every loves the Ice, in every way its better than the triton, except for amount of cells. The ice can do 8 amps also, the triton can only do about 4 I believe. I know many people who have the ice and they love it. But if you already have a nimh charger you might want to get a "li-po" charger. But I dont know a whole lot about those.

[rcyogi]

I do have the LRP c2, it be great just to have one charger that does it all.

[Chopster]

Hey guys,

I'm new here and this is my first post.

Generally speaking, LiPo packs can be charged at up to 1C. That is at a rate equal to 1X its capacity. IIRC, the Orion LiPo pack is a 4800mAh pack, so you could charge it at up to 4.8A on a charger. The catch to running LiPo is that it will always take you an hour or so to charge your battery pack, no matter what capacity it is. This is due to the 1C charge rate limit of most LiPo packs.

In order to minimize recharge times, you should choose a charger that will do 1C of the largest pack that you plan to own. If the Orion pack is the largest capacity pack that you plan to own, be sure that the charger that you get is capable of at least a 4.8A charge rate. This way, you can get to a 90% (or more) charge in about an hour, and a full charge in about an hour and fifteen minutes.

I run a Thunder Power 8000mAh pack, so I use a Duratrax Ice, since it can charge at rates up to 8A.

Of course, you could use a charger that does less than 1C of your battery, but that just means that you have to wait longer for the battery to charge. Just take care not to exceed the 1C rate limit of the LiPo.

I also have to say that the Ice does a bang up job on nimh packs to. I use it to charge at 5A and it really puts a whammy on my cheap 6 cell packs.

Another alternative in the LiPo only category would be the Astro Flight 109. It's a very nice charger, although it only does LiPo, not nimh. On the plus side, the display is back lit.

Either of these chargers is going to require a DC power supply, either a bench supply or a car battery.

Whatever you get, just make sure that it employs a constant current/constant voltage method of charging LiPos. If you are unsure of this or cannot verify it with the manufacturer, I'd pass on it. Some inexpensive chargers claim to be able to do LiPo, but still employ some sort of peak detection and this is potentially very dangerous.

I don't know how familiar you are with LiPos, so I'll throw this out anyway. I believe that the Orion pack has a jack for a balancer. I highly recommend that you get one. Which one depends on the jack on your battery pack. I use a TP205. The balancer insures that no cells are overdischarged, before charging. It also insures that there isn't an imbalance in voltage among the cells that is beyond a tolerated range. This could get dangerous if one of the cells has a voltage over 4.2v. There are other situations that the balancer protects against, but I won't go through all of them.

BTW, is the Orion pack about the size of a six cell pack? How much did you pay for it and where? I've always gone with the Thunder Power packs. I never saw any need for armor plating. LiPo packs are actually pretty tough as each cell is encased in polymer anyway. I paid $157 for my 8000mAh packs and have some 6000mAh packs on the way. I got the 6000mAh packs for around $85 each.

[rcyogi]

Hi Chupster,

First l like to thank you for taking the time and give me this information, Im acctually getting the bateries from Tower Hobbies, and they are $139.99.
They do come in a case, and I will be using them on a T4, and B4. I'm definatelly new at this Lipo thing, any help will be great. I do have a power supply so that should not be aproblem. I guess is safe to said the Ice is the way too go?

[Chopster]

Well, I don't want to say that the Ice is the only way to go, but it wouldn't be the wrong way to go.

I like my Ice charger. As far as operation goes, it isn't as simple as pressing a button to start the charging process (when you need to choose which battery profile you want to use), but as a whole, the Ice does what it's supposed to do. It safely charges LiPo (and nicad and nimh) safely and quickly. If you don't need the flexibility of nimh, or you just want to avoid confusion and possible mistakes, you should check out the Astro Flight 109, which is also a nice charger. I had both and decided to keep the Ice.

As for the battery, the Orion seems nice, but I think it's overkill. LiPo cells are sealed in their own shell anyway. The Orion pack is also expensive, relatively speaking. I don't know what the rules at your track are, but as I said, I use an 8000mAh pack and they go for around $160. These can be had from www.starluckrc.com or www.battlepacks.com

There are also the 6000mAh packs from www.maxamps.com for around $90 each (after you get through with the option of the Deans and the balancing tap).

[guver]

The Triton has a max amp of 2.5 I think for lipo.