Smart Charger

guido · Oct 29, 2016

Hello

For those of you looking for a charger,
here is what I have. It does charge most batteries types out there including Pb. Mine needs a 12 volts source. But it can be bought with a 120V source built in as well.It has been
a good charger for me. I usually put it to work pretty often. Will charge drill pack as well as single lithium type battery. I took a picture of the box, it has all the type of batteries that can be charged with it.

Guido.

dkeav · Oct 29, 2016

We've been using the SOLAR PL2320 Pro-Logix 20 Amp Battery Charger for about 2 years now and its been pretty good. Supports the 3 main battery types (flooded lead, agm and gel). They run about $80 bucks, but seems decent so far and is running most days charging something.

guido · Oct 29, 2016

Hello dkeav,

Mine will do lead acid batteries but only at a 2 amp rate. Portable drill packs up to 15 cells,

Guido.

MarkB_MI · Oct 30, 2016

Hey Guido, I looked into that charger a few years ago when a put a lithium-iron phosphate battery in my motorcycle. The iMax B6 was cheaper than anything else on the market that I could plug into the connector of my battery and balance-charge each individual cell. After reading some of the RC aircraft posts on the iMAX, I decided to pass on it. The RC folks found that it would actually get the cells out of balance. Apparently one of the places they cut corners on this charger was to use one percent tolerance resistors in a few critical places, resulting in measurement errors. If you google it, you'll find some folks have replaced the resistors in question with 0.1 percent resistors, which fixes the problem. If you're not individually charging the cell on a a Lithium battery, I don't suppose it's an issue. If you are, then I suggest you check the actual voltage at each cell with your multimeter to confirm they're actually at the same voltage as reported by the B6.

guido · Oct 30, 2016

Hello MarkB_MI,

I have not used it as a balancer as I have no need for that function now.. Mainly I use the rate and sort cells.
I use my multimeter as a guide-standard, as it is calibrated with my Lab power supply. Righf or wrong that is my standard. I have had good service so far. Thanks for the heads up. I will eventually use it to balance cells, will keep on checking the individual cell and their temp as they come up to voltage more the before,

Guido.

dkeav · Oct 31, 2016

(quoted from post at 16:35:54 10/29/16) Hello dkeav,

Mine will do lead acid batteries but only at a 2 amp rate. Portable drill packs up to 15 cells,

Guido.

Oooh I didn't think of drill packs, that would be a good use.

guido · Oct 31, 2016

Hello dkeav,

Yep! That is another reason for the post. Mine is a 6 amp unit, most are 5 amps. Both will do a good job on battery packs. Delta peak for NiMh can be adjusted, among other adjustable functions.
Just make sure you buy it from a reputable place. There are many knock offs out there,
It also has a interface for a computer read out and also the software is upgradeable,

Guido.

guido · Oct 31, 2016

Hello MarkB_MI,

I just checked the charger for voltage accuracy, and it is still the same as the meter as you can see by the picture. Here is what I do to equalize cells. After they stop charging I use the charger to finish them at a very low rate of charge. Doing this will equalize the cells. If all the cells were of the same capacity, you would have no need of either the balance leads or top them off with a low charge rate. I picked the wrong picture the first time!

Guido.

Smart Charger

guido

Well-known Member

dkeav

Member

guido

Well-known Member

MarkB_MI

Well-known Member

guido

Well-known Member

dkeav

Member

guido

Well-known Member

guido

Well-known Member

Similar threads