Recommend a charger

[gnascher]

I'm breaking into the LiPo world ... just got my hands on a pair of 1100 mah Enerland Lipos from eBay, but I don't have a charger yet.

Can anyone recommend a decent moderately priced balancing charger that won't break my piggy-bank, or do bad things to my new batts.

If you can post a link to a retailer, even better!

Thanks
-G

[mrmugen]

www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXCTZ5&P=0

This is a awesome charger for the money. You can charge 2 lipo's at once. I have 2 of these and love em.

[gnascher]

MM,

That does look like a good one ... I like that it does all battery types too, as I've already got 4 NiMH as well as the 2 new LiPos on the way.

I see that it is not a balancing charger ... do you use a separate cell balancer, or do you just not bother balancing? If you're using a separate balancer, what one are you using?

I just bought a cheap-o charger ($15.00, 1-3s, 250-1000mA) that doesn't do balancing at my LHS so that I'd have something when my batteries arrive. The shop owner says he doesn't bother balancing his packs, and hasn't noticed that it significantly reduces thier useful life. What's your take on this?

[flydiver]

There are long discussions about this topic. Seems likely that if you have a smaller MAh LiPo and use it conservatively (not to max cut-off) you may get by just fine without balancing. If you have a larger battery with more voltage 4s+ and use it hard then balancing seems to be more critical.
Here's one longer discussion on it:
www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=680449
You can find lots more in the forum.

fly

[gnascher]

FlyDiver,

Thanks for the link ... very informative.

My new lipos do have balancing taps ... so it'll be pretty easy to monitor the individual cells. I liked the one post where the guy mentioned that if he ever found the cells falling out of balance, he'd just charge them at a slower rate and they'd balance themselves all on their own.

I think I'll go the route of just testing the packs from time to time ... if I find myself in an out-of-balance condition regularly, I'll invest in a balancer. Otherwise, it seems likely that it's just "one more thing" the "industry" would like to sell you ... at least for smaller packs under 5000mAh.