Battery charger help needed

[ponsai03]

Hi: I just bought the HPI 3.0 Bullet nitro truck. Is there's a bateery charger that someone can suggest which I can use at home 120v and in the field hooked to the car battery. Is there a charger that can do the transmitter and the receiver batteries charging at the same time? Thanks

 

[override]

There are a ton of chargers out there, are you looking for something that you can get into brushless with or just something for charging small lipo,lion,life,nicd,nihm? My first balance charger was an Imax B6AC Pro, great little charger! In fact I still have it sitting somewhere in my closet

As for charging nihm/nicd batteries together, it is not a recommended practice as chargers are not setup to monitor these types of packs from overcharge. Now if you wanted to charge two at the same time you could go with a Duratrax Onyx 240, this charger has two separate outputs. It is only compatible with nicd/nimh chemistry though.

The Duratrax Onyx 250 is compatible with lipo, life, nimh, and nicd and is also a dual output charger. Click the names below for more info

Imax B6AC Pro
Duratrax Onyx 240
Duratrax Onyx 245

Keep in mind this is just a few of many chargers out there that can suit your needs, it all comes down to how much you want to spend and if you want something that will let you charge bigger packs down the road. Although also keep in mind if you start getting into too large of a charger you will need a separate power supply which adds to the cost significantly.

Progressive RC has some nice high end portable charger solutions, if you could find someone to build you a DPS600PB you could have a Power Supply on the cheap.

 

[ponsai03]

Thanks for that information!!!! I was thinking on getting an additional PLAZMA 6.0V 1600mAh Ni-MH Battery Pack 9.6Wh for the receiver. My truck came with the HPI Plazma AA batteries but I'm not sure if they can be recharged. Is there's a charger for AA batteries that can do the receiver hump with bec connector at the same time?
Do you how approximately how long does this Plazma batteries last?
Thanks man!!!

 

[override]

Thanks for that information!!!! I was thinking on getting an additional PLAZMA 6.0V 1600mAh Ni-MH Battery Pack 9.6Wh for the receiver. My truck came with the HPI Plazma AA batteries but I'm not sure if they can be recharged. Is there's a charger for AA batteries that can do the receiver hump with bec connector at the same time?
Do you how approximately how long does this Plazma batteries last?
Thanks man!!!

Your mighty welcome for the information

I don't know what the stock electronics are like for HPI kits so I can't say for sure what you could use. As for the AA batteries look on them and see what they are labeled as. Alkaline are "one use, throw away" batteries, nimh and nicd are rechargeable. I do not know of any chargers that will allow you to charge single cell batteries like AA's and Rx/Tx packs at the same time. I also don't know what kind of life these Plazma batteries will get, if taken care of and not over/under charged then you should get many cycles out of them.

Now with a dual output charger if you wanted to recharge AA batteries you could get some of these - Magnetic Charge Cable

Again there are many options you could go with:

Upgrade your electronics - This is the way I would personally go, I used stock radio systems for a few years and finally upgraded into a Futaba 4pk and let me tell you I will never use another stock setup again. The additional functions and ease of program-ability you get with something like a Spektrum or Futaba radio is unparalleled to the crappy interface of a stock radio system. Another plus side of an aftermarket radio is you can usually link anywhere from 20-50 or more receivers with one radio. So it is something you can use with all of your RC's. If you look around for some used ones you can usually get a great deal and a few extra accessories to boot.

Next thing you could do is upgrade your batteries to a life pack, given that they will fit in your radio and receiver. You can check the dimensions and see what style plugs you will need and compare to the item descriptions. Listed below are only two of several types of packs you can get.

Life Hump Pack for receiver

Life pack for transmitter

Keep in mind if you can and do decide to go the Life battery route you will need a charger to charge these packs. The Imax and Onyx 245 both will charge life/a123 packs.

Welcome to the wonderful world of RC, endless possibilities and ways to spend your money!