Ninja Quick Tip - Charging Ninja Style

by jetpackninja | October 18, 2013 | (5) Posted in Tips

My charging setup has evolved with my needs, When I charge batteries now, I am often charging enough for three flyers. Parralel charging with my AC-6 and ECO-6 chargers worked for me for quite a while, but I've been wanting a better setup. I have moved my setup outside. The impact of a battery failure is too great. A bunker will very likely contain any fire, but; what about the smoke? I bought the Turnigy 4x6S 400W Lithium Polymer Battery Charger from HobbyKing's US warehouse and have been very happy with it so far.
http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__28241__Turnigy_4x6S_400W_Lithium_Polymer_Battery_Charger_USA_Warehouse_.html

 

I power this guy with a converted computer server power supply. http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=358340

 

The charger only comes with one balance board. I bought 4 of these guys to use.
http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__36907__Hobbyking_Parallel_charging_Board_for_6_packs_2_6S_XT_60_USA_Warehouse_.html
They work fine as delivered, but I took the xt-60 plugs off and soldered a bunch of banana plugs on them to make it easier to use.

 

Here's a pic of my setup in action, happily charging 4 batteries at the same time.


 

And a shot of a battery plugged into the balance board:

 

Works great, can't wait to try it at the field. Should keep me flying as long as I want ;)

Happy charging. Play safe!

-Ninja

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COMMENTS

rockets4kids on October 19, 2013
Unless you need 100 watts per channel, it seems like it would be cheaper to go with four single-channel units... or am I missing something?

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JustinTime on October 19, 2013
I totally agree with you. For the price of one charger mentioned above you get 6 single 50W charger, shipping included, or almost all of the shipping. For the size of batteries that I use, 50W is plenty.
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JustinTime on October 19, 2013
That should have been 5 (five) charger, not 6.
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rockets4kids on October 20, 2013
It is probably close to six once you add in the cost of three additional balance harnesses.


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jetpackninja on October 21, 2013
If price is your only or major consideration, you may be well served with something like this: http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__7637__Turnigy_balancer_Charger_2S_3S.html
Could probably run a bunch of these off of a converted 12v supply...
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Mizzster D Double-a on October 19, 2013
I am looking for a new charger, so how does this charger perform? is it good?
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sailorJohn on October 19, 2013
Be sure to get one that can charge LIFE batteries for future growth !
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jetpackninja on October 20, 2013
So far I have no complaints, a little pricey and as others have noted it kinda sucks that they don't have an option that will get you four identical charging plugs and balance boards...
Has already saved me lots of time.
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sailorJohn on October 19, 2013
I use a system with 3 triton chargers (cheap) but can only get the computer power supplies (250w) to power maybe 2 before it kicks off,so now I have 3 pwr supplies ,but have recently found a 480w supply in someone's garbage ,it works but has 2 noisy fans. Going to give it a try.

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jetpackninja on November 26, 2013
Curious if you got all three of them working w/o switching off with the 480w supply...
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jetpackninja on October 20, 2013
100 watts per channel will be nice for me. I manage a lot of batteries and anticipate that some of that charging will be in parallel.
I did consider four separate chargers, my previous setup was two 50w units. They worked fine, but I got tired of managing and hauling them around, four of them would be more pain that I'm willing to endure :) All of my charging is done outside or at the field, lots of moving this setup around.
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jetpackninja on December 18, 2017
Still use this exact same setup! One channel on the charger quit working for a while but miraculously started working again. Sometimes when parallel charging lots of batteries the input voltage will drop enough for one channel to error out. I suppose I could use a bigger power supply...
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jetpackninja on January 22, 2018
Yup, still use this setup for almost all of my charging needs. I also use a small 2s 3s charger that charges through the balance tap. I use this one for smaller batteries when my full setup is busy with my bigger batteries.
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Ninja Quick Tip - Charging Ninja Style