What is a good charger?

[MetalMan]

Brian, the taps will heat up at 3amps. Look at this:
http://www.aircraft-world.com/shopexd.asp?id=3613
Those extra wires are to be connected through the main power wires on the battery. These wires carry the charge current, and the battery is balanced through the normal tap leads. I did a similar thing with my Great Planes Equinox (Hyperion LBA6 clone) except that those extra wires were soldered onto the circuit board inside the balancer. Look at this:
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showp...&postcount=141

The way that CC/CV works depends a little on the charger. On the ICE, CV doesn't start (current dropping) until the cells are at 4.20v. On the Multiplex LN-5014, the current starts dropping well before the voltage per cell is at 4.20v, but once it does get to that voltage, it remains constant. The Astroflight 109 doesn't use CV (but does use CC), and instead uses a pulse-charge method to finish off the battery (I'm a little unclear on what exactly it does, though).
You could make a circuit using two adjustable voltage/current regulators along with some resistors. I did this a while ago, but quit due to the strange inaccuracy and the fact that I didn't have a switching inverter (to increase the input voltage).
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showt...ht=DIY+charger