Are Zippy Lipos safe with a Castle MMM Speedy?

[pasan]

Originally Posted by BrianG

Ok, what about the balancer tolerance? Does it balance the cell you measured as 0.01v difference? I know my blinky doesn't. The most accurate balancer I have is the LBA10 (it actually seems almost too sensitive).

For your level of "anal" (), I wonder if the FMA charger would be a better choice. Has a high power limit, balance charges, and also measures cell condition/quality. To do that last item, it must be quite accurate.

I think the Blinky somehow can't quite bring the rest of the cells down to that voltage and keep them there. I usually charge while balancing. I too think a balance charger is best but I'd like a charger which actually does something more than a balance, i.e. by pushing extra juice to a weak cell to bring it up to par rather than bringing the others to voltage of the weakest cell, which IMO is very inefficient.

[lincpimp]

Originally Posted by pasan

I think the Blinky somehow can't quite bring the rest of the cells down to that voltage and keep them there. I usually charge while balancing. I too think a balance charger is best but I'd like a charger which actually does something more than a balance, i.e. by pushing extra juice to a weak cell to bring it up to par rather than bringing the others to voltage of the weakest cell, which IMO is very inefficient.

Only way to get what you ask is to use a seperate charger for each cell. Any charger on the market charges the entire pack of cells in series. Only way to equalize them is to put a load on the higher cells and bleed off some juice. If you had a seperate charge curcuit for each cell the balancer would not be needed, as each cell would go thru the cc/cv cycle on its own terms, so to speak.

[vbxt]

Originally Posted by lincpimp

Only way to get what you ask is to use a seperate charger for each cell. Any charger on the market charges the entire pack of cells in series. Only way to equalize them is to put a load on the higher cells and bleed off some juice. If you had a seperate charge curcuit for each cell the balancer would not be needed, as each cell would go thru the cc/cv cycle on its own terms, so to speak.

I think that this charger from Hobby City might do what you are talking about.
http://www.hobbycity.com/hobbycity/s...Charge_Capable

I have one, and it appears to charge each cell (up to 4) independently. There are 4 LEDs that indicate the charge status, and they switch from red to green at the end of the charge cycle at different times as each cell is fully charged.

I have no complaints about this charger other that the slow charge rates.

edit: I just remembered that this charger also does not seem to have any problems with over-discharged packs. I was discharging a SMC 5000 mah 2S Lipo with a light bulb and forgot about it. It was reading 0.0 volts on my multimeter. I hooked it up to this charger, it fully charged it, and it still works perfectly to this day. It may all be in my head, but I think that it works better than before!

[lincpimp]

Originally Posted by vbxt

I think that this charger from Hobby City might do what you are talking about.
http://www.hobbycity.com/hobbycity/s...Charge_Capable

I have one, and it appears to charge each cell (up to 4) independently. There are 4 LEDs that indicate the charge status, and they switch from red to green at the end of the charge cycle at different times as each cell is fully charged.

I have no complaints about this charger other that the slow charge rates.

edit: I just remembered that this charger also does not seem to have any problems with over-discharged packs. I was discharging a SMC 5000 mah 2S Lipo with a light bulb and forgot about it. It was reading 0.0 volts on my multimeter. I hooked it up to this charger, it fully charged it, and it still works perfectly to this day. It may all be in my head, but I think that it works better than before!

Interesting, I would like to get one of these and take it apart... Might be a good product for me as I always seem to be repairing packs and balancing cells individually...

Originally Posted by vbxt

I think that this charger from Hobby City might do what you are talking about.
http://www.hobbycity.com/hobbycity/s...Charge_Capable

I have one, and it appears to charge each cell (up to 4) independently. There are 4 LEDs that indicate the charge status, and they switch from red to green at the end of the charge cycle at different times as each cell is fully charged.

I have no complaints about this charger other that the slow charge rates.

edit: I just remembered that this charger also does not seem to have any problems with over-discharged packs. I was discharging a SMC 5000 mah 2S Lipo with a light bulb and forgot about it. It was reading 0.0 volts on my multimeter. I hooked it up to this charger, it fully charged it, and it still works perfectly to this day. It may all be in my head, but I think that it works better than before!

Cool charger functions but wont work if you have a pair of 3S batteries and its going to take a LONG time to charge at 2amps max.

[pasan]

Originally Posted by vbxt

I think that this charger from Hobby City might do what you are talking about.
http://www.hobbycity.com/hobbycity/s...Charge_Capable

I have one, and it appears to charge each cell (up to 4) independently. There are 4 LEDs that indicate the charge status, and they switch from red to green at the end of the charge cycle at different times as each cell is fully charged.

I have no complaints about this charger other that the slow charge rates.

edit: I just remembered that this charger also does not seem to have any problems with over-discharged packs. I was discharging a SMC 5000 mah 2S Lipo with a light bulb and forgot about it. It was reading 0.0 volts on my multimeter. I hooked it up to this charger, it fully charged it, and it still works perfectly to this day. It may all be in my head, but I think that it works better than before!

That's interesting. I was looking at the Accucel-6 by Turnigy because there's nothing but mad raving 5* reviews for it. But I just read up on the hextronik and quite a few people do claim that it charges individual cells. Which is exactly what I need. And the price seems to be unbeatable too, costing less than a good balancer.