trakpower balancing to an imax B6 charger

[electric]

hi all, i am after a bit of help with charging and balancing my flightpower batteries
i have an imax B6 charger similar to this:
http://www.foamyjets.co.uk/index.php?act=viewProd&productId=171
and i want to balance my batteries using this trakpower lead:
http://www.trakpower.com/Products/leads.asp
(it is the lead at the top of the page)

i have a few questions:
1) is the balancing connector on the trakpower lead (the same as the one above) a thunder power connector similar to this? - https://fusion-pack.com/Upload/Product/168-286_large.jpg
2) if i use this adaptor - http://www.modelsport.co.uk/?CallFunction=ShowSpecification&ItemID=30381 can i balance the batteries using the B6 charger? (the B6 charger has align type balancing ports on the side)
3) if i were to use the trakpower balancing lead do i simply plug those into the slots on the battery and then plug the charging leads from my charger into the top of the large red/black plugs
4) how often should the batteries be balanced?

thanks in advance

richard

[mac]

If you send an email to info@trakpower.com they will be able to give you info on the best solution.

[mark christopher]

if you have a balance charger and lead may as well use it

[bigred5765]

mac your pms box is full

[glypo]

Take care with that charger.

Check the wire soldered onto the output females, has a habit of coming loose and shorting. Exploding battery packs would no be fun. :(

Also the imax chargers are slow balancing I think, as they charge a single cell at a time if I recall. Best to balance at least once a meeting though. (click for LiPo guide (http://www.glypo.com/guides/lipo/))

[electric]

Take care with that charger.

Check the wire soldered onto the output females, has a habit of coming loose and shorting. Exploding battery packs would no be fun. :(

Also the imax chargers are slow balancing I think, as they charge a single cell at a time if I recall. Best to balance at least once a meeting though. (click for LiPo guide (http://www.glypo.com/guides/lipo/))
hi, not sure what you mean? do you mean inside the charger?
after having a look at it its actually this charger i have :
http://www.centuryuk.com/Products/Chargers?pos=1 :)
it seems to be ok at balancing :)

[glypo]

Yeah that is just a rebranded B6.

And yes, it is the wires inside the charger that come unstuck and have potential of shorting.

[Cassp0nk]

I did some reading on the imax and the rebranded versions. (Is the Core-RC UDC20 one too?). It appears that its a chinese knock off of the bantam b6 where they basically copied the circuit board but used inferior tolerance components which means it can't balance accurately and can actually overcharge individual cells.

You can read reams on this here :

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=777717

Don't think I'd buy one of these both because it can damage cells, but also because its straight design theft from what I can see. The bantam firmware even works on the device it such a direct clone!

[glypo]

Yup that is exactly right.

Bantam are quality chargers designed and made in Korea. The parts are a good quality and they are able to charge and balance very accurately and reliably.

There are plenty of Chinese copies, probably all coming out of just one or two factories. As you say the tolerances are awful, due to the poor manufacture and components. If you are lucky they are just undercharging and balancing only a few tens of millivolts out. If you are unlucky, you will find out with dead cells, smoke pouring out of your charger and so on as happens to people all around the world every day.

My imax experience was not a happy one. I don't understand with peoples logic of spending a fortune on LiPo cells and so on, only to buy a cheap charger. A good charger will outlast any cells by a long shot so it's worthwhile getting a good one and being done with it.

[Cassp0nk]

To be honest though, its hard to find the info unless you spend days researching on the net.

So do we think the UDC20 is one too? The user interface looked really similar. Pretty poor if schumacher are selling them!

Not even sure which models are repacked versions of this shite? Is the venom one?

[Dagger Thrasher]

Yup, the Venom LiPo charger also appears (I won't say for certain, as I might be wrong) but appears to be yet another rip-off. Whether the component tolerances are just as bad I don't know, but it's certainly the exact same design as many others out there. The sheer number of Chinese rip-off chargers circulating is absurd. The Schumacher Core charger looks suspicously like a Chinese clone too. It certainly isn't made by Schumacher, that's for sure. :(

I myself once bought an "RC Power 601AD" LiPo charger from HobbyCity, not knowing any better at the time...and it turned out to be a direct rip-off of the Bantam eStation 501DX. I only charged a few LiPos on it (used it mostly for NiMH), but one day it just released a puff of smoke and stopped charging for no reason - Glypo was there too. Thankfully, it wasn't dangerous.