What would be REALLY nice is a box with 12v DC power input and the charger output, with a USB connection to a PC. The PC would be the brain and have software that would set all the charging parameters in realtime, and be able to graph everything. It could even have logging and the ability to store the graphs. Any updates would be as simple as a software update. The capabilities would only be limited by the robustness of the power circuits and the power supply. However, you'd need a laptop for it or something otherwise it wouldn't be very portable.

Brain, aside from the software, how much would it cost to make something like that?

Leave it to brain to think of adding software to a charger to graph all the info! It would be very cool. As for portability, you could do what they did with digital cameras, have a memory card you could plug into your PC??? have one that goes into the charger to save data, then down load it to your pc OR lap top. This would make it more versatile/portable. You may not know statistics right off the start, but you could have a resolution on why, if any, probs occurred at the track or what have you. as far as cost? the technology is out there. But they would be some $$$ at the start until they became more popular.

I really have no idea about the cost. For the raw components; probably right around $50 if not less. But the initial R&D, circuit board layout and etching; probably quite a bit more. After all, any charger is simply a constant current source, constant voltage source, or a combination of the two. Quite simple really. It's just a matter of controlling that via a USB controller IC and then writing software to utilize it. Seems like a neat idea if some company had the capital and designers to do something like this.

Neweuser: I was thinking the PC would be the full brains. Using a card to upload/download data would require a microcontroller in the charger. I was trying to simplify it further. But just imagine not being limited with display possibilities and any charging option you can think of!