my charger's balancer died...options?
 

i have that 200w gtpower charger from hobbycity and the balancer is progressively getting more and more inaccurate.

what are my options? i considered getting a blinky external balancer, but i am unsure about how accurate they are.

at the moment, i am considering the hyperion 20a 7s 250w charger and the icharger 20a 6s 300w 206b charger. i have heard plenty of great things about the hyperion chargers, but the icharger is cheaper and has more wattage capabilities. my main concerns about the icharger are the warranty and the balancer accuracy.

what do you guys suggest? i have a bunch of lipos including my new neu 3s 5000mah 30c 5c charge packs and i want to get the most life out of them by keeping them in balance.

get a hyperion, they are tried and true.

What do you mean the balancer is inaccurate? Are you checking each cells voltage with a voltmeter, or are the cells just out of balance?

Blinky's are dead accurate and a great balancer.

the charger's balancer fluctuates about .08v per cell. it will say for example, cell #1 4.01 then, a second later, 3.96, then 4.05. all the cells do this and when i check with my voltmeter after the charge the cells will be between 4.10 and 4.24. that is in balance mode. if you looked in the neu lipo thread, i stated how the packs were waaay out of balance and the problem was the charger, not the batteries. i have been slow charging them on my old 50w charger and the balance has been fine.

my old, tested accucel-6 50w charger has the same programming and balances perfect every time.
i cleaned all the contacts on the charger and batteries and have confirmed that the problem is the charger's internal balancer.

would the blinky be sufficient for my batteries even if i charge them at 2c? i would hate to have to spend $160 on a new charger. $30 for the blinky seems a lot less painful.

Instead of the 206B, I'd get the 208B for sure! It's a 350W charger and you can find it for $169. Can't beat that...As for warranty, I would worry to much. Hobbycity isn't to good with warranty issues, but Amainhobbies also sells the iChargers, so perhaps order from Amain?

Oh, and if I remember right, the 206B is actually a 8S charger, it just only balances up to 6S, while the 208B will charge up to 10S, but only balance up to 8S.

This type of thing is why I prefer stand-alone balancers. The only advantages of built-in balancers is less wiring, and some form of circuit feedback to shut the charger off on an error condition.

so, are you saying i should get the blinky? my LHS actually has them in stock. the only thing preventing me from getting one was the $30 price tag for a little micro chip-looking thing and the worry that it wouldn't be accurate enough.

I will stick with my tried and true hyperion chargers. Balancer is built in and they have never given me a problem in 3 years

FMA Cellpro 10s FTW

They can charge two batteries at once without rearranging the wiring. You can hook it up to your PC and see exactly how the batteries charged on a graph. Only $169.

I've owned two and they have never let me down. FMA customer service is also great!

FMA is coming out with an 8s 1000w charger soon. But I really wish there was a 20s 1000w charger on the market. Would make a good R/C charger that can also be used for ebikes and the like.

How long have you been using it? I picked up one at Xmas and this is 1st prob I've read about with one. Mine's been good (so far). Thx

i've had mine since 2 weeks before x-mas.

i did some more testing on the charger today and it charges my 2 and 3s packs just fine. it is my 4s pack that it struggles with. i will go take a couple of videos to show what is happening. hopefully my phone takes decent video (samsung eternity):whistle:

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got some video. the first one is the 200w charger that is giving my problems. the second is my trusty old 50w. notice how the 50w is much more stable. both chargers are running at 2.5a charge. the 200w charger's balancer fluctuates even more with a 5a (1c) charge.