HorizonHobby.com How-To: Battery Charging Basics

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There are few items that you will use as much with many different vehicles as a battery charger. Whether you own electric or nitro-powered vehicles, you'll find yourself needing to recharge a battery of some sort. There are a lot of different options out there when you're first choosing what charger to purchase, let alone when you first go and start using your battery charger. We've sat down to try to explain what some of the different features you might want to consider when purchasing a charger. We also take you though some of the initial setup steps you may discover when configuring your charger for the first time and provide some key definitions and terms you'll frequently run into when working with your battery charger.

Peak Detection Charger—A battery charger that monitors the condition of the battery pack while charging and stops the charging process once complete.

Charge Rate—The amperage output of a battery charger.

Capacity—The maximum amount of energy, rated in milliamp hours (mAh) a battery can store. The higher the capacity of a battery, generally, the longer it will last on a charge.

mAh (Milliamp Hour)—A measure of a battery's capacity. The larger the number of milliamps the longer the battery cell will last.

Balance Port/Balancer—A feature or device that monitors the voltage and capacity of the individual batteries that make up a Li-Po battery pack.

Cell(s)—The individual batteries that make up a battery pack.

Battery Pack—A group of individual batteries wired together to increase either voltage or capacity.

Integrated Power Supply—A feature of some battery chargers that allows them to be powered by plugging it into a wall outlet.

Multi-Chemistry Charger—A battery charger that can charge more than one type of battery chemistry.

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• battery
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• LiPo
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• NiMH
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[philip2501]

very basic



[HorizonRCdotCom]

@philip2501 Yes it is Philip, this video is intended to help those just getting started. It was actually inspired from a personal experience at a track where someone had bought a new charger and didn't know anything about it. After spending some time with him the idea for this video came about.

[rafa37523]

I want to use a life 6.6V in my receiver, but i dont know how much i can discharge it before my car run away. LOW VOLTAGE ?

[HorizonRCdotCom]

@rafa37523 Always follow the manufacturer's guidelines but for LiFe common cutoff ranges are between 2.1 and 2.4 volts PER CELL. So if you have a 4-cell LiFe pack you'd be looking at an overall cutoff of 8.4-9.6v, roughly.

[PATROLMAN2056]

Excellent video. Very helpful indeed. Thank you.

[YankeeStacker25]

Very good information; great for reference in charging my XXX-SCT. Nice video!

[fastnfuriousinnit]

When are you going to make a miniature alternator that I can install on my baja 5b so it keeps the battery charged like a real car?. Then I will only need to charge the battery in the radio.

[edmari440]

Thank you for the upload... well appreciated info

[209cynical]

great presentation and tutorial on chargers, cause im just dumb.