Batteries & Chargers, Turnigy accucell-6

[murphy]

Hello folks
I am quite new to electric flying an d find this site a great source of information of all things electric, can any member help me re ordering the above charger from TURNIGY, as I am finding it difficult to place an order with Hobby King. com prhaps I am doing something wrong. Also do you think this charger is suitable for a beginner? T he price seems reasonable to me and given my limited knowledge of LiPo batteries, charging, discharging etc I would appreciate any advice re the above.
Thanks, murphy.

[diverdon]

Originally Posted by murphy

Hello folks
I am quite new to electric flying an d find this site a great source of information of all things electric, can any member help me re ordering the above charger from TURNIGY, as I am finding it difficult to place an order with Hobby King. com prhaps I am doing something wrong. Also do you think this charger is suitable for a beginner? T he price seems reasonable to me and given my limited knowledge of LiPo batteries, charging, discharging etc I would appreciate any advice re the above.
Thanks, murphy.

This guy saved me when I was new www.headsuprc.com Jeff is the owners name he has tons of good parts and shipping is allways 2 bucks no matter what you buy ..how little of how much ... Jeff is one of the good guys.. Don't be afraid to ask him a question ... Hope this helps some ... Don J.

[Wrench66]

**

[Wrench66]

Originally Posted by murphy

Hello folks
I am quite new to electric flying an d find this site a great source of information of all things electric, can any member help me re ordering the above charger from TURNIGY, as I am finding it difficult to place an order with Hobby King. com prhaps I am doing something wrong. Also do you think this charger is suitable for a beginner? T he price seems reasonable to me and given my limited knowledge of LiPo batteries, charging, discharging etc I would appreciate any advice re the above.
Thanks, murphy.

Hi Murphy,
Normally ordering from Hobby City / King / United .com is a fairly straight forward process. A Paypal account is what most use.....a regular credit card is OK as well (visa or MC). Describe exactly what stage is giving you the problem and I'll try and solve it.
Regarding that Turnigy Accucell 6 charger...I use one and must say it does everything I need and more. It will work with Nicads, Nihms, Lipoly AND lead acid like what's in your car! At the field I can use a 12v motorcycle battery to run the Accucell if I need, and turn around later at home and recharge the MC battery with the Turnigy! I use an old PC power supply to power it at home.
Like you, I'm fairly new to the hobby (jan will be a year) but I had the good fortune to have a very good friend lend me this one to try out. Well, it stayed! hehe, charges 2s to 6s and with a combo connector avail at HC I can charge 2 3s batteries at once.
Display shows time elapsed, charging voltage as a whole, charging voltage for EACH cell in the battery (super useful) and mah the battery is taking.
For the $40 or so they want for these they are truly worth ever penny and more. They include so many adaptors as well for most any situation, they also offer an adapter cord to recharge your TX packs.

I'm happy with mine.

--Ray

EDIT---Sorry for the repeat here, I didn't realize I had talked to you a few days earlier about this charger (thought your name looked familar and went looking for some previous posts). Give me a hollar if you still have trouble ordering, OK?

[murphy]

Hello Ray
Thanks again for your reply re the TURNIGY charger after which I managed to order one no problem and look forward to recieving it in the near future, being new to the electric flight scene I wonder if you could advise me on a couple of things you mentioned in your excellent reply, what exactly is meant by "lead acid"batteries are they the 12v motor cycle batteries you mention and you can use the TURNIGY to recharge the MC at home using an old PC power supply at home, and excuse my ignorance what exactly do you mean by "an old PC power supply, and what is it as it sounds good to me. Any advice would be appreciated and when I recieve the charger I will probably be asking you for more advice if that is okay with you Ray.
Thanks again Ray,all the best, murphy.

[xuzme720]

Originally Posted by murphy

Hello Ray
Thanks again for your reply re the TURNIGY charger after which I managed to order one no problem and look forward to recieving it in the near future, being new to the electric flight scene I wonder if you could advise me on a couple of things you mentioned in your excellent reply, what exactly is meant by "lead acid"batteries are they the 12v motor cycle batteries you mention and you can use the TURNIGY to recharge the MC at home using an old PC power supply at home, and excuse my ignorance what exactly do you mean by "an old PC power supply, and what is it as it sounds good to me. Any advice would be appreciated and when I recieve the charger I will probably be asking you for more advice if that is okay with you Ray.
Thanks again Ray,all the best, murphy.

Sometimes the acronyms will do ya in!
PC power supply= personal computer power supply...these can usually be found for almost nothing at your local computer repair center. Basically all it does is provide you with a solid 12v d/c from a 110v a/c wall outlet. If you're not familiar with these, let us know. We can try to get you more details.

[Wrench66]

Originally Posted by murphy

Hello Ray
Thanks again for your reply re the TURNIGY charger after which I managed to order one no problem and look forward to recieving it in the near future, being new to the electric flight scene I wonder if you could advise me on a couple of things you mentioned in your excellent reply, what exactly is meant by "lead acid"batteries are they the 12v motor cycle batteries you mention and you can use the TURNIGY to recharge the MC at home using an old PC power supply at home, and excuse my ignorance what exactly do you mean by "an old PC power supply, and what is it as it sounds good to me. Any advice would be appreciated and when I recieve the charger I will probably be asking you for more advice if that is okay with you Ray.
Thanks again Ray,all the best, murphy.

Hi Murphy,
Sorry for the confusion, the post from XUZME720 sums it up nicely regarding the power supply. It takes a bit of fiddling to get it to put out a full 12v + but definitely well worth the minimum effort required One thing, make sure the one you select has an on/off switch on it....some don't have them but you need that
The friend I acquired mine from uses a laptop power supply.....seems to work fine as it has a rating of 5amps @ 13v. So, you can add that to your treasure chase when scouring the computer repair centers
The lead acid batteries I described come in all sorts of different sizes and capacities. The one I use is 12v, comes from a street bike and weighs approx 5lbs. You can also make use of the battery in your car when you're at the field......but I have seen a couple friends run their batteries (the car) down far enough that they're too weak to start when it's time to go home So....I just use a smaller battery and normally bring enough batteries to fly most of the day without charging so I usually don't need to charge anything at the field. I have it with me just in case another flyer needs it
The one thing I had to ask my buddy about (when I got the charger from him) was how to "start" it. What I mean is that you input your battery size, voltage and what amp value you'd like it to charge at, and then I didn't know what to do from there! hehehe, he says....."push the enter/start button down until it shows begin charging" :o OK, simple enough.
Since then, I have had zero issues with it and I run it every day (I try and fly every morning (early) at the local schoolyard) and I am considering buying another just to have....since they're pricing is so reasonable and I am always needing something from Hobby City anyway.

Please, PLEASE do not hesitate to ask ANY questions.....regarding this charger or any other RC concerns, lots of us on here are just busting to help!! hehe, if it wasn't for the help I received last year when I was starting out, I might have givin up in frustration.

Merry Christmas!

--Ray

[Cdr. Instigator]

Ok, so ventured into the unknown and started making my 12V power supply out of an old PC.... I FAILED !!!

I connected everything just as most of you said and I powered it. I had 110V coming into the power supply, but nothing out of my banana plugs. Nothing !! The power supply must have been bad to start off because there was power 110v coming in at the connection, tested via the cables at the power input.


Then my hand twitched and sparks flew .. I got the crap scared out of me .. So, seeing an old computer sitting in a shelf at my aircraft hanger I thought , why don't I do what some here have done ..

I opened the old PC, tested the connections of one of the spare HD Connectors and there was 12.30v coming out of it. I cut a yellow and black cable from it. Made 2 holes on the cover, connected the banana plugs to the firewall, soldered the yellow and black to the plugs, shrink wrapped the connections..


I powered the old PC and there it was 12.30v at the banana jacks. I connected my AccuCell6 and WALA!!!

I succeeded..



Now, no more dead car batteries just turned the PC and plug that baby in ....


Thanks guys for all the info, it really helped out, BIG TIME !!!

[Wrench66]

Cool you got it working for you!
There should be more than one leg of 12v in there, connecting more than one of the 12v legs will up your amperage capability too. I run mine off just one of the yellow/black wires and seem to do OK.....but I don't use more than a couple of amps max anyway so it doesn't affect me.

Good goin!

--Ray

[Cdr. Instigator]

Originally Posted by Wrench66

Cool you got it working for you!
There should be more than one leg of 12v in there, connecting more than one of the 12v legs will up your amperage capability too. I run mine off just one of the yellow/black wires and seem to do OK.....but I don't use more than a couple of amps max anyway so it doesn't affect me.

Good goin!

--Ray

Exactly... That's why I too, only charge my Lipo's at 2A.. So, it shouldn't be a problem.

[Wrench66]

Cool

--Ray

[CHEECH]

Whats up fellas. I started using my Trinigy charger last night. Surprisingly, it was very easy topping off my Lipos, but made me second guess myself when I tried to charge a new NiMH.

I figured out how to discharge the NiMH. I set it at min of 8V. It took a short while to discharge. But when it came to charging. The battery came up in voltage really fast. About 3 min. Is this normal. Is this what it means to be a field charger. Or will the battery poop out on me halfway through my flight.

Info: Battery NiMH 650 mAh 9.6V 8Cell
Dis-Charged to 8 Volts
Charged at .6 Amps to about 10.66V
I did select 8 Cells in programing on the charger for NiMH.

Note: No Auto feature on the Accucell-6 for NiMH.

Did I do this right? And how many Volts will the 9.6V show when its done charging.

Cheech

[CHEECH]

Question answered in other thread. Thanks.

[HeliScRapYard]

i just got one of my accucell chargers a couple weeks ago and today it started giving me a Breakdown error every time i try to charge a lipo. all the other functions work well. just wont charge the lipos. is there a solution to this?

[HeliScRapYard]

take that back. no charging functions are working.

[Rolling Thunder]

Originally Posted by HeliScRapYard

i just got one of my accucell chargers a couple weeks ago and today it started giving me a Breakdown error every time i try to charge a lipo. all the other functions work well. just wont charge the lipos. is there a solution to this?

you have to plug in the batterys main wire leads to the charger also

edit-oops I see you say youve had it a few weeks already so that aint your problem

[HeliScRapYard]

unfortunately not. Will begin to charge. i've had it set to 1A, but when it begins it charges at approx 3A for maybe 10 sec then the error comes up.

[edwin_philippines]

I hope somebody could help me on how to use a Turnigy Acucell6 to charge 8.4V 2500mah nicd.

[Swift428]

Unfortunately, HK does not always include instruction manual ... hope this helps
http://www.sparkfun.com/datasheets/P...ual%282%29.pdf

[edwin_philippines]

Thanks Swift428.