How to Charge Batteries

How to Charge Batteries

Using one of your battery chargers, you can connect it at home, to any PC power unit as PC power Units deliver stablelized 12V. You can find on the market many outdated PCs, where the power unit is not used, or even buy a new one. I bought 1, with a power of 300W, and it enables me to charge all my batteries, at the highest charge rate of my battery chargers, meaning 5.5 A, without any problem. if your battery charger goes higher than 5.5A, then I would be careful, as this is maybe too much to ask from the PC power unit.

See the pictures (click on it for zooming).

Note that the + and - could be any wire, just make sure with a voltmeter, that you find 12V, between the 2 wires you selected and that you assign the (+) pole to the correct wire when you build it. If your voltmeter shows +12V, then the wire you are touching with your red cable from your Voltmeter, will be the (+) pole, and of course, the other one the (-). To make sure this is really clear (can't insist more...), if your voltmeter shows -12V (minus 12 Volts), then the red wire of your voltmeter is touching the wire that should become the (-) pole, in your installation, and the the other one then the (+).

Good luck, it works great and charge all your batteries each time, before going flying, peacefully at home.

Note that this is only one, of the many ways you could charge your battery at home, and I found it the Easiest/Cheapest/ to implement, keeping the same charger for both the field and home.

Type of batteries and charging rates

Ni-MH ? An article in a newspaper in French provided some insight on using a 3000 Packs. Goes like this:

***** This is related to the 3000 mAmp NiMH ONLY *****

It is in French.... So forgive me for the translation. In short (as it is a few pages document from Modele Magazine - Feb 2001).

3 cyles like: Charge 120 mA, then discharge 3 to 5 Amp, The author is recommending to watch carefully that no more than 3600 mA were send from the charger as he says, it is possible that some chargers won't detect well the Delta Peak, since it is so slow charging load.
3 cycles like: Charge 1 Amp, then discharge 3 to 5 Amp
3 cycles like: Charge 3 Amp, then discharge 3 to 5 Amp

Note: Recommended to leave 1 day to rest between each charge.

That's it, then you can charge them 4.5 to 6 Amp without any problem

Weight is equivalent to 2400 NiCd so the author is highly recommending them, of course. Just 1 point he doesn't know about. How long these batteries would last. So far, the only info he has on this is his Panasonic 3000 which he is using for a year, so far without any problem.

I personally tried it, and I am using 2 Packs of 8 cells, 3000 NiMH with my TwinJet, using Permax 480. It behaves exactly like any other pack, in terms of power. I noted that the pack is not as hot, compared to the NiCd. So far, so good. The pack weight 496gr, just a little lighter than a 2400 RC, 8 Cells, which weight 502gr.