battery charging alternatives?
 

what do yall do about field charging batteries when there's no close power source? I know you can use a car battery or a generator, but is there any other options? I don't really want to buy 5-7 batteries to go have a day of fun. I like to drive in the woods, abd don't really want to keep going to the car to charge batteries.
All I have right now is a losi trail trekker with the little 4.7 volt nimh in it. So I was thinking about getting one of those flashlights or radios with the cranks that power them and trying to make a field charger that is easy to get around.
Does anyone have any thoughts? I've never opened one of those up, so I don't know how it works.

Re: battery charging alternatives?
 

You want a way to keep your micro RC running in a way that doesn't involve hooking up to the 12v car battery, and you dont want to carry extra micro lipos so instead you are going to try and make a field charger out of something more expensive, bigger & heavier to carry around?

I have about 8 350mah lipos that are about $4 each and a few more that are cheaper with less capacity. all easily fit in a standard pocket and the 350mah will power the micro crawlers for about 30-45 mins each.

I get most of my micro lipos from ValueHobby. check out the battery sticky in the micro losi section

no matter what your options are
A. more lipo packs to charge at home and more time to run the RC when out
or
B. less lipo packs and deal with field charging.

Re: battery charging alternatives?
 

Not that you wil like it....but, I use a 7AH gelcell battery to power my DC charger when I'm away from my house or car/truck.

Sorta pisses off those in my club when I charge packs at a comp.....

Cost? It's ~$20 US for the battery.

Re: battery charging alternatives?
 

Charlie's answer is your best solution.

It's not too heavy and will last quite a while.

Re: battery charging alternatives?
 

Thanks guys. I didn't realize I could get lipos that cheap.

And I do have an 18ah sla battery that I could use if I had a cool charger.

Re: battery charging alternatives?
 

Lots of people are happy with the turnigy accucel 6 / Hobbyking eco6
I use the hobby king version.
Out of stock in the USA warehouse but they have both on the international site if you dont mind waiting.

US warehouse HobbyKing R/C Hobby Store : Turnigy Accucel-6 50W 6A Balancer/Charger w/ accessories (USA Warehouse)

International site
HobbyKing R/C Hobby Store : Turnigy Accucel-6 50W 6A Balancer/Charger w/ accessories

Hobbyking version
HobbyKing R/C Hobby Store : HobbyKing ECO6 50W 5A Balancer/Charger w/ accessories

350mah Gforce lopo
Value Hobby R/C Hobby Store: GForce 20C 350mAh 2S 7.4V LiPO


Convert an old PC power supply for your B6 charger clone
http://www.rccrawler.com/forum/elect...c-charger.html

Re: battery charging alternatives?
 

Accucel6 is good unit... it'll run off 4s lipo too ;) You'll get a heap more mAh per g of lipo than leadacid... 25-30Ah vs 7Ah? :)

Re: battery charging alternatives?
 

Ummmm....I highly doubt you have a LiPO that will run 25-30amps for an hour.
Also, using a LiPO as a power source for a charger is not all that great. Do you use a LVC??

Re: battery charging alternatives?
 

and the charger is only rated to 6amps anyway

Re: battery charging alternatives?
 

Why would you? At that charger's max output (50W) it will draw less than 4A off the feeding battery.

And with the batteries Greengiant will use it's more like 0.5A.

Re: battery charging alternatives?
 

If you are running a Losi Trail Trekker, why not use the Losi battery powered charger for the micro packs? Its small enough to fit in a pocket and charges the battery pretty quick. Granted you can't charge the 2s micro LiPO's with it, but if you're running the 4 cell NiMH like you mentioned in the first post, the Losi portable charger would be a good option, plus the 8AA's would last through a full day of charging without needing replaced.

Re: battery charging alternatives?
 

why does it piss them off :shock: i see people charging batteries at every comp i've been at and it don't piss me off :roll: :lmao: ........bob

....