RC Battery Chargers are one of the most important things you need to buy before getting into electric powered RC Helicopter. Therefore you need to choose one that suitable for your hobby.
Since LiPo and various forms of lithium chemistry such as LiFe, and lithium ion, are so popular these days, computerized charger makes good lithium battery charging & balancing support. Nowadays there are many computerized RC battery chargers on the market, i will recommend the charger that supports all rechargeable battery types (NiCad, NIMH, PB, and lithium), since it may also support your future hobby change.
Why computerized charger? First of all it can charge many types of batteries, no matter it’s size, capacity or voltage, the various batteries for only one charger, very nice! Second, computerized charger can safely and accurately recharge every time which maximize the battery life by different features such as cycling, and balancing. Finally, computerized charger can accurately tell us the battery condition by showing how much charge goes into them.
The first criteria need to consider when looking at a computerized RC Battery Charger is how much power it can deliver and maximum cell count it will support. Cell count is pretty easy to figure out, and most good computerized RC battery chargers support at least 6S LiPo cell counts.
The Second criterion is the maximum current during charging, for example such as a 2200 mAh 3S pack. At a 1C charge rate, the charge current for this battery would be 2.2 amps. A 2C charge rate would be 4.4 amps. So when you choose your RC Battery charger, your will think to buy at least a 5 amp charge rate.
The Third criterion is Watt. Watts are calculated by multiplying the voltage by the amps. So our 2200 mAh 3S LiPo battery when it is full charged with 12.6 volts will be drawing about 27 watts of power (12.6 volts x 2.2 amps). If it is charged at a 2C rate that wattage number would increase to around 55 Watts (12.6 x 4.4) and so on. It means that a larger battery needs a bigger Watt charger to handle it.
Choose and buy one from RC FEVER.