Battery charger choice

Battery chargers for LiPo & LiFe batteries are a popular topic for discussion.

The one I chose is shown above. At 50W its not the highest power available but it charges batteries fast enough for me, and it was reasonably priced.

It is a very flexible charger, able to charge a wide range of batteries:

• LiPo
• LiIo
• LiFe
• NiMH
• NiCd
• Pb

It has a balanced charging connection for Li batteries of varying voltages & can charge all the battery technologies you are likely to come across.

A feature I particularly like is the ability to charge from mains or a 12v source. Just unplug the mains lead and plug in the DC cable, shown loose in the picture.

This means that if I have small portable batteries to charge and access to a car or other source of 12V such as a large bank of lead acid cells, I can use the charger for that.

I’ve changed the DC input and output connectors to PowerPoles to match the rest of my equipment.

I can’t comment on long term reliability, but will report any issues which arise.