Bantam BC8 vs. ThunderPower 1010

[Big Fil]

I'm looking to get a charger this week to handle my battery needs for my 600. Currently i'm having to charge at my dad's house two cities away with a SuperBrain 989 w/FP Vbalancer.Just wondering if anyone has any comments and or experience with the BC8, the Thunderpower, or both. Right now my charging needs consist of FP 6s 5000 packs along with FP 3s 2170 packs for the 450. I do see possibly going up to 8s in the future but probably don't forsee going 10s. The integrated balancing of the BC8 is a plus as is the price.

Also with these big chargers what is a good power supply to run them off of and what should I be looking for as far as a big enough one to handle the load.

Oh yeah, is it possible to charge 2 of my 450 packs at once with either of these setups? Seems like with the balancing taps that would be possible with an adapter that shared the negative lead amongs the negative leads from each balancing tap.

Thanks

[Ticidytoc]

My pick is the 1010. Yes you can charge 2 450 packs. Always charge in series, the main neg lead will be group A on the 210 balancer

[Big Fil]

Care to list the reason for your pick Ticydy?

[cbdane]

BC-8 is a great unit with built in balancer and temperature probe. It was my choice. However, check out this thread for a great discussion on all the options, particularly kgfly's post on the first page.

http://www.helifreak.com/viewtopic.php?t=38050

Hope that this is helpful!

[stankulas]

i bought a bc8 and it blew up on the secound charge i then relized that there is no support for there products in the usa i am just glad that it was less then a week old so i was able to return it i then got a 1010 and havn't had any problems

[Ticidytoc]

1. TP is here in the states, since its their name on it they warranty its here in LV.
2. Firmware can be updated via usb.
3. Charges up to 10s. (better to grow into a charger than out of one)
4. Balancer is not built into charger, many reasons for this. If balancer stops working you still have a charger while its off getting repaired.

[Nyther]

I also own a Bantam e-station 902. I only had it for a couple of months. Great software to trend your batteries and can charge just about any battery. Well, I was just discharging a NiCad pack and the charger would no longer discharge. It would not show any amps. :? Well I connect my 6 cell 4600mah LiPo for a charge and a pop and factory smoke emerged from the vents. :WOW I was debating when I was shopping for a charger, should I buy the Bantam e-station 902 or the ThunderPower 1010C. Well I picked the e-station because of the variety of charging options. Needless to say, the Bantam charger is now off for repair :arggg: , and I purchased a ThunderPower 1010C and balancer and couldn't be happier :glasses2: . Bantam is not here in the states, and will have to be shipped to Korea from the shop that I purchased it from. :bomb: Buy right once.

Ken

[RC Accessory]

I'm sorry to hear that anyone has had any issues with the e-Station chargers.

I have been importing the Bantam line into the US for almost 2 years. In that entire time, I have had 2 902's be defective, 1 BC-6, and 1 PB-6 balancer.

The units mentioned were not purchased through my company or they would have been serviced properly.

One customer here on HF purchased a 902 and admittedly damaged the unit himself. He sent the unit back to me for which I forwarded to Bantam. I sent him my own pesonal 902 charger to use while his was down for repair. Although he admitted he damged the unit, Bantam repaired the unit at no charge and he ended up purchasing my personal unit after his was returned.

The PB-6 that was defective was immediately replaced and the BC-6 that was defective, Bantam shipped to my customer directly in South Africa before his unit was sent back to Bantam.

I'm sure that if you search, RC Groups, RC Universe or Run Ryder you will find complaints about any charger failing, including the Thunder Power 1010.

As far as service goes, that all depends on whom you make your purchase from. Very few people deal directly with Bantam and any shops that get their products from me also get the same level service for their customers that I give my customers.

No product is immune from a failure. How your dealer handles your failed product is where the service comes in.

Bantam is also very quick in their turn around times. In many cases, faster than the turn around times by a US company.

[kgfly]

As for a power supply, you might find this information useful:

The easiest way to determine the input power requirement for any charger, (assuming it is not in the specifications) is to divide the maximum output power by 0.8. Then to determine the maximum input current, divide by the input voltage (usually 12V or 13.8V).


--------- --------- --------- ----------- -------------
Charger Output Max Input Max Input Max Input
Power (W) Power (W) Amps (@12V) Amps (@13.8V)
--------- --------- --------- ----------- -------------
CellPro4S 50 60 5 4
Swallow/Eos5i 50 60 5 4
BC6 50 60 5 4
BC8 150 190 15 14
Eos1210i 180 225 19 16
e902 200 250 21 18
TP1010 220 275 23 20
--------- --------- --------- ----------- -------------



In the US this one seems a reasonable choice (12V/20A/240W): http://www.hobby-lobby.com/powersupply.htm

Otherwise these were recommended to me by another helifreak, they seem excellent value given the high power ratings.

Vendor: http://stores.ebay.com.au/Eparts138-Store (the same vendor also has an eBay store on the US eBay site).

These ones need to be wired up and for safety, put in a case:

12V/20A/250W (AUD$64 delivered) - http://cgi.ebay.com.au/250W-12V-20A-Switching-Power-Supply-CCTV-DVR_W0QQitemZ200117486905QQihZ010QQcategoryZ20589Q QcmdZViewItem

12V/33A/400W (AUD$86 delivered) - http://cgi.ebay.com.au/400W-12V-33A-Switching-Power-Supply-CCTV-DVR-Security_W0QQitemZ200116515663QQihZ010QQcategoryZ2 0589QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

This one is all ready to go, fully AC cabled with a power switch and DC banana-socket output terminals:

11-18V/30A/540W (AUD$115 delivered) - http://cgi.ebay.com.au/540W-11-18V-30A-ADJ-Switching-Power-Supply-RADIO-CCTV_W0QQitemZ200116187627QQihZ010QQcategoryZ20589 QQcmdZViewItem

Or you can take the cheap route and use a modified PC power supply. To get a high power 12V supply you will need to look at good quality 600W-1000W PC supplies.

If you only want to run one high power charger (eg BC8, e902 or TP1010) then I would go for the HobbyLobby. If you think you may need to run more than one then personally, given the recommendation I received, I would go with the 540W unit from eBay.

[sgomes]

Hobby-Lobby is only rated to 20A - TP1010 reqs. 23A per your own chart.

Steve

[kgfly]

Good point Steve. The calculations for the chart are conservative assuming the charger is only 80% efficient. If you are not pushing the TP1010 to its limits or the charger is better than 90% efficient then 240W input will be OK, but since it is never a good idea to run a power supply for extended times at its maximum rating, I agree that a higher output charger would be a better choice for a TP1010. We have some 13.8V/20A (276W) units available here that do nicely for about AUD$100. Hard to beat that 540W unit from eBay for plenty of headroom :lol:

[willy000]

Hi I also bought a trex600 and had to upgrade my charger and balancer
looked around a fair bit ended up getting a HYPERION EOS1210i
and a FlightPower V-Balancer seem's to be working fine so far charging
my EVO25 6S1p 5000mah batterys........................

[RC Accessory]

RC Groups just did a review of the e-Station BC-8 charger.

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=666885

[EBCooper]

I have a Bc8 and love it, I don't know what else to tell you. :dontknow

[csell]

Hello.

I just ordered 2 power supplys from eBay Power Seller media328, it is still in the post.

He has some very similar or the same as the ones kgfly makes links to:

250W 13.8V 18A Switch Power Supply Approximately US $32.27

400W 13.8V 29A Switching Power Supply Approximately US $46.38

2Pc 350W 7V 46A Switching Power Supply Series 700W 13.8v Series Connection Cable Included - Build 700W 13.8V 46A Approximately US $66.55

When I saw the price on the above 2 pcs 350W supposed to be connected in serie,
emailed I him and asked if it was possibale to get 2 pcs 13.8v instead of the 2 pcs 7v.

He afirmed, so I am getting 2 pcs 350W 13.8V 25.3A Switching Power Supply for
Approximately US $66.55 + shipping.

Regards Carsten

[WillJames]

The FP V-Balance Module works well with the 1010 as well. You can use 2 V-Balance Modules and two packs in series charge no problem with the 1010.

[csell]

WillJames.

I read about this dual V-Balance setup, but can't find any information about it.
Do you have information on connection etc.

Regards Carsten

[ChasHeliCop]

It's on the Flightpower web site, flightpowerusa.com, I just looked at it. What about adapters for other brands of batteries, ie: Align, I know that's a bad thing.

[ChasHeliCop]

Oops, it's under balancers at the bottom of the page

[kgfly]

I have a question about charging two 3s packs at once on a 6s or larger charger.

Consider the case where the two packs were not discharged as a pair and are at different states of charge. Let's say one is 50% discharged and the other 80% discharged.

If you use an adapter cable so that the two are connected to a single 6s balancer then it will see the cells in the -50% pack as much higher voltage than those in -80% pack and spend ages discharging them to try to bring the two back in line. That's going to take ages and may be impossible if the balancer cannot offset enough of the charge current. At best it seems it would take a long, long time to complete the full balance charge and at worst the charge will terminate because one or more cell in the high pack crosses the 4.21V threshold.

If you use two separate balancers they will work OK initially since each only sees the imbalance (if any) within a single pack. However, once the high pack is approaching fully charged (but of course the overall 6s series setup is not since the low pack is lagging behind) the balancer on that pack will max out trying to hold the pack at 4.2V/cell while the overall charging current continues to flow. If the difference is too great then again, I would expect the charge to terminate early leaving the high pack peaked and the low pack under charged.

Am I missing something here ? Or is just that if you fly the packs in the same heli for about the same time to about the same discharge level the difference between the packs is small enough that the balancers can keep up and overall the charge time is still less than doing the two packs one after the other ?

[csell]

Thanks

When I enter www.flightpowerusa.com I am automatic redirected to
http://www.flightpower.co.uk/ I think it is because I am sitting in Denmark.

On the UK page, there is no information about the dual V-Balance setup.
I will be very happy if somebody from USA can take the info and post it here.

Regards Carsten

[RC Accessory]

Ken, you are correct. That is why serial charging is not always a good thing. Assuming the packs are at the same state of charge, then it works fine.

[kgfly]

OK, thanks Evan.