Power Supplies

[Pipes]

I am new at this hobby and want to know what is the power supply used for, Do you use it from the electrival house current to charge the battery cahrger so that you can charge your batteries and can you get AC/DC. What is the best for 3Cell and 6Cell batteries not too expensive but good.
Thanks

[odieser]

most of the chargers available are only setup to use DC so you need a power supply that converts it yes

[mcnabbwr]

Most hobby stores and web sites have power supply's. A supply that produces a mininum of 10 amps is required. Cost around 60 to 100 dollars.

[Ron S]

You want one of at leats 10 amps if you plan on running more than one charger at the same time. I have a 20amp,that I used when my son was racing off road RC years ago. I have a junction board (contact point) that I hook up the chargers to. I run as high as 4 chargers at the same time.10-15 would do well for most aplications,20 is a little over kill,but it runs cool,even with a "heavy load" on it. Here's one. Ron http://ka-planes.com/inc/sdetail/9797

[TheBum]

This is the one I have:

http://www.rchover.com/inc/sdetail/86590

I found it for $65 at my LHS. It has an amperage readout so you can see how many amps your charger is pulling.

[LITHIUMSTATIC]

Convert an old PC power supply. It works great and is very cheap..... $20

[TheBum]

Convert an old PC power supply. It works great and is very cheap..... $20
The only caveat I'd add is that you have to be careful about which PC power supply you get depending on what charger you have. I bought a cheap $35 one for my Maxpro X6, but had to abandon it because the voltage would very briefly dip below 11V and interrupt my charging cycles.

[DrJustice]

The only caveat I'd add is that you have to be careful about which PC power supply you get depending on what charger you have. I bought a cheap $35 one for my Maxpro X6, but had to abandon it because the voltage would very briefly dip below 11V and interrupt my charging cycles.
Hooking up a couple of capacitors at the charger end would probably take care of that.

DJ
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[Gimbal Lock]

I carry an Alinco DM-330 switching power supply, it's efficient, lightweight, very well regulated and small size, and outputs 32 amps with very good regulation and very little AC ripple.

The downside is that it's about 170 bucks.
Here's a link if you want to take a look


http://www.hamradio.com/cgi-bin/uncgi/ase?ITEM=DM330&model=Model

[stvjeep]

Checkout the Pyramid PS series.


PS36KX: 12~15v; 32A; 480W; $110.
PS26KX: 6~15v; 22A; 330W; $90.

[wlfk]

Hooking up a couple of capacitors at the charger end would probably take care of that.


Probably, but it might cause some of its own problems. If I tried this then I would put in a low value resistor (0.1 ohms) then the big capacitors.

Did you make sure there's a low-voltage load on your charger? The 12V section may not work properly unless you're drawing several amps from the 5v section.

K

[TheBum]

Did you make sure there's a low-voltage load on your charger? The 12V section may not work properly unless you're drawing several amps from the 5v section.
No, because I don't like wasting current like that. The point is moot because I have the Pro Peak now.

[wlfk]

No, because I don't like wasting current like that.

I agree and I disagree.

It does seem a waste, but the way these things are designed, you need some degree of load in order for them to work properly.

K