Home-made or kit-set chargers?

[npomeroy]

High power chargers are very expensive, but it seems a microprocessor, FET's and suitable heat sinks/fans are the major parts. So there must be microprocessor (e.g. Picaxe, Arduino) programs written for it. I understand there are safety issues in terms of the high currents, and in correctly monitoring the lipo voltages.

They don't need to involve any high voltages, and they don't need to be tidy and low weight as for in-flight electronics.

Anyone gone this route?

[desertstalker]

High power chargers are expensive because the high power components used are fairly expensive and because they need to be well engineered to work properly.

I doubt you can do a cheaper job designing it yourself, and I would certainly not trust a firmware I wrote to work properly (nor would I trust a random one off the internet).

[pctomlin]

The cost of a mistake may far exceed the savings realized if you have an "issue". I am not saying don't try, it could be a very interesting project for you, just be very careful.

[npomeroy]

Fair comments guys. Anyway, I've bought a Turnigy 1300W charger at a reasonable price.