HOBBYMATE Elite Lipo Battery Balance Charger 6A/80W W/AC Power Supply, Internal Resistance Meter, for LiHv Lipo Nimh Nicd Pb

A good charger is an absolute necessity for the RC hobby. When I first got into the hobby, the charger I purchased was a cheap DC-4S balance charger and voltage detector unit (25 watt output power). This is probably the case for most people brand new to the hobby. While it worked okay for charging a single battery (took over an hour to charge a 4s 1300 mah lipo), it became completely inadequate when the number of batteries I owned grew larger. It took all day to charge 5 batteries that I usually used for a short flying session. Clearly, it was time for a new charger. I started looking at units capable of higher output power with main goal of reducing battery charge times, having a storage/discharge capability and ability to test health of the battery by measure of internal resistance. There are a plenty of other manufacturers that made these charger, but I have had good luck using Hobbymate power distribution boards on my builds, so I decided to buy this charger. It is rated at 80W and has all the functions that I would like to see when upgrading from a very basic unit.The charger arrived safely and well packed in three layers of packaging. Included in the package were power supply, power cord and two accessory cables to plug in various types of batteries. Instructions are provided and are easy to understand. The important stats are 80W charge power, 10W discharge power, 400 mA balancing current. The case is metal, the outputs include two banana plugs and 5 balance plugs. The charger works for 2-6 cell batteries. Display is bright and easy to read.In charge mode, the charger works great without heating up. It took average of 15-17 minutes to charge an empty 1300mah 70C 4S lipo pack from 14V to 16.8V and 11 minutes to charge 1500mah 65C lipo pack from storage voltage of 15.1V to 16.8V. This is a huge improvement from my old DC-4S charger which took over an hour under these conditions. During charging the batteries stayed cool and were perfectly balanced when the charging was done.Discharging a battery pack takes longer. To discharge 1300mah pack from 16.8 to 14V took over an hour, which is understandable given 10W discharge power.Charger is able to read voltage (in mV) of a battery pack, as well as internal resistance. The internal resistance readings were consistent when done multiple times on the same pack. I do not have any blatantly bad battery packs to test out this function further, but in theory high internal resistance could help you spot battery packs which are past their prime and may be becoming dangerous to use.Overall this is a great little charger, I would recommend to anybody upgrading from something smaller. I can now prepare for flying sessions on the same day and always all of my batteries ready to go flying. The charger is light and portable enough to throw in the backpack with me to take to my office to have batteries ready if I want to fly my quads after work. Highly recommend for anybody upgrading from lower power charger.

My initial thoughtsThis charger came well packaged and ready to use out of the box. It felt nice and sturdy and I was excited to finally have another charger so that I can charge more batteries at the same time. The build quality is fantastic and I was happy to see that the charger cord didn't come as a xt60 with a T plug like in the pictures but it came with an adapter so that the t plug doesn't just have hot ends while charging using the xt60 plug. The instruction manual is easy to use and tells you everything that you need to know.I found that it charges faster than my other battery charger and am glad it comes with a power supply as many available chargers do not come with one. The interface is really easy to use and you get used to it after a couple uses. I find that it does a really good job at balance charging my batteries but I believe it cuts off at 1/10 of the set amps like when charging as it oftentimes doesn't charge fully and I have to adjust to a lower amperage setting for it to get the full 4.2 V in each cell. It explains in the manual that that occurs when using the normal charge function but I believe it to be true while balance charging as well. I like that it has the extra feature for checking the IR of each cell even though I don't know how accurate it is. Overall this charger will be great as the first charger for anyone in the RC hobby!Some problems that I noticed are:First, as I noted above the balance charging feature cuts off at a higher amperage and doesn't charge it all the way unless you lower your amperage settings.Second, the power supply isn't capable of giving off 80W so you can only charge at 5A using the given power supply.Third, I couldn't get it to discharge at 2.0A it would always stop at 0.5A so I thought that was weirdLastly, storage charge works fantastically except that it goes to 3.80V per cell instead of the advertised 3.85V which I would have preferred.Other than those few problems this charger is reliable and helps me charge batteries a lot quicker when I have a break in the weather! I would recommend if you need a charger now. Hobbymate seems to make a quality one.

I purchased this item as a Lightning Deal and shortly after receiving it I found that Cell 3 stopped reading on 3, 4, and 5S balance connectors. Immediately, I contacted the company via Facebook and within hours they replied back with serious apologies and offered me a refund or replacement. I chose the replacement.I am SO glad I did. This is a great charger. As with any lipo chargers, don't leave them unattended, but the replacement has been perfect since I received it. Further, I decided tonight to crack open the case of the malfunctioning unit and found the cause - a bad trace between the 4S and 6S balance connectors. I tossed a wire to bridge the two Cell 3 leads and it's back in business.Onto the product itself...Works exactly as it should. During a storage/discharge it gets warm as any other charger, but for larger packs I found it got hotter than I was comfortable leaving charging on the counter. A little fan or possibly larger vent holes in the base (see pictures) would alleviate quite a bit of the heat issue. I will be opening up the vents in the bottom myself for preference, but it doesn't prevent the unit from functioning.Buttons, with the cover off, seemed quite loose, and when cold (0F in the garage) they occasionally read no press...understandable.Solder joints were a bit dull, but adequate. Cleaned up a few.Would it be worth $60 as the B6 it is emulating? No. Is it worth what I paid? Without a doubt and then some. Very happy now that they're both working.Three stars removed for the malfunction. Two added for absolutely STELLAR customer service. One added after realizing that malfunctions happen and the replacement is flawless. Five star product when price is considered.