RC car charger?

[07accordEX]

Anyone know what I mean when I say rc chargers? well I have a duratrax ice that chargers virtually any batteries, which senses voltage drop to accurately charge batteries to their max capacity (plus the lcd screen tells the true mAh, voltage,etc)

so, anyone know how to set it up to charge a camera battery? is it safe to charge through the +/- pins but leave out the 3rd one?

i know in rc, we have equalizers that for example, 7.4v battery has 2 cells in series inside, the charger actually discharge/charge until both cells have same voltage and capacity - highly doubt this is possible to set up

[iAMB]

Im big with RC as well. I wouldnt trust rigging up a charger to charge these. Im sure you can find a wall charger from someone for pretty cheap here on these forums.

[Wilt]

There are chargers that are voltage flexible (100v/110v/240v) and also come with car adapter for 12v usage, which fit the BP-511 battery

[07accordEX]

The reason I want to use my rc charger is to get an accurate reading of how my batteries perform and it keeps the battery in better condition than regular wall chargers

[DennisW1]

The reason I want to use my rc charger is to get an accurate reading of how my batteries perform and it keeps the battery in better condition than regular wall chargers


RC Car batteries are a completely different type than those used in Digital Cameras. Yes, you **could** wire the RC charger to the contacts on the camera battery but you have no idea if the cutoff voltages or charging rates are even close to correct. If not you run the risk of either under-charging the battery or blowing it up from over-charging

Li-Ion batteries do not need cell equalizing like the multi-cell packs of RC car batteries as first of all they are not multi-cell packs , nor do they need the "conditioning" functions of RC car chargers and dischargers. Such features would be useless for a digital camera battery.

RC car batteries need to be conditioned to expel all of their energy in a specific time (back when I was racing RC cars the heats were 4 mintutes, an ideally conditioned pack would "dump" or be completely discharged in about 4 minutes and 1 second), again such functions simply do not apply to digital camera batteries.

Stick with the charger made for the batteries and you'll be fine.

[Josh_30]

Yes, you **could** wire the RC charger to the contacts on the camera battery but you have no idea if the cutoff voltages or charging rates are even close to correct. If not you run the risk of either under-charging the battery or blowing it up from over-charging.

Been there, done that. I ruined a perfectly good Trinity Ampasaurus pack years ago b/c the auto-shutoff on my charger malfunctioned. :cry: White smoke, fizzing, and thankfully no sparks or leakage in the electrics of my Kyosho Ultima. It did get hot enough to warp the chassis though.

I'd never trust my camera batteries to a charger that wasn't made for them. An RC Car I can rewire and fix myself if it malfunctions... a camera, I can't.

[07accordEX]

the way I see it, if something happens just get a new battery
I noticed that my soon coming in camera's bp-511 battery has 2 sets of pins, Im assuming that the charger charges the two cells separately

ill check it on the multimeter but if thats the case, I dont see why I couldnt wire it to my ICE (its such a good charger, I trust it =)