Any Good Battery Chargers?
 

Hey everyone, I'm looking for some good battery chargers. The ones we have from the KOPs are pretty slow. Any help?

Re: Any Good Battery Chargers?
 

I'm basing this reply on the KoP charger from the past that had selectable charge rates:

Do you have it set properly for 6A and 12V? The default rate is 2A, which as you might guess is pretty slow.

It's unsafe to charge a lead acid battery quickly, which is the reason for the 6A charge rate. The charging does take some time, particularly if you have used the battery to a point close to discharge. I've experienced a minimum of 20 minutes charge time per battery per match.

Also, if you want a compact charger for three batteries, this is the most common alternative I've seen used by teams:
http://www.andymark.com/Battery-Char...-p/am-2026.htm

Re: Any Good Battery Chargers?
 

Charging rates faster than 6 amps are not allowed. R20 blue box

Re: Any Good Battery Chargers?
 

Seconding the Dual Pro RS3. Buying it on Andymark is more expensive than elsewhere, but it has the battery connectors preinstalled, which you may find worth the extra money.

Re: Any Good Battery Chargers?
 

That being said, my advice to you is to wonder why this rule exists. The answer is somewhere here on ChiefDelphi. Hint: It is bad for the battery.

Re: Any Good Battery Chargers?
 

I'll third this. We bought two of these to replace our KOP chargers and haven't looked back. We also set up a battery cart to hold everything. The nicest thing about them is the solid red/green feedback on charging & complete.

Re: Any Good Battery Chargers?
 

If you have enough batteries, this charger works great for us. Running ten batteries puts us in a place where we have never had to worry about having a fully charged battery during a competition. We work our way through batteries and by the time we get to number 5 or 6, number 1 is fully charged. The initial price is a bit surprising, but you get 10 banks for just a little more than 6 with one Andymark sells. The charge is limited to 2 amps per bank, so it isn't fast by any means. But we are still running batteries that are several years old because they are properly maintained using this charger.

Our charger also has this, plus at 80% the green indicator blinks to let you know that it is nearly done.

Re: Any Good Battery Chargers?
 

Thank you all for the replies!

Re: Any Good Battery Chargers?
 

$507 with shipping is not too bad. I just bought a 2A/6A/10A car battery charger that can also be used for charging FRC batteries at Walmart for about $30 + tax. The one in your link is certainly much more compact than 10 of the ones I bought.

Re: Any Good Battery Chargers?
 

Ctek MUS 4.3

We have 6 mounted on our battery cart, along with 14 batteries in two rotating competition sets of 6 each plus 2 test batteries. We make our oldest 2 the test batteries.

Re: Any Good Battery Chargers?
 

We are in our third year with a few tournaments behind us. We just recieved our second Dual Pro RS3.

How many batteries does your team have? FRC 4607 CIS has budgeted for an additional two batteries each year (beyond the KOP). Going off of experience, some teams do make calculations for elims based off how prepared your team is.

Being a team that was completely unprepared our Rookie season - and all the speculations that were made by other teams at our pit - we made certain to never be in that position again.

Third Year: We now have 11 Batteries and 3 battery chargers. We are building a charging station that can house 10 batteries (6 charging at any one time) with 4 'ready'. We have designated 1 battery as our 'PIT' battery that has a designated battery charger in the PIT.

Edit: Creating a flow chart and designating a PIT member as a 'Battery Person (boi)' helps eliminate confusion.

Re: Any Good Battery Chargers?
 

That looks nice but reminded me a few years back during a tournament they made an announcement that Gator clamps to charge batteries was not okay but since then I have seen it on and off. Is there anyone who has found a final verdict on it?

Re: Any Good Battery Chargers?
 

See the last sentence of the blue box under R20: "Batteries should be charged in accordance with manufacturer’s specification. The battery charger output should not exceed 6 amps and they must have the corresponding Anderson connector installed. (Please see the FIRST Safety Manual for additional information.)"

Basically all this means is that you need to cut off the gator clamps and replace them with Anderson connectors.

Re: Any Good Battery Chargers?
 

This charger has multiple attachments that use plugs to interchange. We wired them directly into some SB-50's we got on Amazon. We also learned that grey sb-50's don't mate to red so we got a milling assignment out of it as well.

Re: Any Good Battery Chargers?
 

Alternatively, you can clamp the wire on a KOP battery cable and electrical tape the clamps.

Re: Any Good Battery Chargers?
 

That's stretching the meaning of "installed" a bit too far, in my opinion.

Re: Any Good Battery Chargers?
 

Perhaps. We also did that at one point when we were using a borrowed charger and could not remove the clamps.

Re: Any Good Battery Chargers?
 

Throwing in my support for the 3-bank charger. Both of my teams have used them and have had no issues (of my knowledge). Very satisfied.

Re: Any Good Battery Chargers?
 

My team had 3 of the KoP ones and they have all started failing, however we bought the Andymark 3 battery charger and I love that thing. I've built it into a rolling cart and put all the batteries on top with the charger laying on the second shelf and it works great. It is also much faster than the KoP ones too.

We switched over to this charger last year and I would highly recommend it. It is much nicer to have just one power cord and to not have the jumble of wired with multiple single battery chargers.

Re: Any Good Battery Chargers?
 

You can't beat a smart charger designed for SLA batteries with a max output current of 6 amps per output. There are a few that have five or six outputs of five amps each that work fine. Smart chargers will modify the output current throughout the charge cycle and will automatically stop the charge cycle or switch to a low trickle when fully charged.

Please remember that although the charger is only able to supply 6 amps, the battery that it is connected to has the ability to supply more than 500 amps when charged. That potential is available at any improperly insulated connections that you supply on the charger side. This is a common mistake that teams make. It is also the reason for the rule this year because burning wires have resulted in the past.