Review: Turnigy Accucell 6 Hobby Charger

Gutted the charger from the T-Mart deal Edit: I am photo challengedE

Wow, very thorough review as usual brted! Frontpage'd and Sticky'd.

This is an impressive charger, and a pretty decent price for such a full-featured device.

Until recently it wasn't terribly easy to get 18650 battery holders for an even slightly sensible price (you could get them from CPF for err...I forget, but let's say a million dollars each:)

So I bought one of those $4 or so chargers from DX and gutted it as soon as it arrived....the poor thing didn't even get tested :P

could you take a pic of your mod? I have one of those chargers and like it pretty well. I just ordered another one at buyincoins for ~2.70 after 10% discount and might take it apart like you to use with my hobby charger

I want to measure the capacity of some cells, specifically my trustfire flames.

What is the "empty voltage" that is safe for cells? Should I measure the capacity that is discharged, or put back in?

It's best not to let them get below 3.5v and I usually recharge mine at 3.7 or 3.8v. Those are open circuit values. Depending on the discharge rate you use they will get lower under a load and then bounce back a bit when the load is removed. Higher discharge rates will make them sag more, so I would use a lower discharge rate until you get some idea how much your cells sag under a load.

Slightly random question...Does anyone know anything about the company Turnigy? I just wondered if they were German...Accu is what batteries (or rechargeables?) are called in German.

***

Hmm Google tells me that "Battery" in German is "Batterie" and that it's "Accu" in Dutch /shrug.

Theres a photo in this thread http://budgetlightforum.cz.cc/node/1229?page=1#comment-21095

I removed everything from the inside and ran the wires out of the space left by removing a flip-out syle two pin plug. The wires are soldered straight to the contacts.

I was able to charge my batteries down to 3V. I think I tried a little lower than that and got very little additional capacity, so they were dropping quickly at that point. So 3 volts is probably safe for "under load."

I was thinking "Turnigy" is just a house brand of Hobby King. They also sell batteries under that brand, but I don't know of any other places you can get Turnigy stuff.

Hi everyone,


I just tried the nimh discharge at 1 amp. There's a huge voltage drop with a eneloop below 1,15v on the charger display, DMM shows 1,25v.

Same with charging at 1 amp, voltage totally different on accucell and dmm. Do yours show correct readings ? Already calibrated it.

Regards !

I get something similar. I just put a 18650 on it to discharge at 1.0A. The at-rest voltage of that battery had been 3.99V. The Turnigy settled in at 3.67V, but I measured 3.80V on my DMM. I don't know if it is a big concern, but it does seem like it should be closer than that.

Welcome to BLF, neverfeltbetter!

Thank you brted !

I discharged one eneloop today at 1 amp, came out at 1878mah. Seems accurate.

Voltage went from 1,5v right off the charger to 1,1xV after a few hundred mah had been discharged and stayed there forever. Li cells show the same effect.

Does not seem to have any effect on termination of charge/discharge. Li cells start low current charge at exactly 4,2v on my dmm.

Cell is discharging right now to see if it stops at 0,9v. LiIon discharge on 18650 Trustfire had accurate termination at 3.0v.

Later on I charged the 18650 and noticed the disparity in voltages again from what the Turnigy was saying vs. what I was reading with my DMM. But once the voltage crept up to 4.20V on the Turnigy, my DMM also read 4.20V. So it seems to be charging correctly.

Aloha and welcome to BLF neverfeltbetter!

Today I receive my Accucell 6 charger from Hobbyking and I have to say I am a little bit disappointed about it.

I used to charge mi Li-Ion batteries with an old, out of service, LG cellphone. although it took almost 4 hours to charge an Unprotected Panasonic 1800mAh battery from 3.8 to 4.196 volts it did terminate at 4.196 volts. Starts at 500mA and terminates at ~50mA. The battery sat at 4.18 volts after 30 minutes out of the charging cradle.

Now this accucell 6 took 2 hours to charge the same battery from 3.9 to 4.173 volts. Charge starting at 600mA and terminating at ~100mA after 120 minutes. Terminated due to 2 hours timeout. The battery sat at 4.11 volts after 30 minutes.

When charging at 600m there is a 0.06 volts difference between a Fluke 179 DMM and Accucell 6 (Fluke showed 4.1 and accucell 4.7) and 0.03 volts when charging at 100mA (when the charge was terminating).

When I started the accucell voltage calibration procedure the Fluke 179 and accucell 6 measured the same voltage at the battery (4.11 volts). So when charging there is a 0.06 volts difference but when calibrating the voltage is the same. Really disappointing.

I thought the problem was resistance in the cable so I inserted the cradle cable into the charger connector so the cable length was shorter, but the same thing. There was still a 0.06 volts difference. This difference is measured not only at the cradle contacts but at the alligator connectors coming with the charger.

I have several laptop batteries range from 7.4V (lipo) to 19V (Li-ion) and I'd like to know if this charger can do it.

I heard about the danger of Lipo battery if not handle properly. Your advise is greatly appreciate.

Hello:

A nice thorough review.

I really like your writing style; informal, succinct and easy to read. It's almost like you are speaking directly to the reader.

Regards,

Dave

For discharging just use the NiMh setting and you can set any cut off voltage you like.

Just remember to set it back to LiOn before recharging.

Also bought a Accucel -6 (still on its' way ...), and being reading up about how to connect my 18650 batt's to it.

I want to be able (If I can), to charge 4 x 18650's at a time. What will be the recommended setup?? (Parallel or in Serial). Also how do you connect the cables if you want to do Balance charging.

Thanks guys!!

I use these cheap Ultrafire battery holders about $1 dollar each modified with sheet metal screws and springs. Some alligator clamps and wires and you can pretty much charge anything you want.