Review: IMAX B6 multi-battery type charger

For many reason's slow charging the batteries will last longer, the internal resistance with stay lower for longer, the battery will be able to give more current for longer.

As an RC freak we always fast charge and hammer our batteries with high charge rates (C) and high discharge rates, but if you are not in a rush a lower charge rate IMHO is always best.

Nimh should never get hot while charging.

I charge 4 x AAA in series @ 0.2 amp, 2 x AA in series @ 0.5 amp, 8 x AA in series @ 0.5 amp, 4 x D in series @ 1 amp.

My AA nimh have a recommended charge of 0.65 amps Ive been using them for over 5 years for RC radios, GPS, xbox 360 controllers and a digital camera and they are still going strong, But a set i use for my RC radio i used to fast charge at 1 to 1.5 amps are dead.

I also charge my 18650's like this in series 2 x 18650 @ 0.5 amp, 3 x 18650 @ 0.5 amp, 6 x 18650 @ 0.5 amps, 3 x 26650 @ 1 amp. Single 1 x 18650 @ 0.5 amp or 1 x 26650 @ 1 amp with my hobby charger.

I do have some batteries with the Maxim charge rate of 1C 3.1 amps but i still charge them @ 0.5 amps, i have trustfire flames 12 months old still going strong.

Because you will get a deeper charge if you set the limits your self and you can cycle the batteries better it should not over charge or under charge the batteries, plus these clone chargers don't always charge nimh or nicads well.

I have made a couple of looms up using magnets as per your pictures for balance charging 18650 etc batteries which appears to be working fine. Do you use the same looms for charging NiMH aa aaa batteries in the NiMH setting part of the charger?

You can but i use these, picures on page one, link's on page 2.

https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/1621

With your icharger set your Nimh sensitivity delta to 2mv/cell in the settings menue, now and then i form charge them its like nimh balancing, its in the icharger nimh menue and you can use the same holders from the above link.

Ahem.

:P

just noticed alot of these aren’t sold with the AC/DC plug? JW how much mV it takes @ 12V/24V etc?

The display says 4.20 and the multimeter says 4.20.

With Li-ion batteries the voltage es 99% accurate.

With NiMh NOT. The screen shows 1.0 volt (i.example) but the battery really is at 1.2……

Or something… That´s why I have to select (in my unit) 0,7 or 0,8 volt in discharge mode for NiMh

Faulty or not well calibrated

Take into account that they are not geniune

You have to use the "min/max" function on you DMM and have it connected when you charge. If it records a maximum voltage of 4.2 volt, the charger is doing a good job.

Hobby chargers usual terminates at 1/10 charge current, i.e. if you charge at 1A it will terminate at 0.1A. If you wish to terminate at a lower current, you must charge at a lower current. This will make the battery voltage higher.

A LiIon battery is NOT supposed to be 4.200V, this is a myth. The charge voltage is supposed to be between 4.15 and 4.25 volt and will always leave the battery at a slightly lower voltage. This can also be seen in all my battery test/reviews, the voltage drops when I stop charging.

Thanks HKJ for the explanation!

The PEAK-button of the UT61E is quite confusing and i dont know how it works. Might be similar to Min/Max-button of other DMM's, but i am at loss here.

Connect the DMM, start the charge, the you press the PEAK button once and the DMM will record both min and max values. Press PEAK again to change display between min and max.

If the charger has noise in the charge current, the PEAK function may record to high and low values.

The only ways to get 4.2 volt on the battery is to use a very low termination current or charge to more than 4.2 volt.

original Imax charger wouldn’t be so cheap, you know it

I just bought several different 26650 batteries of eBay, would this iMax B6 be good for checking to see how good a charge the batteries are holding?

yesss

You can do that with a voltmeter, AND it’s not a very good way to asses much from your batteries. If they hold voltage poorly then they are indeed bad. If they say ultrafire you know they are junk.

First, terminology; ALL the 4-button hobby chargers that look like the IMAX are CLONES, including the IMAX. There is a real (clone) IMAX B6.
There are people making and selling FAKES of the CLONES. These are cheaper, of poor quality, with problems with over/under volt charging, balancing, awful NiXX charging, and early death. *If you don’t have the ability to check it out……don’t go there.
*
If it’s eBay and cheap > it’s fake. :bigsmile:
If it does not SPECIFY it’s a ‘real’ one > it’s probably fake. But I’m not sure how much you can trust that from liars.
If you don’t have a decent storefront supporting the product, buyer beware.

Here’s some other ways you can tell:
Authentication.
Video
Test video

FWIW Hobby King sells an original AND a fake/copy. They even SAY it’s a copy and are up front that it’s not as good a product.
Makes me wonder why anyone would buy this when it’s potentially dangerous.
Buy an Accucel-6, they are decent and essentially the same price.

You’ve been warned. :stuck_out_tongue:

Yes, they are Ultrafire, but I would still like to figure out how much of a charge they can hold.

[quote=Tacoboy]

Hold = capacity.
Voltage won’t tell you anything useful about capacity at all.

Get an Opus unless you want to play with all kinds of chemistry.

So how do we charge a pack of NiCd (or NiMH) sub-C cells, say a 6s1p or 12s1p configuration?

i have the iCharger 206B+ , read the instructions manual , but the NiCd charging program has only a setting for charging current, not for number of cells (except for the Forming Charge program).

Does it mean that the iCharger doesn't care about the number of NiMH cells in series but simply charges and charges until the delta-V signal is triggered?

And how is it solved on the IMAX B6?

Cell count is ignored on this kind of charger, up to the limit of the charger. You can set the current and there is a setting for termination buried in there somewhere.

Thanks!
i found the setting “DeltaV sensitivity” and set it to “10mV/cell”.
imho on this kind of charger, charging NiMH in series (like a battery pack) is not the best thing to do. what if cell1 is 50% full, cell2 is 10% full, cell3 is half-defective, cell4 is 90% full. cell5 has a higher capacity than cell1-4, and cell6 doesn’t take a charge? then how will the termination work? This scenario is true for older cell packs.

The best scenario would be: each cell gets monitored individually, as in the balance charging of LiPo battery packs.