Which server power supply did you decide on?
I have a few busted pc power supplies I may try to repair too. Hopefully their only problem is blown capacitors.
Ahh, perfect. If you have any questions about modding the DPS-600PB, just ask me here, and I will be able to answer your questions, as I already know everything there is to know about these things. I have modded a half dozen of them, and use 3 of them with my current chargers. Below are some pictures of my Thunder T610 setup is what I use for charging my Li-ion batteries and my smaller lipo batteries, as it can charge up to 10 amps, and discharge up to 5 amps. I use my Thunder 620 for charging larger lipo batteries at up to 20 amps, and for discharging up to 20 amps. My Thunder 620 charger is hooked up to a serial pair of DPS-600PB power supplies, which puts out over 1000 watts and 24.9 volts.
Again, don’t be afraid to ask me any questions about these power supplies, as it might save you hours of sifting through the hundreds of pages of threads about these power supplies.
P.S. I built my own charging cradle that houses my 18650 batteries. I have tested it up to 10 amps of discharge with no heating of contacts. My previous charging cradle burned out at 5 amps, when the springs heated until they melted. I will also be building a higher amp cradle that uses copper for contacts, but for now, this one works fine and uses brass for contacts.
Thank you. I'll really appreciate help with modding the server power supply.
I tried looking at one of my pc power supplies earlier today, but its problem isn't with a capacitor. Too bad because that'd be an easy fix for me. I may troubleshoot and fix it anyway to gain the experience even though it'll probably be cheaper to buy a new one. I'll take a look at a second one this weekend. I think I have more power supplies around the house too.
One of our beloved forum vendors hooked me up with a base for building a charging cradle. I hesitate to mention their name without their approval because I don't know that they want to get in the habit of doing this. I only mention it as an example of why we should support vendors that go beyond the initial sale. I'd like to go with copper all the way to the battery contacts, but I'll have to see how badly that affects the sliders.
I'll build a single cell charging cradle like yours too. What about copper nails instead of screws? Put the head towards the battery with a spring behind it for tension.
I'm also thinking about using aluminum on the bottom and side to aid with heat dispersion. Home Depot has aluminum L and U stock in the hardware section that should work well for this. Heat shouldn't be a problem yet, but I could see it being a problem if I get a charger capable of 30A discharge.
I want to use cradles as much as possible. The idea of cables that can come loose and short makes me too uncomfortable.
Don’t ever think about heat dissipation with any lithium batteries. What I mean is, you should only use heat as an indicator. If you are getting any heat either charging or discharging, then you are pushing the batteries too much and should reduce the current. Pushing lithium batteries hard enough to cause heating, is very dangerous. If you get any heat when discharging a Li-ion flashlight battery and are still within the rated discharge current, then it’s most likely the battery contacts that are causing resistance and are heating up and transfering that heat into the battery.
Yea, a charging cradle with all copper contacts would be a great thing. Even more important, is that I noticed is that a flat battery contact really sucks with cylindrical batteries. With a flat battery contact, only one TINY spot will hit the battery contact at one time, as neither surface will be perfectly mated to one another. A round ring contact (with spring pressure) is much better at getting a good contact. I like using the end of a copper ring terminal, soldered to whatever contact I am using.
Good point on heat.
I was going to try wrapping copper braid around the contact points of my charger cradle? Like a spring mod, but for a cradle.
Any mods are going to probably be better than nothing. I don’t know about copper braid itself being the actual contact though. It might be awesome, I am just not sure, as I have no experience. I know slot cars use copper braid as their electrical contact at pretty high current.
I never got the iCharger, but at least I'm learning how to use what I got. The AC680 outputs data to a computer via a tab delimited text file. This can be imported into Excel and graphed. Excel makes getting the format for the time to work correctly, so I wasted a lot of time trying to figure it out, using formulas and macros, but I finally got it.
I'm not balance charging yet. I have a 3x18650 cradle in the mail, which is about all this charger can handle. That should save a LOT of time since right now I can barely handle 2 cells per day if I charge them full, do a discharge test, then charge them back to storage capacity.
I mentioned it in another thread, but I found some open source firmware that's supposed to add internal resistance capabilities to this type of charger, and also allows logging on the pc to be done with Logview instead of their unstable software. I'm not sure the latter is so much better since Logview is in german, and while there's an english option, there's a lot of things that aren't translated.
Then I need to see about getting those power supplies converted.
This graph is a little better, but setting up a third vertical axis in Excel is proving to be too difficult.
I’m struggling to find a good 18650 holder, one with low contact resistance. The home made one from drdanke looks nice!
Also, hobbyking just released the Turnigy reaktor for 70 bucks, which is a copy of the icharger 206B. Has anyone tried it yet?
I'm on the verge of buying that new charger. I have way too many cells for the AC680 to handle. At 1.3A charge, I can only charge about 6 cells a day. I'd be charging for weeks this way. Drdanke's cradle looks nice. If you have an i4, you attach wire to the contact points. I used solder wick. Use that to attach power and balance leads with alligator, then you'll have a nice cradle for your hobby charger, but you can take off the wiring if you want to use the i4 normally.
I have Turnigy Reaktor 300W Radio Control Planes, Drones, Cars, FPV, Quadcopters and more - Hobbyking
It is quality clone of icharger 206b, inside everything the same, software is also the same (form icharger) but price is lower 
What about the noise? Sometimes in clones they put cheap fans.
What about the updates? Can you upgrade the firmware when ICharger releases a new version?
What are the negative points of this charger in your opinion?
Thanks a lot for your input, I’m looking at this charger to replace my Accucel 6 and there are not a lot of review of the Reaktor. 
Cooling fan start working only if charger going warm. Normally in small charging or discharging power fan is off.
Charger adjusting fan speed to the situation, and you can completely off fan in options.
Software is exactly the same like in icharger. I do not do any updates for now.
In my charger software version is V3.14 206B and as far as I know that is the newest software.
USB working with no problems, I tested with LabView and working good. Just select icharger 206b in charger model.
USB Driver for windows xp/2003/vista/7 is updated, and this is the link: http://www.jun-si.com/UploadFiles/USB_driver.rar
Accuracy of voltage and current is very good too, tested with good class DMM.
Charger was calibrated .
For the price that charger is the best
Thank you so much for your feedback maciex93.
The xbox power supply is in action, and I'm finally getting around to modding this power supply too. I'm going to use servo leads to short the wires. I'll keep the fan at full speed for now. 8awg wires split and soldered into the spade connections. Later on I'll clean it up with some binding posts, and connect the power and fan wires to a pair of buttons or toggle switches. I might have some questions when I do that and get a second one to run at 24V.
The AC680 disappointed just now. It can't actually do a 2A discharge. It starts and hits 2A for a few seconds, then current drops to near zero indefinitely.
What cell did you test?
I tried to test a Samsung INR18650-20R.
Hey leaftye, I just received an AC680 and just started using it (simple single 18650 cell setup). I've just started doing a 2A discharge test and am seeing exactly what you described above - current is high for a second or two, then drops to 0.03A! I've let it run there for awhile now and no difference. Have you figured anything out since your last post? I know you also have a different charger now, so maybe you abandoned this one.
Thanks,
Garry
I've found that I can discharge up to 1.5A on mine without it kicking down to 0.03A.
-Garry