I have multiple 2500mah-3000mah batteries that I'd like to start charging daily, but my charger can only charge one battery at a time and it takes forever, so I am looking for a new charger.
I've tried charging in parallel but the batteries don't charge to full.
Not sure, but what I am looking for might be unrealistic.
Does anyone know of any hobby charger that has 4(maybe even only 2) independent charging channels and can charge Li-po, NiMH, and NiCad at 3amps a cell?
Possible but it’s not exactly “independent channel”, instead you place them in series and set to balance charge in 2S to 6S. You will need to make a custom cell holder.
I had this setup with an icharge 106B+ with 6x 18650 holders from FT. I stopped using it after a while because it was not worth the time spent to setup the charge: manually set voltage, current and swap the leads to the numbers of cells i was charging. And also you can’t remove a single cell if the others haven’t finish.
Now I use Xtar VP2 and SP2 and I’m very happy with it. To me it charges just as good as the hobby charger but much more convenient, but this is only for li-ion.
The Opus 3100 v2.2 is a good charger with lots of improvements over the older versions, it has support for li-ion and nimh and a LCD display.
I've found a few of what I am looking for.
Chargers like:
Radio Control Planes, Drones, Cars, FPV, Quadcopters and more - Hobbyking
Radio Control Planes, Drones, Cars, FPV, Quadcopters and more - Hobbyking
Radio Control Planes, Drones, Cars, FPV, Quadcopters and more - Hobbyking
Amazon.com
Anyone know of anything cheaper?
I have a single channel iCharger. To charge or discharge a single cell is a chore because there no built-in cradle to connect the wires.
I share will34’s recommendation of the Opus BT-C3100 v2.2 charger/analyzer. It can do all that 4-ch hobbycharger can BUT without the hassle of connecting the cradles you will eventually have to connect, and currently at half the price at Gearbest.
Edit: Your product links still need a separate DC power supply.
Thank you for the suggestion.
I've been debating the Opus, but it has a max charge current of 1amp with 4 cells, 2 amps max with 1-2 cells.
When I get lazy with my hobby charger, I just use gator clamps, a thin piece of metal, and a magnet to connect a battery.
I already have a 12v DC power supply converted from a computer power supply.
The soon (hopefully) to be released SkyRC MC3000 charger-analyser looks like a good bet. Detailed discussion on CPF here:
To what voltages are your batteries charged in parallel? They should be getting fully charged, although the voltage does drop to 4.16-4.17V once the charging completes.
A 10amp or more hobby charger (to charge @2a/cell in parallel) is also quite expensive, and the links you gave cannot give you a total of 10a charging either. Better get two Opus, and you can charge up to 8x1A, or 4x2A, perhaps at a lesser total price .
Edit: The first product link is maybe good enough: Maximum Charge Current per port (though seems too good to be true): 6A or 2cells/port @3A/cell X 4 ports
I parallel charge using my Accucel 6 and I’ve never had problems with them not fulling charging. It only takes me a minute to set up 4 - 5 batteries to parallel charge as I connect the batteries using magnets to metal strips (one for the positive and one for the negative), and then clamp the positive and negative leads to the appropriate strip.
Thank you everyone for the replies.
I want to stay away from the slider type chargers because I charge odd sized batteries. Batteries like camera, camcorder, cellphone, battery packs, etc.
Even one like the Hitec X4 won't be able to do 4 cells at 3amp?
It says 1-6 cells at 1C max (with my Li-Po's, 1C= 3000mah) in the Charger Specifications section.
From link
Keeping the figures simple, 50w is 12A at 4.2v or 2A at 25.2 (6s*4.2V) this means each cell will receive 2A max.
If you want to charge at 3A per cell then you will only be able to charge 4 cells per channel, but that is still 16 cells charging at once 
Cheers David
Edit :- The 1C charge stated is the recommended max you should charge a cell at, not what the charger can shove into a cell.
Those spec are confusing as it doesn’t state on what is the 1C based on, it could be a 10Ah or 3Ah cell. But it says 50W each channel for a total of 200W output which means it can deliver ~10A each channel in single cell config. There will be no problem with the output because 3A is fairly low for a hobby charger, but make sure the internal power supply is able to keep up with the load.