For those of you who might be looking for a great multi battery charger and are not sure which model or what to get, the Common Sense RC Q6 AC/DC Balancing Charger may be the charger for you! For most of you if you are getting into the hobby, we all start out with a good single balancing charger and then when we mature in the hobby, get more planes, and especially more batteries, most of us become dissatisfied with having to wait on charging one battery at a time. The multi battery chargers are great at solving this problem.
One thing I was looking for in particular was an "all-in-one" charger that would be AC compatible. Most of the multi chargers available out there require that you also buy your own DC power source. While you can find these semi-inexpensive, there is still the cost of having to buy this separate unit and wire it to your multi charger. The Q6 AC/DC balancing charger from Common Sense is great in that it has its own power supply built in. This solves the problem of having to worry about purchasing a separate DC power supply. Also, you are not out in the dark if you have your own DC power supply with this unit either, because it also has the input plug for a DC power source as well, so it essentially has the best of both worlds.
Specifications:
- Operating Voltage Range: AC 110V, DC 11 to 18 Volts
- Charge Current: 0.1~5.0A
- Discharge Current: 0.1~1.0A
- Charge Power: 50 Watts per channel
- Discharge Power: 5 Watts per channel
- Cell Count: 1-15 NiCd/NiMH cells, 1-6 LiPo/Li-Ion/LiFe cells, 1-10 Lead-Acid cells (2-20V)
- Current Drain Balancing (LiPo): 250mA/cell
- Balance tolerance: ±0.01V
- Dimensions: 9 in. x 6.75 in. x 2.5 in.
- Weight: 51 oz.
This is a great charger. I have used it for a few charges so far on my LiPo batteries and it has performed flawlessly. The controls are very intuitive and it has four very bright and easy to read screens for each of the different LiPo battery channels which always keep you informed of where your batteries are in the charge process.
One slightly negative aspect of the Q6 is that it only comes with two balancing boards which are required for a balance charge on your LiPo's. However, this is a pretty common configuration with most multi battery chargers that I have seen on the market. It would be awesome if they were packaged with four balancing boards out of the box to compliment the four channels. Again this is on par with all multi chargers on the market as is certainly not exclusive to Common Sense RC. On a very positive note though, the unit includes multiple connectors for various connector types for your LiPo batteries.
The product can be found here at Common Sense RC: https://www.commonsenserc.com/product_info.php?products_id=3010
Video Review
