A drop-dead simple product to use with a battery-friendly charging sequence
AstroFlight makes an interesting line of products and one that I recently purchased is AstroFlight's Li-Poly Charger. This unit caught my eye because it's a 12 volt model – it can be used at home with a 12 volt power supply and on the road with a 12 volt plug (shown above).
Product Specifications
Cell Types
Lithium Polymer
Minimum Cells
One cell
Maximum Cells
Nine cells
Maximum Charge rate
9 amps
Minimum Charge rate
50 ma
Charge Time cut off
10 hours
Discharge Rate
1.25 amps
Discharge cut off
3 volts per cell
Current Display
50 ma to 10 amps
Voltage Display
0 volt to 40 volts
Charge time Display
hrs, min and seconds
Milliamp hour Display
0 to 95 amp hours
Supply Voltage
12 to 15 volts
Supply Current
0.1 to 16 amps
Table courtesy of AstroFlight
This charger not only charges but can discharge as well.
In Use
Once you change the plugs to fit your battery's configuration, using the charge is drop-dead simple. When first turned on, the cooling fan kicks in (noisy) and the charger beeps once to indicate it's in the first charging phase; the display shows this:
The "Amps Adjust" dial should be turned down to "0" when plugging in the battery – you'll see this:
The display indicates (top, left to right) that the charger is set to 0 amps charge, 3 cells in the battery, charging mode 1, the battery's voltage, the duration of the charge and the number of milliamp-hours of charge put into the battery pack – at this point, I have not turned the dial to match the battery's size – 2200 mah.
Matching the battery's capacity to the charge shows this:
There are three distinct charging phases:
In Phase 1, the charger will charging the battery for three minutes regardless of the battery voltage;
In Phase 2, the charging current will turn on and off at one minute intervals, continuing for 59 seconds then turning off for 1 second;
In Phase 3, the charging current is turned on and off periodically; when the resting battery voltage reaches 4.2 volts per cell, the battery is declared charged and charging stops.
AstroFlight Li-Poly Charger
A drop-dead simple product to use with a battery-friendly charging sequence
AstroFlight makes an interesting line of products and one that I recently purchased is AstroFlight's Li-Poly Charger. This unit caught my eye because it's a 12 volt model – it can be used at home with a 12 volt power supply and on the road with a 12 volt plug (shown above).
This charger not only charges but can discharge as well.
Once you change the plugs to fit your battery's configuration, using the charge is drop-dead simple. When first turned on, the cooling fan kicks in (noisy) and the charger beeps once to indicate it's in the first charging phase; the display shows this:
The "Amps Adjust" dial should be turned down to "0" when plugging in the battery – you'll see this:
The display indicates (top, left to right) that the charger is set to 0 amps charge, 3 cells in the battery, charging mode 1, the battery's voltage, the duration of the charge and the number of milliamp-hours of charge put into the battery pack – at this point, I have not turned the dial to match the battery's size – 2200 mah.
Matching the battery's capacity to the charge shows this:
There are three distinct charging phases: