Imax B6AC vs Others

Crimp Daddy

Crimp Daddy

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I was just curious as to why theImaxB6AC is so popular?

I only ask because I was into RC stuff well before cell testing, and chargers like iCharger was considered top of the line or from a quality and feature standpoint, VERY good.

Turnigy and FMA chargers are also very popular in those circles, but it appears most of the cell tester people are buying the Imax. Was that only because it was showcased on YouTube by people like Jehu, or is there something I am missing. Also considering the risk of clones, there are a lot of other brands out there.

I only ask because I was about to buy a 3-4 more iChargers... specifically a iCharger3010b for my 10S and high amperage charging, and a 106B for individual cell testing.

I already have a 208B and its been absolutely fantastic over the years. Lots of control, IR testing, termination voltage adjustment to 0.01v, PC / computer interface for graphing and logging... lots of stuff.
 
i think its just because of the price. the b6 can do everything you need but with limits. only 6s, only 5amp on the ac version, limited discharge amps.

the clones you get for eur 25,-, the original for ~50,-. the icharger goes for eur 150,-.

i have one b6 clone and a 208b. b6 is fine, 208b is excellent, both have their area of use...

i use the 208b for a 150Ah pack for charging (20A) and discharging (15A), you cant do this with the b6!

depends on what you need

karl
 
My very first charger was a Turnigy Accucel 6, and I later added the iCharger.

The Accucel 6 is probably in about the same league as the Imax and is eur 16 / $20 USD. I think its another contender for the people who need a budget option. It too is no iCharger, but for the basic functions, its all there.

The iCharger allows for thermal monitoring of the cell, thermal cut-off, external loads, regenerative charging, and a mess of other things, but you are right, it does come at a price. The PC logging is quite nice as you can capture data the plot graphs.

Perhaps Ill try a Imax to just to get some firsthand experience with it, does it have any thermal monitoring? I was tempted to get a bank of Accucel chargers for cell testing as the price isnt bad but Ill try the Imax B6 first.

I also read that the Turnigy Reaktor is a clone or an OEM of the iCharger 206B, but things may have changed. People were loading iCharger firmware onto it, and use used the same PC logging software, also at a much reduced price., probably somewhere in line with a real Imax charger.

The iCharger voltage readings are deal on accurate with my Fluke DMM, along with my other test equipment and I put a lot of value into that. Ideally I want to get a bank of 106B units as that is the most affordable for cell testing, but still expensive compare to the competition.

Lots of options out there, but the Imax has really shot up in popularity in the 18650 circles cut im guessing its due to many of the cell harvesting and battery videos.

Still weighing options I also need to test accuracy and performance compared to liitokala 500 and Opus units. For the money I could be processing a lot faster using those but its a mixed bag from what I read. The Internal Resistance testing results are poor, so I would most likely still do all of that on my iCharger.
 
Interesting, never seen that one before. looks pretty cool, but it appears to be a pretty basic balance charger with a REALLY nice screen. It doesn't appear to have any of the advanced features of some of the others unfortunately.

Just curious but have you ever did any accuracy testing on the cell voltage vs the displayed voltage?

Here is the manual for a 208B which shows a lot of its capability beyond charging.
https://www.icharger.co.nz/assets/brochures/i206b.pdf
 
The IMAX B6 is a very universal charger for different chemistries and runs on DC and AC. Decent quality, good feature set and a decent price. It's used alot in the RC community as well.
iChargers are great but they are completely over the top and for the majority of RC people. Only very few people use these. Obviously you can't charge your 10s batteries with a B6 but many people don't use anything like 10s batteries.
 
Silly question time... from a complete new guy.

I am acquiring some YUASA LEV40 Lithium prismatic cells. I am yet to get my solar charging setup operational so am looking for a 240 volt AC charger to charge either individual cells or packs of cells. The YUASA LEV40 will most likely be from a Mitsubishi Outlander, so come in 10 packs of 8 cells, so charging the pack of 8 would be beneficial, but not critical.

Individual YUASA LEV40 cell specs are:-
- nominal voltage 3.75V
- operating voltage range 2.75 to 4.1V

Open to advice or options. Thanks in advance.

Thanks, Mark
 
I got mine (b6ac clone with power source 6.0A 22,2v), some weeks ago and I'm really happy with it. A lot of people shows it on RC youtube videos.
I got it from bangood for 26.95, and it has 5/5 stars over 400 reviews.
 
You get what you pay for when it comes to chargers. i have destroyed way to many B6 clones and will never buy another one. For me its all on iChargers. They have proven to be alot tougher and can withstand higher currents.

So for testing or charing above its up to you to decide. 6A from a B6 isnt much... I would go for a 10-40A iCharger or other instead.
 
Since I have started playing around with EV cells I realize that I needed much greater power handling capability, I would invest in a beefy charger of good quality. Performance , features, and accuracy matter to me. My iCharger termination voltages are spot on, and highly adjustable.

iCharger and FMA PowerLab are the only two brands that interest me right now when it comes to buying hobby chargers... I'm sure there are others, but I haven't had a need to look for something else.

If you want to do it right consider the charger an investment. Its a necessary tool for battery excellence.
 
There are more devices out there that are highly recommendable. While it's certainly not wrong to just buy an iCharger there are other options. Hitec makes decent stuff, also as an OEM for others like SkyRC (some units, not all). SkyRC also offers a lot of other devices besides the IMAX B6 series and they can be recommended as well. In the high end market there is also the Pulsar 3, but I think that might not be available worldwide. Same for the Hitec units by the way.

Under the Hyperion and Turnigy and whatnot brands from China you also often find units made by some OEM like Hitec.

gregoinc said:
Silly question time... from a complete new guy.

I am acquiring some YUASA LEV40 Lithium prismatic cells. I am yet to get my solar charging setup operational so am looking for a 240 volt AC charger to charge either individual cells or packs of cells. The YUASA LEV40 will most likely be from a Mitsubishi Outlander, so come in 10 packs of 8 cells, so charging the pack of 8 would be beneficial, but not critical.

Individual YUASA LEV40 cell specs are:-
- nominal voltage 3.75V
- operating voltage range 2.75 to 4.1V

Open to advice or options. Thanks in advance.

Thanks, Mark
Click to expand...

These packs with 8 cells each, are they in parallel or in series? This has a huge impact on the choice of charger.
 
I have two Turnigy Accucell 6 chargers (probably similar league as IMAX B6 CLONE) and really are pretty great for the price but compared to the iCharger there was a pretty significant difference. It took me years later and owning an iCharger to realize what all the fuss was about. Glad I made the upgrade, but it was primarily for the PC logging / graphing capability but it was a good deal more charger as well from a power, feature, and accuracy standpoint.

The Turnigy Reaktor at one point it time was an OEM / rebranded iCharger 206B at a much better price. You could use the same firmware on it, but it appears that no longer seems the case.

SkyRC makes some pretty nice higher end items as well but I have never used any of their items.

The entire point of an RC charger is customizable parameters, power, and control. Not all are built equal even though they look similar. Regen discharge, external resistive load capacity for testing, IR testing, you can do a lot more with one than a low end hobby charger or a Opus / Lii-500.

DarkRaven said:
These packs with 8 cells each, are they in parallel or in series? This has a huge impact on the choice of charger.
Click to expand...

That's a solid question...
 
Thanks for the advice guys, really appreciate it.

Right now I have a choice whether the batteries are serial or parallel. But ultimately the cells will be going into a 48 volt off grid solar system, so perhaps I should simulate that now? To acheive 48 volts with these batteries I am pretty sure I would need 16s, but if that is impractical then I could easily charge a cell at a time, or even 8s or 8p.

I intend to sell excess cells that I wont use, so the charger will be primarily to make sure whatever I am selling is charged and tested. Last thing I want is to pass on a faulty cell. So the charger just needs to be a practical tool for the reasons above, and doesn't need to be the gold level.
 
16s would be for LiFePO4 With those cells, you would be looking for 14s if you wanted to try and match lead acid voltages, or 15s depending on which inverter you choose to push for a higher efficiency curve. I guess 16s works fine to if the inverter can handle the higher input (65.6vdc) but that seems to be on the high end.

Being able to configure the cells series or parallel is a nice flexibility to have I am dealing with 5S modules so I kind of have to use a balance charger. You could even test them just like individual 18650 cells but it would take forever.

You dont need a balance charger per say, but I would still find something that can move a lot of charge and discharge amperage otherwise you are going to be at it for a while.

Alternately build the system you want, add inverter/chargers, and get a quality shunt like Victron item and throw a load on it and measure capacity that way while monitoring individual cell voltages (which can be done with a CellLog, logging hobby charger, or even a decent BMS)

That said, you could probably even use a TP4056 and Opus if you really wanted to, but im sure it would just take ages to do.

Unlike laptop cells, the good thing about EV cells is everything most likely came from the same pack, or would at least be pretty reasonable matched in terms of characteristics, cycle life, capacity, and all that good stuff.
 
Thanks for the advice Crimp Daddy, I am totally out of my depth on this one. But I work in technology, so I'll just figure it out. Right now I am waiting for delivery of the cells, so depending on how long that will take may determine what I have available for running/testing the cells.

Electrician is coming tomorrow to complete the power cabling, so I will then focus on getting the PV system up and running. Assuming the cells arrive before the PV is complete it wouldbe nice to have a charger/tester to test each cell individually (80 in total), so I will focus on a charger for that in the first instance.

At 40Ah and approx 3.75 volt each I hope it should be relatively easy to find a suitable charger unit.

EDIT: Found a V2 version of theiMAX B6AC V2charger, has anyone tried it?

Thanks again, Mark
 
emiliozv said:
I got mine (b6ac clone with power source 6.0A 22,2v), some weeks ago and I'm really happy with it. A lot of people shows it on RC youtube videos.
I got it from bangood for 26.95, and it has 5/5 stars over 400 reviews.
Click to expand...

Crap! It has just stopped working. Maybe I deserved it, but I'm gonna complain, what a pain!

image_kvghzc.jpg
 
gregoinc said:
EDIT: Found a V2 version of theiMAX B6AC V2charger, has anyone tried it?
Click to expand...

It's basically just a refresh of the original version. Nothing drastically has changed. I think it was mainly to do something against the clones. If anyone wants to buy a B6AC now you buy the V2.
 
DarkRaven said:
It's basically just a refresh of the original version. Nothing drastically has changed. I think it was mainly to do something against the clones. If anyone wants to buy a B6AC now you buy the V2.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the feedback, looks like I'll grab a B6AC V2.
 
My V2 is more than 2 years old, and has had 1000's of hours of run time. In the last two weeks its been doing about 3 amps charging constantly love it! out lasted everything
 
hbpowerwall said:
My V2 is more than 2 years old, and has had 1000's of hours of run time. In the last two weeks its been doing about 3 amps charging constantly love it! out lasted everything
Click to expand...

Thanks. Sounds like a glowing recommendation. I've just ordered a V2 off eBay, so once my EV battery pack arrives I will put it to good use.
 
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