Intellect Volt Premium M3 Airsoft Battery Smart Charger Instructions

This guide deals with a lot of the maths behind charging NiMH, so if that's not for you, switch off now. It doesn't deal with NiCad, Li-Ion or anything else.

EDIT: Crikey, at that place'south a lot here isn't at that place. Before you lot start reading, have the following data to hand.

1) Your battery's voltage (V).

2) Your bombardment's output rating (mA/h). It could be 1100mA/h, 2200mA/s, yourbattery'due south#mA/h only expect to see a number in the k's for an airsoft bombardment.

iii) Your charger'southward output in milliamps (mA) for the voltage of the battery y'all are charging. Warning: Your charger may non quote an output current for the exact voltage you wish to accuse. If it's a cheap charger, sentinel out. Output electric current goes down equally voltage goes upward and up equally voltage goes down in low quality chargers.

Your battery's rating is information technology'southward capacity. The nomenclature for this is C. For example, my battery has a 3300mA/h rating, (theoretically it can discharge 3300milliamps in an hour), so 3300 is to me, C. My friend has an 1150 mA/h battery, her "C" is 1150.

IMPORTANT FACT: This mA/h effigy relates to a single cell of your battery. NiMh battery cells give out approx one.2 volts. You tin can't buy a single eight.iv volt NiMh battery jail cell. What you lot have to do (and unremarkably the manufacturers practice this for u.s.a. airsofters) is to is link them together in serial and add together the voltages upwards. So...

ane cell = i.2v

ii cells = 2.4v

3 cells = 3.6v

4 cells = 4.8v

5 cells = 6v

6 cells = vii.2v

7 cells = viii.4v

8 cells = ix.6v

ix cells = 10.8v

ten cells = 12v

etc..

This is my original battery. Each cell is one.2v 3300mA/h and there are seven of them. It's an 8.4 volt battery.

This is my new bombardment. Each jail cell is ane.2v 3300mA/h and there are eight of them. It'south an nine.vi volt battery.

You become the idea? The higher the voltage, the more cells you demand. And loftier voltage doesn't mean high capacity. You can have a 9.6v 1500mA/h battery and a beefier 6v 5000mA/H battery.

Okay, there are several ways you lot can accuse a NiMh battery: Trickle, boring, rapid, fast and ultra-fast.

(Remember that rating "C", I'm going to refer to it a lot!)

TRICKLE CHARGING

NiMh batteries lose their accuse with fourth dimension. Typically a expert i volition lose 1% a day. A poor-quality or poor condition bombardment may well lose more. (Actually there are some which DON'T lose their charge at 1% a day, which complicates things a bit, but they are not the norm.) Trickle charge is basically used to counteract this loss and go along the battery fully charged, Non to charge a battery that is depleted. The charging rate for trickle charging is around C/40. And then for my battery that's 3300/40 which is a charging charge per unit of 82.5mA (at 8.four volts).

Important FACT: You need to match your charger to your battery!!!

If I employ my bombardment's 82.5mA trickle accuse rate on my friend's 1150mA/h battery, I'll be charging hers at C/xiv, which is not trickle-charging. It is pretty much.....

SLOW CHARGING

Slow charging is how NiMh batteries love to be charged, but equally its name suggests it is slow. The charge charge per unit for slow charging is C/10, or ten% of the battery'south chapters. Then for me, that'due south 3300/10=330mA. But for how long? Batteries are not like a glass of h2o. Y'all can't put some in and get out everything y'all put in. Due to losses you have to put in 150% of what you expect get out of a NiMh bombardment. (Now you know why people say "Y'all have to times it by 1.5). And then as well as the ten hours I need to accuse just to match the output (330mA * 10 hours = 3300mA/h) I also need to charge for another 5 hours to bring me upwardly to the 150%. So that's 15 hours given a perfect C/10 charge rate.

But in the real globe, you become a charger with a rating. This is the info I got with my charger.

So let'southward translate that into employ. It'south 200mA at 8.4v. So that's it's output for my battery. (the college the voltage, the lower the mA in inexpensive chargers). As I explained before, I need 330mA/h for a 10% ho-hum accuse, so I only accept a charge charge per unit of half-dozen% or 0.06C with this 200mA/h charger. This means I have to accuse for 3300mA/h / 200mA = sixteen.5 hours PLUS the extra 50% to counteract the losses, which ends up at 24 hours 45 minutes.

Why the hell would anyone want to dull charge? Well there's at least 1 good reason. Every bit batteries end their charge and start to overcharge, they kickoff releasing gasses internally. Near NiMh cells take an inbuilt power to reabsorb these gasses and so long equally they exercise not overwhelm that ability either past too high a accuse electric current or overcharging for too long. Judge what their ability is designed to be able to deal with? You got it! A charge rate of about 10%. More than that and they overheat and start to go damaged. This is why most OEM chargers are irksome chargers. Information technology means the batteries can be moderately overcharged without much run a risk of bombardment damage and subsequent customer acrimony with the shouting and biting etc. It also explains why y'all get pretty vague charging advice with your wearisome charger. "Until it gets too hot!" seems to be a common theme, and it's pretty much the truth. Now you know why. Only I am former and haven't got the time to irksome charge, which brings me on to…..

RAPID CHARGING

Rapid charging is seen equally typically 0.3C – 0.5C., or thirty% to 50% of the battery'southward chapters. Peradventure 60% also. The aforementioned maths applies, merely now things are getting more than manageable. If I accuse at 0.5C, that's 3300/two=1650mA for ii hours plus the fifty% extra for losses is three hours.

USEFUL FACT: Have you noticed how the charge time is simply the charge rate denominator *1.5? Just a thought….

Well I tin live with 3 hours charge time, so I've ordered a rapid charger which is switchable between thou/2000mA.

The bad news is that the prissy round theoretical 1C and 0.1C numbers have to become out of the window and I bargain with the 1000/2000mA rates what I've got. The good news is that this is a quality charger and can evangelize 1000/2000mA at 6-12v, and then that'south nice.

To piece of work out the charge rate of my charger, I divide the charger's outputs by my battery rating. Which is one thousand/3300=0.3C and 2000/3300=0.61C. Okay, those are dainty rapid charge rates then I've got the right charger for my battery if I want to rapid-accuse.

To work out my charge TIMES, I divide my battery rating past the charger ratings and multiply the number past ane.5 to add together in the l% losses charge.

So that's (3300/g)*one.5=4h57m and (3300/2000)*1.five=2h28m. I tin alive with that.

At this accuse rate, I'll need to make sure I accuse for no longer than I'g supposed to or I'll cook my bombardment. I'll would have needed a timer plug set to the correct fourth dimension, but I've ordered a smart charger which detects the little electric twitch in the NiMh cell when it's fully charged and changes from RAPID to TRICKLE accuse. (Incidentally, it would be overnice if my "smart" charger too had a temperature probe to prevent overheating, but it doesn't. If you're ownership a smart charger, ane with a temperature probe is a very safe bet, every bit just sometimes, the piffling electrical twitch in the battery is non detected at the lower terminate of the range. With that in mind, I'll e'er exist charging mine at 2000mA. This forces a larger voltage "twitch" when fully charged and should make sure the detection circuitry works reliably and the charger switches to trickle accuse when it should.)

Merely, perhaps you desire your battery fully charged as fast as possible without risking impairment to your battery?! Which brings me to….

FAST CHARGING

Fast charging is basically charging at 1C. And then my 3300mA/H battery will take a charge of 3300mA for ane 60 minutes, plus the 50% which takes it upward to 1h30m. Likewise my friend's 1150mA/H battery volition take a 1C charge of 1150mA for i.five hours.

USEFUL FACT: Meet how that charge rate *i.5 is nevertheless working at 1C?

IMPORTANT FACT: Annotation how with my charger, the RAPID charge rate of 0.3C on my 1000mA output for my 3300mA/H battery becomes a FAST charge rate of 0.87C on my friend'south 1150mA/h battery. And as well annotation how the RAPID charge rate of 0.61C on the 2000mA charger output for my 3300mA/h bombardment becomes a one.74C charge charge per unit on her 1150mA/H battery? Which brings me to….

ULTRA FAST CHARGING

Ultra fast charging is a charge rate of 1C-10C. At this charge rate, you are putting quite some stress on your battery, so you'll demand to give information technology some TLC in the form of a slow charge every now and then. It tin be done simply do I desire to put effectually thirty amps into my bombardment to charge it at 10C? I'll pass cheers.

Determination

Remember, a NiMh is non for life. Yous will probably become well under 1000 charge cycles, then don't think that you'll become to keep your batteries in perfect condition forever if you only ever slow accuse. It won't happen. Similar us, batteries all get old and dice, sooner or later.

There are other bug, such as crystalisation, but it's not a large upshot. The bottom line is to slow accuse now and so, but rapid or fast charging as the norm is perfectly fine, and ultra-fast charging is possible with intendance. Simply to charge your bombardment properly, YOU MUST KNOW THE RATING OF BOTH YOUR Bombardment AND CHARGER.

That'southward all folks.