Welcome to the Advanced Radio I-Charger. The worlds first Automatic Intelligent charger designed to mount directly in your giant scale model.
Gone are the days when you had to carry a charger to the field. All you need with the Advanced Radio I-Charger is a 12 volt DC power supply.
I-Charge handles up to 4 x 2 cell Life, Lion and/and Lipo chemistry. You simply set the chemistry on the slider switch plug in your battery and when ready to charge your batteries simply connect 12 volts. It is that simple.
The Advanced Radio AR I-Charger can be purchased in 2 battery pack, 3 battery pack or 4 battery pack configuration and comes ready to charge your receiver, ECU and ignition batteries.
Click Here to Download I Charge Instructions
The Design.
During the design phase the challenge was to deliver a light weight compact charger that offered features of a much larger charger. A charger that can be mounted in your model. Combining micro size, large charge current and best practice safety design was a challenging task. We selected a design for what we know as best practice for safety charging and used only the highest quality components. Each charge board in the I-Charger stack is a separate advanced monolithic battery charger. Many other multi charger designs use a cheaper multiplexed battery charging circuit. With the I-Charger each battery is monitored by it's own separate charge board. This design while expensive provides the best charging and safety option for your very expensive model.
How it works.
After setting up the desired battery pack chemistry (Life, Lion, LiPo) via a small slider switch, you simply connect a 12 volt power supply to the I-Charger.
Once power is applied the charger will:
- Automatically enter a battery precondition mode where it tests the battery voltage. If the battery voltage is low the charge current is reduced to 15% of the programmed maximum and applied until battery voltage reaches 70% of expected fully charged float voltage.
- Once the battery voltage reaches 70% of the expected fully charged float voltage I-Charger automatically increases maximum charge current to the full charge value (up to 2A).
- I-Charge will then charge the battery pack a full current until expected fully charged float voltage is reached.
- At reaching expected fully charged float voltage I-Charge reduces high charge current proportionally as the battery internal resistance increases.
- At 90% of capacity (C/10) the battery charge algorithm enters a trickle charge state and will stay in the trickle charge state for up to 3 hours. This allows a battery charge state to reach the 100% capacity. NOTE: Most hobby chargers end at 90 - 95 % of actual battery capacity. I-Charger will take the capacity all the way to 100%.
- If less than 97.5% of capacity is reached after the 3 hour period then I-Charger then re-initiates, and charging continues for another full cycle. This means you are guaranteed to know that you battery is fully charged at all times.
- As long as power is supplied to the charger the I-Charger will monitor the battery voltage and if the battery voltage falls to more than 2.5% of the fully charged float voltage the charge cycle will start again. This means you can leave I-Charger theoretically connected and permanently powered on to keep the battery topped up. PLEASE NOTE: While we have designed I-Charger with the upmost in safety a permanent power connection is not advised.
Charging Safety
Battery over temperature safety.
I-Charger have provision for Lithium battery temperature monitoring. This feature monitors battery pack temperature using the optional temperature sensor. You simply attach the temperature probe with tape and if the battery temperature moves outside a safe charging range of 0°C to 40°C, the I-Charger suspends charging and signals a fault condition (Red LED). Once temperature returns to the safe range then charging will continue.
Battery Bad Detection
I-Charger also supports bad battery detection, which triggers a system fault (Red LED) if a battery stays in precondition mode for more than one eighth (23 minutes) of the total charge cycle time.
Charger over temperature safety
During the charge process the I-Charger monitors each charger board individually. if the temperature of an individual charge board reaches a high temperature condition then the charge current on that charge board is reduced to maintain a safe operating temperature range. This applies to each individual charge board.
I-CHARGER MOUNTING POSITION PLEASE NOTE:
The Advanced Radio I-Charger will get hot when charging batteries. YOU MUST provide adequate space when mounting the I-Charger in your model. It is advised that you mount the I-Charger vertically so that thermal cooling is maximised. Failure to provide an adequate cooling environment will result in lower charge currents and a longer charge time.
While the I-Charger employes the utmost in safety design, Advanced Radio states that you should never leave Lithium batteries unattended while charging.
Click below to watch a demonstration on the I-Charger
I-Charge Specifications
- 32 bit Processor for crisp display and highest resolution in the industry.
- Bright full colour OLD for easy day time reading of pack voltage, instantaneous charge current and mAh charge amount into the pack
- Completely automatic charging simply connect 12 volts.
- Available 2 battery pack, 3 battery pack and 4 battery pack configuration.
- Charges at up to 2A per pack. Charge current is automatically selected by the advance charge algorithm.
- Auto on-board over heat function per pack limits charge current if temperature becomes too high.
- Optional external temperature sensors for charging LiPo pack. Automatically stops charge function if pack temperature climbs above 40C/100F. Charge function resumes when temperature decreases to safe working level.
- - Maximum input voltage 15 volts.
- Minimum input voltage 11 volts.
- Weight is only 78 grams 2.9oz.
- Dimensions (3 Stack Version) 62mm x 47mm x 35mm (2.4 x 1.86 x 1.43 inches).
- Supplied with DC Charge Jack for mounting to your model and DC plug for connecting to 12 volts.
