B6 Balance Charger/Discharger with Power Supply Lipo Battery Charger RC Car Battery Charger for 1S-6S LiPo Lilon Life 1S-15S NiCd NiMh Pb RC Battery

Cheap and great so far!!

Is not as universal as it promised. But seems to work very well. The "Fast Charge" is RIDICULOUS!!!

Charger does exactly what it's supposed to quick and very efficient.

Burnt out after 1 month.

I own several RC cars and several chargers this one is now my go to. Easy to use and fast charging

I really like this charger it was very inexpensive but still a quality product. Works well nice/easy user interface. Simple to understand. Works great charges my batteries to their full potential and keeps them healthy.

This is a clone of the Imax B6 charger, a very common battery charger. They don’t try to hide it; the box and manual all say “Imax B6” and it even says “SkyRC Imax B6” when you power it on. It is not an *exact* clone though; it uses a different MCU and does away with some measurement ICs to save cost.The voltage calibration on both the main leads and the balance port is fairly accurate. The current measurement is *way* off though. Charge currents were about 10%-20% lower than indicated, and discharge current was only half what was indicated. This isn’t dangerous, but it means that batteries will charge slower and the capacity measurements will be inflated.Unlike more modern “smart” chargers, this firmware does not use the balance leads to account for voltage drop over the charge leads. This issue, combined with the poor current calibration, means that it will be slower to charge a battery than a modern charger with better firmware. Unfortunately, this clone uses a CMS32L051 MCU, and you cannot flash cheali-charger onto it. So you’re stuck with the firmware it comes with.To prove my point, I charged the same battery on this charger and another, properly calibrated cheali charger. Same starting voltage, same current rate, balance leads connected. This charger took 26% longer, and charged to a lower voltage.The included power supply is not powerful enough. This charger is capable of 80W, but the power brick can only put out 60W. This means that if you try to charge a 3S or higher pack at maximum current, it will “brown-out” and restart. Using a better power supply solves the problem. It is unfortunate that the max input voltage is only 18v, because many laptop power supplies are 19v and are easy to come by.It is capable of charging Li-ion, LiFePO4, and LiHV batteries, but you have to switch voltages in the charger settings, rather than from the main screen, which is tedious. The software also doesn’t measure internal resistance, which modern chargers can do.The discharge rating is a little disingenuous. The maximum discharge current is listed as 2 amps, but it is limited to 10 watts, which means that you can only get 2 amps of discharge on a one-cell battery. Additionally, the manual claims it can do 300mA of balance current, but my meter only showed 125mA.In conclusion, I’m knocking off two stars: one for the underpowered PSU, and one for the bad firmware and calibration that will lead to slow charging.Test results:Voltage Tests:- 2S charge leads: indicated: 7.70v, actual: 7.70v- 6S charge leads: indicated: 23.06v, actual: 23.00v- 6S balance cell 1: indicated: 3.84v, actual: 3.835v- 6S balance cell 2: indicated: 3.84v, actual: 3.839v- 6S balance cell 3: indicated: 3.84v, actual: 3.838v- 6S balance cell 4: indicated: 3.84v, actual: 3.839v- 6S balance cell 5: indicated: 3.84v, actual: 3.840v- 6S balance cell 6: indicated: 3.83v, actual: 3.831vCurrent Tests:- 2S Charge slow: indicated: 0.5A, actual: 0.452A- 2S Charge fast: indicated: 6.0A, actual: 5.270A- 6S Charge slow: indicated: 0.5A, actual: 0.476A- 6S Charge fast: indicated: 3.3A, actual: 3.065A- 2S Discharge slow: indicated: 0.2A, actual: 0.109A- 2S Discharge fast: indicated: 1.2A, actual: 0.600A- 6S Discharge slow: indicated: 0.2A, actual, 0.098A- 6S Discharge fast: indicated: 0.4A, actual: 0.178A- Balance current: 125mA

Says bad connection even with brand new batteries