RC India

Hi friends,,
I have setup my Turnigy accucel 6 charger with a spare 400W PC SMPS that I had.The instructions with photo will follow this post..

Step 1 : Desolder or cut the wire to the crocodile clips.

Step 2 : Strip the wire.

Step 3 : Open up your SMPS and find the +12V (yellow wire) and Gnd or 0V (black wire) connections on the PCB.

Step 4 : Cut or desolder the other wires only if you donot need them anymore  
  I just left them uncut.

Step 5: Solder the red wire of the input power cable of charger to the +12V area and the black wire to Gnd area
 I had space to insert the wires into the PCB .but if you don't have space you can solder the wire on the underside (caution: make sure the wires donot touch the case of the smps and each other too)

Step 6 : Note the Green wire from SMPS - it is used to turn ON the SMPS.

Step 7 : Turn ON the power switch of the SMPS ...but the Fan will not run...Now short the green wire with any of the black wire...now the powersupply is ON

Step 8 : Check whether the charger turns ON.

Caution: before connecting the input to the Charger double check ever connection for polarity

Step 9: Charge your batteries

Testing the power supply and charger at maximum load...

Without charger charging any battery the output voltage is 12.02V
When charging a 4S battery 16.09V @ 3.1A = 49.9 W ~ 50W(max charging power of charger)  the voltage drop at the powersupply due to this load was about ~ 0.5V .

Very useful. Thanks. :)

If I send you my Triton charger, will you please make me an identical set up? I am willing to pay for all charges, including your labour/efforts. It is a request. Please PM me your decision.

At the moment, I am using an UPS battery and I find that cumbersome.

Hello VC. You get an adaptor for 250 Rs SMPS 12 volt 3.5 Amps.....
Get that its simple and sober. Although this idea is good if you have a spare comp supply else it will be expensive.

400W PC smps can be had for under Rs. 400 easily. But since they are quite heavy, shipping may become quite expensive. If you do not want to open it up then cut of all the yellow, black and red wires from the connectors. Club the same coloured wires together and solder the ends. Put your choice of connectors on them. Yellow is +12V (10 A at 9.5V for a 400Wsmps, not regulated), Red is +5V (Regulated, over 18A), and black is ground. There are wires which supply -12,-5,+3.3 volts but these are low powered ones and unfused. I use the 12V for for my charger and bigger hot wire cutter and 5V for the smaller cutter.

One can get an 12V 3A SMPS but a 400W SMPS can be used without any fear of frying the powersupply by overloading.
Also you can use this powersupply with 4 port charger or any higher power chargers.

You can get a second hand SMPS from local computer shops for Rs250. or Even a new one under Rs500

@lastrites - if you cut and club the wires together the wires that are just 22AWG and long about 30cms or more...so the voltage drop was well above 2V and charger showed "input voltage error" now it never ever shows "input voltage error"

Mine are about 15cm and with 5 wires I get little to no voltage drop ;D

VC this is what ratsaurabh is talking about ...
I got it Charali - so it is quite commonly available.

this is better than an smps for casual charging at upto 4A

plugs are my own to suit charger

+1. I use a smps cause I have lots of them. This more compact and suited to this application. Although the power from these is not as clean as that from an smps, a large cap in parallel solves it(though its not that necessary to put one)

Technically the laptop power supplies shown here are also Switched Mode Power Supplies lovingly called SMPS. Getting one across the counters are easy. However if one plans to charge batteries such as 5000mah lipos at 1c, most of the laptop ones starve out, because many though rated 5A max don't even live to supply 2A decently. a desktop supply on the other hand typically can do about 18A on single rail so even if the manufacturer is bluffing they do 5A easily. Saikat sir, i don't  know about that one but ive bought many now and they are mostly overrated. The ones that really work are the ones for Tata Sky boxes. VC, if you get hold of an SMPS locally, I'll be happy to help you do it over a webcam.