The Pila charger is pretty expensive and, except for the 12 month warranty, is not very feature packed. It does charge at 600mA which is not bad but in reality Li-Ion
batteries can be charged at a rate up to 1C. For a 1000mAh battery, 1C is 1 amp. For a 2000mAh battery, 1C is 2 amps. Charging at less than 1C is fine and is actually better for the
batteries with .9C being considered a high rate charge while still being friendly to the battery.
I have a
Turnigy A-6-10 200W Balance charger & discharger that will work for Li-Ion
batteries. I have it to charge the Lithium Polymer (LiPo) batteries that I use in my electric radio controlled airplanes. It is user controlled on charge current from 100mA to 10.0A with a limit of 200 watts. However, 10 amps for a single cell Li-Ion battery charging at 4.2 volts would only be 42 watts - well within the limits of the charger. But, using 1C as the charging rate, the battery would need to be 10,000mAh in size to be able to use the 10 amp output. But I could charge my 2000mAh Li-Mn batteries at a safe, fast 1.8A.
The LiPo batteries that are used for RC planes are high discharge and high charge rate batteries. Each cell is 3.7V nominal and 4.2V at full charge. I have some 4 cell, 14.8V 3300mAh LiPo's that are rated at 40C continuous discharge or 132 amps. They can put out a burst of 80C or 264 amps for up to 10 seconds. They can be charged at up to 3C or 9.9 amps. However, that is their rated maximum. I actually charge these at 6 amps and in the plane I use them in the maximum, full throttle current that is pulled from the battery is 55 amps which calculates to 790 watts.
The problem is that I do not have a holder for my Vamo batteries that my Turnigy charger will plug into. I am sure I could get one at Radio Shack but it was easier to just get the NiteCore Intellicharger i2.
klondikes
