iMAX B6 Charger Manual (Chinese Edition)

The IMAX B6 is a charger you can trust. Charger specifications: —Voltage: DC11.0-18.0V AC100-240, -50/60HZ —Maximum charging power: 50W —Maximum discharging power: 5W —Charging current: 0.1-5.0A —Discharging current: 0.1-1.0A —Current per cell: 300mah/cell —NiMH/NiCd cell count: 1-15cell —Li-ion/polymer cell count: 1-6 cells (note: supports Li-Fe batteries, i.e. A123) —PB battery voltage: 2-20V —Weight: 580g —Dimensions: 133*87*33mm

How do you connect an external power supply to the B6? Attach the clips supplied with the charger to a high-power regulated or switching power supply. Red is positive and black is negative. The permitted voltage range is 11–18v, with a current requirement of more than 5A; the official minimum is 12v5a. ***Don't ask whether 12v10a will burn out the charger. The answer is definitely not, just as a 200W computer won't burn out simply because you use a 500W power supply. The B6 comes with a bunch of charging leads. Before charging, connect the long lead with male banana plugs and a male T plug to the female banana sockets on the right side of the charger (red positive, black negative). Then choose the appropriate adapter lead for the battery type you want to charge, connect its female T plug to the female T plug on the long lead, and finally connect the battery to be charged. Example image: charging a receiver battery. Button functions: Batt. Type Stop button: battery type and stop. After connecting power, use this button to switch between main menus. During charging, press it at any time to stop. Dec. / Inc. < Status > buttons: decrease and increase. When adjusting values, Dec. decreases them and Inc. increases them. During charging, press these buttons to browse different battery information. Start Enter button: start and confirm. Connecting power displays the main menu. You can now press Batt. Type / Stop to cycle through the main menus: Program Select LiPo BATT — main menu for charging lithium batteries; Program Select MiMH BATT — main menu for charging NiMH batteries; Program Select NiCd BATT — main menu for charging NiCd batteries; Program Select Pb BATT — main menu for charging Pb batteries; Program Select Save Data — save settings menu; Program Select Load Data — load data menu; User Set Program-> — user settings menu. 1. Lithium batteries 1.) Charging: After switching on, the main menu appears: Program Select LiPo BATT. Press Start / Enter to confirm. The screen displays LiPo CHARGE *.*A *.*V(*S). This is lithium charging without balancing. It is not recommended, so continue by pressing Inc. >. The screen displays: LiPo BALANCE *.*A *.*V(*S). This is the lithium balance-charging function. Balance charging is what we want, so proceed here as follows: Press Start / Enter, and the number before A flashes. Press Dec. < or Inc. > to change the value. This selects the charging current. For lithium-polymer batteries, do not exceed 1c: a 4400mah battery should use no more than 4.4a, a 2200mah battery no more than 2.2a, and so on. A more conservative 0.5c is recommended: 2.2a for a 4400mah battery, and so forth. Dec. < lowers the value and Inc. > raises it. Press Start / Enter, and the number before V(*S) flashes. Press Dec. < or Inc. > to change the value. This selects the battery's nominal voltage in multiples of 3.7. Batteries for cars are usually 7.4v, or 2S (each 3.7v = 1S). Hold Start / Enter, and the following screen appears: Battery Check Wait… If the battery is connected incorrectly, it displays: CONNECTION BREAK. If connected correctly, it displays: Top line: R: *SER S: *SER (Explanation: R: *SER is the number of cells automatically detected by the charger; S: *SER is the number of cells you set. If these values differ, do not start charging, to avoid damaging the battery.) Bottom line: alternates between CANCEL(STOP) and CONFIRM(ENTER). Now press Start / Enter to begin charging, or press Satt. Type / Stop to cancel and return to the settings screen. Charging screen: Li*S *.*A *.**V CHG ***:** *****. First line: number of lithium cells, charging current and total battery voltage at that moment. Second line: charging indicator, elapsed charging time, and amount of charge delivered. When fully charged, it displays: FULL (followed by some English text and numbers). ***During charging, you can press Batt. Type / Stop at any time to stop. ***During charging, you can press Start / Enter at any time to change the charging current; remember to confirm again after changing it. ***During charging, you can press Inc. > at any time to view the individual voltage of each cell. ***During charging, press Dec. < to view the settings. 2.) Discharging: Select LiPo DISCHARGE. The screen shows: LiPo DISCHARGE *.*A *.*V(*S). As with charging, set the discharge current and cutoff voltage. The voltage changes in multiples of 3. For a 7.4v lithium battery, set it to 6.0V(2S). ***Note: IMAX revised the B5. On earlier B5 models, connecting the balance lead alone was enough for balance charging. On the newer B5 and the B6, you must connect both the discharge lead and the balance lead to charge or discharge a lithium battery (as shown in the picture). ***One more thing: I don't know exactly what LiPoCHARGE / LiPo FAST CHG do. The labels mean lithium-polymer charging and fast charging, but since I don't know how they relate to balance charging, I don't recommend using them. Lithium cells have specific voltage limits. Balance charging helps prevent one cell from getting too low while another reaches a dangerously high voltage. ***LiPo STORAGE is for storing lithium batteries. If you won't be using a battery for a long time, fully charge it, then use this function to discharge it to its long-term storage voltage. The procedure is similar to charging, but the maximum discharge current is only 1A. For storage discharge, use this mode instead of LiPo DISCHARGE. The discharge cutoff for a 3S battery in this mode is 11.4V. 2. NiMH batteries 1.) Charging: From the main menu, press Batt. Type / Stop until you reach PROGRAM SELECT NiMH BATT. This is the NiMH charging mode. Press Start / Enter. The screen shows: NiMH CHARGE Man CURRENT *.*A. Press Start / Enter and the number before A flashes. Use Dec. < or Inc. > to change the value. This selects the charging current. The manual specifies 1C–2C for NiMH charging, but we generally think 1C–1.5C is better. *** Switching between forced charging current and automatic charging-current control: NiMH CHARGE Man CURRENT *.*A. On this charging-current selection screen before starting, the B6 defaults to manual charging current, indicated by Man. In this mode, the charger uses the charging current you set — it forces that current. This isn't necessarily a good thing, so the B6 can also be switched to automatic charging-current control. How to change it: On the charging-current selection screen, NiMH CHARGE Man CURRENT *.*A, press Start / Enter so the charging-current value flashes. Then hold both Dec.< and Inc.> buttons together for 0.5 seconds to switch to automatic charging-current control. The display changes to: NiMH CHARGE Aut CUR LIMIT *.*A. The *.* value flashes. The flashing value sets the maximum current the charger can use. The charger automatically controls the charging current but will not exceed the value you set. After setting the current, hold Start / Enter. The screen displays: Battery Check Wait… If all goes well, it then displays: NiMH *.*A *.*V CHG ***.** *****. The information is the same as for lithium batteries above, so I won't repeat it. The fully charged display is also similar to the lithium one: FULL means the battery is fully charged. ***During charging, you can press Batt. Type / Stop at any time to stop. ***During charging, you can press Start / Enter at any time to change the charging current; remember to confirm again after changing it. ***During charging, you can press Dec. < or Inc. > at any time to view the configured parameters. 2.) Discharging: Select NiMH DISCHARGE. The screen shows: NiMH DISCHARGE *.*A *.*V. Operation is the same as for charging: set the discharge current and discharge cutoff voltage. For NiMH batteries, set the cutoff to 0.9v per cell, so for a 7.2v battery, set it to 5.4v. 3. Charger settings: As ordinary hobbyists, we generally don't need to worry about settings such as lithium detection voltage, NiMH and NiCd D.Peak, and Waste Time. Leave them at their defaults. On the USER SET PROGRAM-> screen, press Start / Enter. LiPo V.Type *.*V sets the lithium battery voltage. Adjust it as appropriate; the options are LiPo 3.7V, LiIo 3.6V, and LiFe 3.3V. USB/Temp Select Temp Cut-Off 80C: overheat protection or monitoring with a USB cable. This option is of no practical use because the manufacturer includes neither a temperature probe nor a USB cable and disc. Safety Timer ON 120min: the automatic charging cutoff time. It is on by default and stops charging 120 minutes after it begins. It is recommended to turn it off or adjust the value for the charging time. For calculating charging time, see my other post: I deleted the original link here. It roughly says charging time = (battery capacity*1.2) / charging current. Lithium batteries aren't calculated this way, though, because balance charging means the exact time can't be calculated. Capacity Cut-Off ON 5000mAh: a charging-capacity limit. Once the amount of charge delivered reaches this value, charging stops. This is a useful feature that can prevent overcharging, but set it appropriately for the battery, or it may not charge fully. For example, for a 5000mAh battery, you can set the cutoff to 6000mAh, because this is the amount of charge output by the charger, not the amount that actually enters the battery. Some is lost as heat or through other internal consumption and never reaches the battery. For fast charging, simply set this value to 1.2 times the battery capacity. If you don't think it's needed, set it to OFF to remove the charging-capacity limit. 4. Saving/loading data 1.) Saving data: Each time you turn it on, the charger loads the last profile you used. A new unit generally uses data slot [01]. Having to reset the charging current, voltage, and so on every time is inconvenient, so we need to configure and save a commonly used profile, or several profiles, that can be loaded directly when needed. On the save-data screen: PROGRAM SELECT SAVE DATA, press Start / Enter. It displays: SAVE [01] **** *.*V ****mAh. The 01 flashes, indicating the current profile number. Press Dec.< or Inc.> to select the profile number you want to change. Press Start / Enter, and the upper-right display flashes. Press Dec.< or Inc.> to change the battery type. After changing the battery type, hold Start / Enter, adjust the usual current and voltage settings, then hold Start / Enter again to save the data. The screen displays: SAVE… and returns to the main menu. ***In NiMh / NiCd mode, there is a setting: NiMH CYCLE DCHG>CHG 1. This configures alternating discharge and charge cycles, used to activate new batteries or lithium batteries that have been stored for a long time. The recommended setting is: NiMH CYCLE DCHG>CHG 3, meaning discharge first, then charge, repeating for 3 cycles. The battery is ready to use after the final cycle. 2.) Loading data: On the load-data screen, PROGRAM SELECT LOAD DATA, press Start / Enter. It displays: LOAD[01] **** *.*V ****mAh, with 01 flashing. Press Dec. < or Inc. > to select the data slot you need, then hold Start / Enter. The screen displays: Load... After loading the data successfully, it returns to the main menu: PROGRAM SELECT Li** BATT. B6 sound settings: It's very simple... 1. Press “BATT TYPE”. 2. Select “USER SET PROGRAM”. 3. Press “START”. 4. Once inside, press “DEC” and “INC”. 5. Select “KEY BEEP ON” and “BUZZER ON”. 6. Press “START” until “KEY BEEP ON” and “BUZZER ON” flash. 7. Press “DEC” or “INC” to select “KEY BEEP OFF” (button sounds) and “BUZZER OFF” (charging sounds). 8. Press “BATT TYPE” to exit, and you're done...