I just bought a Powerlab 6 from Progressive, whom I told I heard about from Stunthangar. It might work, but it's hard to see how (in my opinion) from the User's Guide. I'm used to documentation edited with a spell checker: "the male-mail servo cable", for example, but the Powerlab 6 instructions seem to have been written (in my opinion) by a person unfamiliar with electricity:
"A pack will not charge if individual cell voltages don’t equal total pack voltage."
"Running full power, it can deliver 1000W to batteries during charge. To achieve this, even on a 6 cell Li battery, it must boost the input voltage. This means the PowerLab 6 may draw up to 1200W from the input power supply."
"Per Ohm’s law, 30V x 40A = 1200W. However, it is generally not advisable to pull 100% of available power from a DC power supply. Therefore, if you want to attain 1000W of output power to a 6s Li battery, the power supply should be capable of 1300W or higher for best results."
The User's Guide tells you to configure Smart Power Management before using the charger, then gives you step-by-step instructions that (in my opinion) don't work.
I want to charge Thunder Power batteries. My charger came with a balance connector board for Thunder Power batteries. The User's Guide says that there are two software-selectable balance connector wiring configurations, but don't say (in my opinion) which to use with my connector board. I guess if I fry a $125 battery, I picked the wrong one.
Revolectrix offers free online software to do a lot of cool stuff-- maybe even configure Smart Power Management-- but I find that it costs me another $18 for the USB interface. I am hesitant to put more money into this thing.
I talked to another Powerlab 6 owner at the contest yesterday. He bypassed Smart Power Management after the instructions didn't work, guessed wrong on the balance connector configuration, and finally got the charger to work, but only at a very slow charge rate.
Revolectrix seems satisfied with the User's Guide. The latest revision, assuming that's what's posted on their Web site, is dated 10/20/2011.
Has anyone got one of these chargers to work satisfactorily?