Good day! Got some LiPo batteries that need charging before you can punch some holes in the
sky with your FPV quad? Me too! Then, you're gonna need a LiPo battery charger to make that happen.
You're in luck, because today, I'm gonna go over the Hobbymate D6 Dual Lite LiPo battery charger.
It’s the smaller and less expensive version to the well-known Hobbymate D6 Duo Pro, but it still
packs quite a punch! We'll take a quick look at its spec's and do a side-by-side comparison to a
couple other similar LiPo battery chargers. I'll also go over its features, operation,
and you may even get a few LiPo battery charging safety and battery management tips out of me too!
Who knows? You just might even get a little charge out of this video!
So, make sure to hit that "thumbs up" button below and subscribe to your TMac FPV channel-your
home for your Journey to Better FPV fun, flights and racing stuff!
Alright, let's check it out. I've been calling this Hobbymate D6 Dual Lite a LiPo charger, but in
fact it charges a lot of different batteries. As an FPV pilot, I'm primarily concerned with LiPos
and Lithium Ion batteries which I use for my quads, goggles and transmitter, but as you can
see in the Quick Start Instruction guide which came with it that I have displayed on the screen,
it can charge around 10 different types of batteries. It’s a Dual-channel
DC input charger and that's what these two XT60 ports are here for in the front
along with their balance ports. This means you can charge two different LiPo batteries at the same
time without using a parallel charging board. In fact, with these two channels you can even charge
two different types of batteries at the same time which I'll demonstrate in just a little bit. When
I said it’s a DC-input charger, that means you can plug a large battery from 10.5 to 30 volts, using
an XT60 connecter to the back of this charger as its power source. So, it doesn't have to
be plugged into a wall outlet which means you can charge up your LiPo batteries in the field with it
just by using a larger battery as it power source. As you can see when it starts up, it immediately
goes into a self-checking mode which is nice to know that everything's working properly. Both
channels screens then pop-up and I'll demonstrate how to navigate through the screens here in just a
bit. A few things first though. First, you'll notice its pretty quiet and its got a 2.4"
color screen which is nice. It also has this nice metal scroll wheel which you can use to
scroll between the various options in the menus and then just press down on it to select your
option. It works just like the scroll wheels you find on a lot of transmitters these days like the
RadioMaster TX16S. This button over here is used to switch back and forth between the channels
and to exit out of a menu. Let me unplug it for now. Here in the back
along with the DC input power supply XT60, you see it has an internal fan for cooling and a couple
other nice features over here. A Power Delivery USB-C charging port for your phone or other device
that charges at a maximum of 45 watts. Then you have another USB charge port here that operates
at 5V and 2.1 amps. On the side, we have a micro USB port for firmware updates and this other one
over here they call a multi-function port. One more thing. On the bottom, it's even got these
little kick-stands so you can set it up at an angle if you want to reduce any glare you may
have on the screen. Alright, before we get into its operation, let's take a look at how
its spec's compare to a few other similar LiPo Battery chargers on the market today.
OK, I put this chart together in case you're wondering how this Hobbymate D6 Dual Lite compares
to other similar ones out there. All of these are DC input voltage capable for field charging with
a large battery source. If you want to plug any of these into your wall outlet for use at home,
you'll need an external AC to DC power supply adapter. Which is another nice thing about the
D6 Dual Lite. You have the choice of getting it by itself for DC input power only for $80-$100 bucks,
depending on where you get it at OR you can also get the AC/DC version that comes with the external
power supply if you don't already have one. By the way there's a $10 OFF coupon available for you in
the video description below. If you do already have an external power supply, then you can save
more bucks just by getting the DC version. Here you see the rest of the D6 Dual Lite's spec's and
how it stacks up against the rest of these models. These charge current and charge power spec's for
all of these models are for each channel. All of these other models that I'm comparing with the
Hobbymate D6 Dual Lite are also dual channel chargers. For instance, if you're charging
two different batteries using both channels, each channel can put out a max of up to 300 watts and
15 Amps. Once thing I forgot to mention is you can operate this charger in Synchronous Mode
as well. That means you can use an XT60 Parallel battery "Y" connecter like this one I made
there's also a link to one below you can purchase). The main advantage of this mode
is it basically combines the two channels output power together,
forming 600 watts. This can be useful with a parallel charging board if you want to charge
more than 2 batteries at the same time, however, before you attempt that, there's some specifics
you need to be aware of first for safety reasons, such as the batteries should be of the same # of
cells, similar capacities (I never parallel charge batteries of different capacities),
and they also need to be approximately the same starting voltage (like if you had
3 or 4 2S 520 mah LiPo batteries that you wanted to charge at the same time). By "approximately
the same" voltage, I'm talking about for a 4S Lipo that means within about 0.4 volts of each other,
whereas for a 2S Lipo, that would mean within about 0.2 volts of each other. This is important
because if you try to charge multiple batteries in parallel of significantly different voltages,
they may overheat and catch fire. So, you'll want to know the voltage of each battery PRIOR to
parallel charging them together. To do that, I use one of these simple voltage checkers. I'll briefly
demonstrate parallel charging later. OK, let's power this thing up and see how it operates. We'll
power it ON and it goes through its self-check mode. Then, we'll press and hold the Scroll wheel
and it takes us to the Charger settings. Here we can scroll down to any one of
these and press down on the scroll wheel to enter that particular menu.
Let's go to System Parameters.
my device yet so if you've got a suggestion for my charger's name,
let me know in the comments below.To exit out of System Settings, we can scroll down
to Back, or we can press the button over here that says Exit.
When we scroll down to Tools and press the scroll bar,
we see it has these various capabilities which I believe work in conjunction with
the multi-function port over here on the side.
When you have a battery connected, you can calibrate the channels.
Here you can initiate the system self-checking function which automatically completes at startup.
You can restore the factory settings and under System Info, it shows you your current software
version and serial number. Now, let's get into our Task Parameters. This is where you can change the
settings for a couple safety items if you want to, such as when you want the charger to cutoff
after a certain amount of time. Please keep in mind, you should never charge LiPo batteries
while leaving the charger unattended. In fact, I have a relatively inexpensive Class ABC fire
extinguisher on-hand at all times whenever I'm charging LiPo batteries. You can also set the
max milliamp hour capacity so if it exceeds this number when charging the charger will cutoff.
The End Current setting is where the charger will cutoff when the completed current and
setup current ratio is within that percentage. Here you can turn trickle charge ON or OFF.
I'll keep mine off. OK, let's exit out of here and let me demonstrate how to charge a
couple batteries. First, I'm going to demonstrate how to charge one battery with one channel. Since
I fly Micros (quads with 4" props or less), all my LiPos have XT30 connecters on them.
So, I'll use this XT60 to XT30 adapter. From this main menu with both channels showing,
I just short press this channel button to select the channel I want
And we'll use channel 1. From here, I long press the channel button,
and I can select from among these various tasks.
I want to charge the battery. You also have these other options.
For battery type, I'm going to choose LiPo.
And I'm going through these settings manually, but normally when you connect the battery to the
charger it automatically adjusts these settings for you. Just to be sure, I like to manually do
it myself. For my cell voltage, I'm going to keep that at 4.2 volts. You can adjust that simply by
using the scroll wheel again. And my cell count (this is a 4S battery) so I'll change this to 4S.
I always like to charge my batteries at 1C,
and this is an 1100 milliamp hour LiPo, so my current setting I'll changer to 1.1.
Plug it in. Scroll down. Then we just select "Start Task."
Notice I didn't plug in the balance lead? So, I'm going to select . . . it's asking me if I want to
perform the task without the balancer. I'm going to say "No." Now when I plug this balance lead in,
it has an indication here on this side
of the balance connecter saying that this is negative. So, when I plug this balance lead in,
the black wire on the right-hand side of this connecter is negative and these ridges on the
balance connecter will be facing up. So, I plug the negative wire in all the way to the right side
and now we select "Start Task." And it begins charging. Now, within a minute or two of charging,
we can check the LiPo's internal resistance by using the scroll wheel. Here you see the
internal resistance of each of the cells. The internal resistance of a battery is an indication
of the battery's health. All the cells of the LiPo should have similar internal resistances.
They don't have to be, and they most likely won't be, exactly the same. But if one or two of the
cells are way out of whack with the other ones, that might be a sign those cells are going bad,
so you might want to keep a close eye on that battery. In fact, I've got an Excel spreadsheet
I use to keep track of all my batteries to include the date I purchased them, their weight, capacity,
max charge rate, how many charging cycles I've put on each one and their internal resistances.
That's why you'll normally see a number on each of my batteries. That way I can keep an eye on
them and better determine when their nearing the end of their life. I'll put a template of this
spreadsheet available for you to download in the video description below that has typical values of
internal resistances for various size LiPos I use with my Micro FPV drones. Let's go ahead and stop
this charge and I'll show you how you can not only charge two batteries at the same time, but
two different types of batteries at the same time. Like if you needed to charge a goggles battery and
your transmitter battery at the same time. For my goggles battery I use this RDQ 3000 milliamp hour
2S Lipo, and for my transmitter battery I use this 2S 5000 milliamp hour Lithium Ion battery
pack from Bob at Bob's Batteries which ship from Arizona here in the U.S. and you can order
those through RCBatteryKit.com. For this demo, I'm going to be using this AC/DC power supply
adapter that came with mine for its power source. This also comes with a heating ventilation fan
built inside with safety features such as short circuit, overload and voltage protection.
It also comes with the same USB-C and USB charge ports that the D6 Dual Lite charger comes with
and it even comes with its own little kick stands too! By the way, any of the resources
and products I mention in this video are available through links in the video description below some
of which are affiliate links that help support your TMac FPV channel. We're going to set the D6
Dual Lite charger on top of the power supply. Oh yeah, they're magnetized
so it won't slip off the stack. We'll connect the lithium ion battery to channel 2
(this is my transmitter battery) and we'll connect my goggles battery to channel 1. Let
me make sure to plug in the LiPo balance charger . . . balance lead. Negative to negative over here.
There we go. And this one, I'm using the XT60 connecter and flip this connecter over
so the negative's on that side and we'll . . . on the right and we'll plug that in over here.
So we've got the balance leads and the XT30 and XT60 connecters plugged in. Now when I power this
AC/DC power supply up, the fan's going to kick in so its going to be a little bit noisier
than when the charger was running off of DC power through the larger LiPo battery. So, I apologize
for that in advance. Then we plug in the power supply. I'm going to start this up and its going
to be a little bit noisy. It goes through its self-check. Then, from here we just set up each
channel like we did with our one battery demo on one channel, however, our goggles 2s battery
has a 3000 milliamp hour capacity so we're going to charge that at 3A. So, let's go to channel 1.
This is a LiPo, so we're going to leave it at LiPo, 4.2 volts, it ayutomatically
detected the number of cells, 3000 milliamp hour. So, let's make this (for a 1C charge rate),
we're going to set that to 3 amps. Whoops, 3 amps. There we go. LiPo, 2S, 4.2 volts per cell,
3 amps, we're going to start the task. It's charging on channel 1 the 3000 milliamp hour,
2 cell LiPo. Now, let's go to channel 2 which it does automatically and set that up.
This is a Lithium Ion battery 2 cell. So we have to change LiPo to lithium ion.
We'll leave that at 4.1, 2S. This is 5000 milliamp hour but I'm going to charge it at 3 Amps as well.
So here we're just going to "Start Task."
And now we have channel 2 charging the lithium ion battery. And you can see that they're both
charging at the same time – 2 batteries, two channels, two different TYPES of batteries.
Its really just that simple. While we're at it, I might as well charge this phone up!
So, I've got two different types of batteries, and a phone running off of this charger right now.
Good stuff! I'm going to go ahead and stop this demo because as I mentioned earlier I'd briefly
demonstrate parallel charging, so let's go ahead and do that. For this demo, I'll be charging 3 2S
520 milliamp hour Lipos, the type you might use with your whoop or Toothpick type quads.
I'm going to check the voltage of each, to make sure that they're approximately the same. 7.4.
7.37. Not too bad.
7.37. They're pretty close to the same voltages
for all 3. I'll connect all 3 to the parallel charging board,
like that. And then I'm going to connect the parallel charging board
to the charger using this Y-connecter.
So we plug these ends into channel 1 and channel 2.
I'm going to have to move this probably out of the screen.
Plug the XT60 of the parallel charging board into this Y-connecter.
Plug the balance lead into the connecter. Power up the power supply.
I've got the cell count at 2S which is correct. Cell voltage at 4.2, correct. Battery type Lipo,
correct. I'm going to select synchronous charging, since I'm using the Y-connecter.
Synchronous charging. And then down here, the current setting, I'm going to set that to1.5 amps
for a 1C charge rate. That's because when you parallel charge you add the capacities
of all of the batteries you're charging together which would be
1560 milliamp hours, or to the first decimal position, 1.5 Amps. There.
Then, I'm going to place this charging board with the LiPos in this fireproof LiPo Safe Bag
from Hobbymate. This is just another safety precaution to prevent from burning your house
down, or your vehicle whether you're storing your batteries, travelling with them, or even during
charging. This bag comes with a nice Velcro cover and its also got a zipper enclosure.
So, I'm just going to place this in here like this. I'm going to close the zipper. Then,
I'm going to close the Velcro. Then, I'm just going to press "Start Task" like we did earlier.
And we're synchronize charging 3 2S 520 milliamp hour LiPos simultaneously.
That's the Hobbymate D6 Dual Lite LiPo battery charger. Small in size, lightweight,
with versatility for different types of batteries and for both in-home or field use, yet powerful
for your FPV battery charging needs. Let me know what you think in the comments below. I've
got some charging to do so I'll catch you next video. Thanks for your time. Clear skies friend!