MCX Charger Alternative

[grind2tenths]

I recently purchased one of the blade MCX helis and absolutely love to fly this little bird in my basement. One of the drawbacks is the charger batteries lasting about a week then take a dump. I thought it had to be a better way! I know that alkaline batteries are a volt and a half. hence 6 volts. I took the battery cover off and the little rubber feet off the bottom of the of the charger took out the 4 screws and opening the charger exposing the wiring. I took a old charger lead and soldered the leads to the positive and negative leads then soldered a jumper lead for the LED between the positive lead and the negative lead for that battery. I then cut a slot for the wires to run out of the charger. Hooked up a old 6 volt NMH 2700 mah pack and it works like a top. Instead of replacing the alkalines I just hook up the 2700 pack and recharge it. If somene needs to see pictures I will post one later.

[Flyfalcons]

Nice idea! I'm looking for someone to show us how to convert the charger to AC power. After all, it's an indoor heli.

[martin18152]

Its not hard to do, all you have to do is put a stereo jack between the charging plug and the the charging batteries. drill a hole and put the jack where it can fit. When you plug your regular charger in, it breaks the battery connection and makes your charger connection. Your Lipo charger needs to be able to charge a 1s, at .25 ma. You can also buy the micro connector and adapt it to your charger.

[zzw26n]

	Quote: Originally Posted by grind2tenths
	I recently purchased one of the blade MCX helis and absolutely love to fly this little bird in my basement. One of the drawbacks is the charger batteries lasting about a week then take a dump. I thought it had to be a better way! I know that alkaline batteries are a volt and a half. hence 6 volts. I took the battery cover off and the little rubber feet off the bottom of the of the charger took out the 4 screws and opening the charger exposing the wiring. I took a old charger lead and soldered the leads to the positive and negative leads then soldered a jumper lead for the LED between the positive lead and the negative lead for that battery. I then cut a slot for the wires to run out of the charger. Hooked up a old 6 volt NMH 2700 mah pack and it works like a top. Instead of replacing the alkalines I just hook up the 2700 pack and recharge it. If somene needs to see pictures I will post one later.

Please post pictures. I would like to see your set up.

[Hinckley Bill]

	Quote: Originally Posted by grind2tenths
	I recently purchased one of the blade MCX helis and absolutely love to fly this little bird in my basement. One of the drawbacks is the charger batteries lasting about a week then take a dump. I thought it had to be a better way! I know that alkaline batteries are a volt and a half. hence 6 volts. I took the battery cover off and the little rubber feet off the bottom of the of the charger took out the 4 screws and opening the charger exposing the wiring. I took a old charger lead and soldered the leads to the positive and negative leads then soldered a jumper lead for the LED between the positive lead and the negative lead for that battery. I then cut a slot for the wires to run out of the charger. Hooked up a old 6 volt NMH 2700 mah pack and it works like a top. Instead of replacing the alkalines I just hook up the 2700 pack and recharge it. If somene needs to see pictures I will post one later.

Love the mCX for weekend indoor flying at our local high school but hate that charger.....pics of the mods would be most appreciate.

[eblenkle]

Hey Grind

My brother has this heli, he too hates the little charger and noticed the LiPo cell was charging at 3C, which is way too high.

He burned though a set of batteries the first set of LiPos only lasted about 1 month and said, there has to be a better way...

... he got the pigtail, and hooked it up to his Hobbico Elite and only charges at 1C now and has not had any problems since.

Edit: some good info from RCG ... http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showt...898421&page=65 post 964 and post 684

I hope this helps.
If you need to PM him, he is on FG as e-gull

Ernie

[askforplanes]

I've seen someone power their charger on a big lipo. I think he wired out the battery inputs then connected to a castle bec set a 6v to them. Not completely sure if that is right but I think it is. I would not suggest trying it unless you are sure this is right.

[eblenkle]

	Quote: Originally Posted by askforplanes
	I've seen someone power their charger on a big lipo. I think he wired out the battery inputs then connected to a castle bec set a 6v to them. Not completely sure if that is right but I think it is. I would not suggest trying it unless you are sure this is right.

Hey JP

This should work, as long as the BEC was set to 6.0 volts on the ESC. The problem still remains that the little charger charges the batteries too fast, at 1C it should take 60 minutes to charge the batteries, they have the charge rate set way too high, it's done in 20 minutes, thus the 3c charge rate.

The correct thing to do is use a real charger where you can regulate the charge rate. In post #6 you'll see I have given a way to hook up to a standard LiPo charger and a way to charge 3 batteries at the same time.

Ernie

[grind2tenths]

I will post pictures tonight when I get home. I used this set-up all weekend with no problems. I just like the idea of not having to buy batteries that just end up in the trash. How many of us have a old 6v battery that is no good for anything else.

[grind2tenths]

Picture 1 shows the positive lead of your female battery end soldered to the positive lead where the battery is normally placed. The other red wire goes to the negative end of where the 1st battery would normally be. The black wire (negative) is soldered to where the negative end of the battery would be. I said in the first post that you have to take the charger apart but if you just take the battery cover off you can access the tabs with no problem. Picture number 2 shows a small notch cut in the battery cover for the wire to exit and the 6v pack hooked to the lead. Hope this helps. Grind

[e-gull]

The Parkzone connector PKZ3052 is used to connect to the MCX battery to charge from Lipo battery chargers. I bought two from HobbyTown and connected them to leads from my Accu-cycle charger. In post 6 of this thread is a link to RCGroups thread Micro Blade mCX from Eflite. In Post 2713 by PiperJ3 he tells how to turn the pot in the original charger so it charges at about 1C. Use Rayovac Hybrid rechargeable batteries in the charger. Then with correct pot position and rechargeable batteries you have a portable charger that charges at correct 1C, which would work nice at indoor flying sites without worrying about outlets. My MCX batteries now last hundreds of charges since charging at 1C. I do set a timer for 6 minutes. The manual tells that flying to LVC will shorten the battery life drastically. I can vouch that that happened to me till I was able to charge at 1C. My motors lasted over 500 flights then were easy to replace. Only one was bad, but I figured at about $11 I would do both and not be bothered shortly by the other one going bad.

[e-gull]

In the RCG threads they talk about soldering the pins in the plug from the MCX to the battery. The connector pins are crimped and not soldered. I have not had this problem, but others in RCG thread have.

[grind2tenths]

I need to go check out the RCG thread to see about turning down the charge rate. I tried to get some of the connectors for my lipo charger but my lhs were out. I guess what I like about this set up is you don't have to carry another charger with you other than the one that came with the mcx. It fits int the box that the heli came with. When the battery runs down just recharge it and toss it back in the box.

[eblenkle]

	Quote: Originally Posted by e-gull
	In the RCG threads they talk about soldering the pins in the plug from the MCX to the battery. The connector pins are crimped and not soldered. I have not had this problem, but others in RCG thread have.

Thanks Harold

All you can do is give them the info... what they do with it after that is their choice.

Ernie

[e-gull]

The link to the RCG thread on page 1 of this thread is to a great thread about all kinds of MCX problems. Some problems on the thread had different causes in some cases, which was interesting and showed one to keep an open mind and not think one solution in one case is the answer to all cases of similar problems. One has to trouble shoot problems.
There are mods in the mentioned thread and others on RCGroups that are interesting and would help some people. There is a thread on a USB charger that is for sale by a RCGroup member. a search will reveal the thread. MIA has a lot of cool mod parts for the MCX. In the link on other page go to post 2527 and Mario of MIA has cool parts.