Hobbico Accu+Cycle Plus

Model Airplane News, Jan 1999 by Marshall, Larry

EVERY RADIO SYSTEM comes with a charger. These are simple affairs, designed to charge receiver and transmitter packs simultaneously at 50mA. These work OK to charge most systems' batteries overnight, so why would you want something else to charge your receiver and transmitter batteries? There are a number of reasons, most of which revolve around the grim reality that the connection between you and your model is completely dependent on properly functioning Ni-Cds.

Ni-Cds are an important part of what we do, and proper maintenance is extremely important. This means monitoring the condition of your packs, as well as proper charging and conditioning, so that your batteries provide long and reliable service.

Hobbico's* Accu Cycle Plus is a tool that provides all of these abilities in a neat, easy-to-use package.

The unit is divided into "transmitter" and "`receiver" sections, and each side can be set up individually with respect to charging and discharging parameters. Charging is done using peak-detect charging at either 500mA or 1000mA. During a charge, the battery voltage is shown, and this gives you a good idea of how the battery is taking a charge. Charging with the Accu Cycle Plus is quick; standard 600mAh cells can be charged in about 40 minutes.

But the Accu Cycle Plus really earns its stripes in helping you monitor and maintain your batteries. As cells get old, their capacity begins to decline. If you know what the capacity was when the pack was new, you can use the Accu Cycle Plus to monitor the decline. This is done by charging the pack and then using the discharge circuitry (discharging at either 250mA or 750mA) to drain the power from the pack. The Accu Cycle Plus will report the pack's capacity and the time required to drain it. If you simply log these values occasionally, you'll have a good record of your pack's performance; you'll know when your pack is finally too old to be usable. Finding this sort of problem before flying an airplane with a bad battery will more than pay for the Accu Cycle Plus.

The Accu Cycle Plus also has a conditioner feature that will discharge and charge your packs repeatedly. Doing this helps match the cells and get the most capacity from a battery. One nice thing about this circuit is that there is a delay between the charge and discharge to let the cells rest. Some other chargers simply switch from one mode to the other without stopping, and this is very hard on the battery.

Because of the cell count selectivity, you can use the Accu Cycle Plus to charge glow starters, 5-cell receiver packs and even 6- to 7-cell electric flight batteries. Because the Accu Cycle Plus has a somewhat faster rate of charge than typical radio system chargers, it also makes it much easier to charge the larger receiver packs used by many of the giant-scale flyers.

One problem with the Accu Cycle Plus is that, as it comes out of the box, it requires additional wires and plugs to match your particular radio gear. You must either buy or make up some charge cords. So if you're going to buy an Accu Cycle Plus, be sure to buy some patch cords, too.

I really like the Accu Cycle Plus. It does everything you need a TX/RX battery management tool to do, and it does it very well. Mine seems to be in constant use, which is generally an indication of how much "bang for the buck" I get from a tool. Given the cost of models and equipment these days, it just doesn't make sense to ignore the batteries on which they depend.