FlightPower Veteran Location: Herts UK
| I chose my words quite carefully when I wrote "..takes the worry out.."
Like anything in this hobby, if you genuinely know what you're doing and you have access to the correct equipment then there is no God-given law why you can't build a satisfactory power supply from cheap parts. You're unlikey to produce something as elegant as the MAAS unit as a one-off without spending more money on parts (case, screen, PCB etc) than the off the shelf unit and you will almost certainly spend 5 times the cost of the MAAS in terms of time, but that depends entirely on how you value your time - maybe soldering and oscilloscopes is relaxing part of the hobby for some, I can respect that. Personally I'd rather be flying.
Whichever way you go about powering a charger for big LiPo packs it's important the end result is right. With big LiPo packs anything except a natively smooth car battery or fully tested (under load) smooth power supply feeding the charger is a safety concern.
The MAAS device is simply an elegant means of disposing of the problem in one hit i.e. it's guaranteed fit for purpose straight out of the box.
Richard wrote: I have been using xyz PSU 'with the Robbe Infinity II. I have never had any problems so far. Is this luck?'
The answer is I have no idea because it depends on too many factors, including how you define "no problems" and "luck", if the question was re-phrased: 'I'm using the MAAS SPS-9400 to power just about any RC battery charger charging just about any battery, including big LiPo packs with a suitable charger, is this OK' I could categorically state: YES.
That's the point I'm getting at regards worry free solution.
Julian |