• What's the difference between a balance board and a parallel board?

A balance board is just what it sounds like - a board for balancing. Depending on the type of board, it may have balance connections of just one type, or of many types, but it will only have balance connectors. You may or may not need to use one, depending on what balance ports are built into your charger.
A parallel board is designed for charging and balancing batteries in parallel - commonly up to six at a time on a single board. The board contains both main and balance connectors, and connects to the charge and balance ports of your charger.

• Can I use my parallel board to charge just one battery?

Absolutely!

• Why is my charger giving me a balance error when I connect my parallel board?

There are two likely explanations here: the first thing to check is that you are using the right balance cable to connect the board to your charger. It's easy to confuse it with the cable that came with the included JST-XH & ThunderPower balance board, but the two cables are not interchangeable, and you will see an error.
If you're sure you have the right cable, then it's likely that there has been some damage to your parallel board. Unscrew and remove the casing and inspect both sides of the circuit board - see that shiny copper peeking out? That's a burned trace, caused by mis-aligning a balance connector (either upside down, or one pin off) and shorting out the board. Luckily it's easily fixed: you can use a dab of solder or short length of jumper wire to bridge the gap and you'll be back in business.

• How many batteries can I charge in parallel at the same time?

As many as you have! While most parallel boards and cables only have six connections, that is just due to the limitations of physical space, not the laws of physics. With enough splitters you could easily hook up as many batteries as you can find - just make sure they're all the same cell count and near the same state of charge!

• What's the right order to connect my batteries when I'm charging in parallel?

When you connect in parallel, the batteries are going to equalize in voltage. We want that energy transfer to go through the biggest connection possible, so you should always connect all your main connectors first, and then the balance wires. If you were to hook up the balance connectors first, the current may be too high for those little wires.

• How can my charger balance all the individual cells when I'm charging in parallel?

It doesn't have to - physics takes care of that for us! When you hook up batteries in parallel, the batteries are going to equalize in voltage. Not just on an overall pack level, but for the individual cells as well. All the cell #1s are going to be the same as one another, all the cell #2s are going to be the same as one another, all the cell #3s, etc - and they will stay equalized as long as they're connected. So the charger just sees one battery, and balances it as normal.

• Does my charger have enough power to charge more than one battery at the same time?

Almost certainly! As long as you have a way to connect a parallel board or parallel cable to your charger, there's no reason why you should have to charge one battery at a time. It doesn't take any more power to charge 100 batteries in parallel than it does to charge 1 - it may just take longer if you can't increase the charge rate accordingly.

• My charger is stopping before the charge is done, and giving a "Capacity Over" error - what's going on?

Your iCharger comes programmed with a factory default setting of 5000mAh per charge. This setting, called "Capacity Cutoff," is designed as a safety feature for charging other chemistries, and is not meant for use with LiPos. Go into the settings on your charger and change this setting to Off when exclusively charging lithium batteries, and you won't see this problem again.

• Can I charge batteries in parallel that have different capacities?

Absolutely! As long as the batteries are the same cell count, the capacities can be wildly different. Think of it as connected glasses of water, all the same height but with different diameters. They will all fill up at the same rate, even though their capacities are different. Batteries in parallel work the same way.

More FAQs Coming Soon!

• When will my order ship?

Orders placed before 2pm (Pacific) Monday-Friday will ship the same day! Orders received after 2 o'clock or over the weekend will ship the next business day. If you are ordering one of our PRC custom cases, please allow a little extra time. All of our cases are made-to-order, and can take up to 4 days to complete.

More FAQs Coming Soon!