Review:Kong Power

[mamba17]

Before anything else I am not connected to any manufacturer, I am just sharing what I've got.

 

Several tango's are coming fast to take the bunker that you are depending. Adrenalin's rushing, full of mixed feelings of being excited and nervous. Took off all your magazines from your vest's mag pouches, lined them all up, ready to engage the OPFOR, then the inevitable happened, you were engage in a fierce exchange of hot bb's, suddenly on your second magazine your AEG stopped firing. You were so frustrated and annoyed that it let you down, walked back to the safe zone and start analyzing what went wrong. Plugging 1 of your spare battery, your AEG starts firing again, now you are really wandering what had happened to 1 of your trusted battery, why it suddenly run out of juice. You have just used it a couple of weeks ago and was able to finish almost 5000 rounds of bb's on one full charge on your old low tech wall charger. A day before the game, your precious package came, a high end battery charger with sensor arrived and you were so excited. You charge all your batteries from Nimh/ Nicd. And yes, it was beeping eveytime your batteries are fully charge. You have bought yourself a treat 'coz you're feed up of time computing and setting an alarm clock charging with low end charger. Now you have come to realize that the hiend chargers are reading a false full charge, having an experience with the low end charger. You have noticed that, when you were charging using your low end battery charger your battery gets warm compared to the hiend charger, it bleeps signalling a full charge but the battery didn't get warm. Thru experience, you have jumped into conclusion that the hiend charger is giving you a false full charge readings. Now! everytime you charge using the hiend charger and bleeps you touch your battery if it gets warm or not, you became a human sensor................hehehehehehehe! And if it is not warm, you hit the charge button again and again until the battery gets warm to maximize its full charge potential. It is now getting to your nerves.

 

And the Airsoft heaven open its door and gives us this!

Kong Power All in One Battery Charger with Li Bat. Balancer

 

Upon reading and learning from Arnie's airsoft and FAS, world famous airsoft site and airsoft forum sites from US, Canada and Europe several years back. The best way to enjoy this addicting hobby is to buy high quality batteries and decent charger/discharger. As your battery collection grows from 1100-3600mah capacity NiMh/NiCd batteries, your wall charger is now getting to your nerves, it is now taking a lot of time to charge them. To deal with this huge dilemma, you bought a mid price TLP Fuzzy Logic Charger/discharger. Over a year on using it, you were feed up being a human sensor for charging your batteries. You sold it bearing in mind that you might ruin or mess up your precious batteries by over charging them and bought a BOL Data instead. What attracted you to this new mid price charger was, it was showing you in real time how much your battery is charging. Again several months later, you were again feed up of being a human sensor. While charging, this charger also constantly stops and bleeps prematurely giving you false full charge reading. Charging a 3300mah NiMh and 3600 mah NiCd, it stops and bleeps at 1500mah as shown in real time on its LCD, then press the fast charge again, it stops and bleeps again at 1800mah, it stops and bleeps every 200-300mah charge. You are doing the vicious circle again and again until it is fully charge at 3250mah to 3550mah respectively and this time your battery is warm and confident that they are fully charge. Both of this chargers/dischargers share the same function and specification, the only difference is, BOL have LCD screen which shows you in real time what it's doing. They are not bad but for me they are not good either.

As you become more addicted to this new found hobby, you want to try and venture out to different power source and bought some lipoly with charger/balancer. Lipolies are great to use but are very complicated batteries, you have to tender them with care, balancing them properly for longer shelf/playing life. Not being contented of what you have got in store, your restless fingers are surfing the internet retail shop for multi purpose/all in one charger/balancer for your ever growing collection of AEG batteries. You have been surfing almost all airsoft forum sites but you can not find any decent review for this kind of all in one chargers. You decided to get one of this.

 

Sent to me with UK 3 pin Plug

 

Close up

 

Built in balancer for 2-3 cells li /banana plug input for secure connection

 

Specs.

DC input: 11-18Volts

AC support:110/240 volts, 5A. AC adapter is available seperately (AC input: 100-240Volt)

Type of battery : LiPo, LiIo and LiFe / NiCd, NiMH batteries only

Charging current : max. 5.0A

Number of cell count : 1 to 3S for Lithium batteries / 1 to 8 cells for NiCd and NiMH batteries

Balancer : built-in balancer for Li-xx

Circuit power : 50 Watts

Weight : 120 g

Dimension : 110 X 60 X 12 mm

 

Size Comparison, TLP's same size

 

Note how small it is compared to Gigantic BOL DATA.

 

Normally, I don't publish the results of my evidence base review not until 6 months of indepth scrutiny, but 4 months on, the team are very much happy, contend and confident of how this all in one charger performs. We have done side by side charging with the BOL and my teammates TLP Fuzzy logic charger ( note we have three, mine's been sold a long long time ago), same 9.6V 2200mah NiMh, it was a no contest. The Kong Power all in one battery charger doesn't bleep not until the batteries are fully charge and warm. The Bol and TLP keeps on bleeping randomly while charging, always prompting you of false full charge reading. We have done this face off during the winter and summer months to see how they behave on certain time of the year. The Kong Power had its outdoor baptismal of fire during our just concluded ACE Brigade Summer gathering '09. It performed pretty well plugging it in on a car battery. It charge NiMh of different kind of volts, from 7.2 electric automatic AEG magazine, 8.4, 9.6 of varying mah from 600-3700. Performs with flying colors. Charging NiCd is as straight forward as charging your NiMh after completely discharging them first. I had a Sanyo 9.6V 3600 mah NiCd before and was charging fine with Kong Power. I can not give you a guaranteed review regarding NiCd charging due to, 99% of airsofters here in UK are using maintenance free, plug and play NiMh batteries. Charging lipoly is a treat and so much fun, got several on my personal collection. Everytime I charge them and check them on the Kong Power balancer/discharger, they are all perfectly balance. Again, I have to say goodbye to BOL DATA, SOLD.

 

Perfect Combination with KP lipoly rehabilatator.........like Batman and Robin

 

It's not fairrrrrrr! Yup It is not fair comparing a mid price chargers to a high price personal charger. The exercise is a review of at least 3 different chargers which might help our fellow airsofters buy what is appropriate for them. This hobby is very addicting, you are constantly surfing the world wide web for new airsoft/airsoft related products. And having some form of guide/advise or review can easily help buyers.

 

 

Wrapping it UP!

 

Pros

BOL and TLP

1. Both came in with an english manual

2. Both came in with power supply/chord

3. Both have resetable charge current between .5-5 amps

4. Both have discharger

5. Both have 3 cycle charge/discharge to maximize batteries full charge potential (never use them)

6. Both can automatically reads cell counts

7. Both revert to trickle charge when batteries are full

8. Both are fast chargers.

 

Cons

1. False full charge readings (don't want to be a human sensor again)

2. Bulky

3. very noisy ( I hate the fan noise)

4. No lipoly charging capabilities.

 

 

Kong Power

Pros

1. All in one fast charger (upto 8 cells NiMh/NiCd, 2-3 cells Li of whatever denomination).

2. Gives you true full charge readings

3. Built in lipoly balancer.

4. Compact ( can easily fit on your upper bdu chest pocket)

5. Resetable charge current .5-5amps.

6. Also came in with an english manual (unfortunately, I've lost mine)

7. Whisper quiet( non of those annoying fan noise)

8. Banana plug connected to large and small tamiya

9. Charger error message.

 

Cons..........mama mia!

1. Quite expensive

This are not included

Power source

2. Power plug (mine's UK 3 pin plug)

3. No discharging capabilities ( who needs it, majority of us use NiMh)

4. Doesn't automatically sense cell count ( you have to manually set it up)

5. Doesn't come along with deans plug connector ( not to worry, I can make one)

Large Tamiya to deans connector

 

Well, here comes the question, does it worth it.

 

Oh yeahhhhhh!