First of all I would like to thank Tobey of Bangood for sending me a sample of the iSDT Q6 Charger to review. This charger is now available for sale at Bangood.

A few pics of the package and what is inside...

The box was surprisingly compact... I was expecting a bigger package.



Opening the box you can see the charger with protective plastic film protecting the multi-function display.



The charger comes with two XT60 plugs to connect the input and output leads from the power supply and to the battery(s) to be charged respectively.



The charger comes with a one page user guide with a QR Code. Scanning the QR Code with a smartphone will get you a more detailed electronic manual from iSDT's website. I did a screen cap of two pages of the electronic manual:

Page 05 of 17:



Page 09 of 17:

Next up will be images of the charger out of the box and also how it compares size-wise with my other chargers (iCharger 308 DUO, iCharger 306B, iCharger 206B, and Turnigy Reaktor 250W.

The left side of the charger contains the input port that connects to the PSU. There is also a jack which is used when updating firmware.



On the right side is the battery port and the 6S balance port.



The top shows the exhaust fan.



Another view of the bottom showing the exhaust fan.



The iSDT Q6 is dwarfed by my other chargers including the Reaktor 250W 10A which, based on specs, is less powerful than the 300W 14A Q6.

Next up we will see how the Q6 performs charging lipos. I am curious to find out how easy (or hard) it is to use the charger via the thumb wheel interface and how useful the multi line display is.

Before I start testing proper I just noticed on the manual I did a screenshot of that you can program the ending voltage per cell on this charger. This makes me excited as I use this feature all the time. I typically set the ending voltage per cell to 4.19V on my bigger chargers mainly for longevity of the packs. I also specifically set my Reaktor to an ending voltage per cell of 4.10V. I use the Reaktor to charge the 2S flight pack on my 700 helis. After three flights the flight pack is just around storage voltage.

Here is the ending voltage setting function from the screenshot of the manual:

Before I can start putting the Q6 Plus through its paces I need to do some prep work. My connectors are all Deans, EC5s, EC3s, and Traxxas so I need to prepare both input and output leads using the supplied XT60 Connectors.

Soldering wire leads to the XT60 connectors...





Input and output connectors done! For the input connectors I am using male banana plugs. The output connectors are female banana plugs. I hooked up an unused multiport iCharger JST-XH adapter to the balance plug.



Pic below is the reason why I chose the banana plugs for both input and output connectors. This gives me flexibility to charge lipos with different connectors by just plugging in the appropriate parallel squid leads for the job. I also use parallel squid balance connectors. From personal experience, squids are easier to use, safer (they act as their own fuse), and simpler which is why I have used them over the years.



For the initial tests I will be using a Junsi P350 15 volt 350 Watt Power Supply. Later I might use 2 x Junsi P350s wired in series (700 Watts total) or my Lambda 1500 Watt PSU which I use when charging up to 8 x 6S 5000 mah Lipos in parallel for my 700 class helis.

Below is the Q6 Plus powered up for the first time. The LCD is bright... Text are very legible even under bright fluorescent lighting.

The iSDT Q6 Plus is very intuitive... To get to the setup screen all you have to do is to press on the scroller for a few seconds. You are then greeted by the setup screen. You can scroll through each option. If you wish to change the settings on an option just select it and press the scroller.



To familiarize myself with the iSDT Q6 Plus I decided to charge an old 3S 2100mah E-Flite lipo.

I measured the lipo voltage using my trusty checker...



The reading on the charger is not too far off... Just a difference of .01 V. Note that the individual cell voltages are displayed on the default screen.



Scrolling the wheel gives more info... Note that the input voltage from the Power Supply is displayed here... 15.1 V. Also displayed is the charger temp.



The firmware on this charger allows setting the per cell end voltage. You can set it to a minimum of 4.15 V. I wish the minimum was lower since I set charge my flight packs to a maximum of 4.10 V per cell using the Reaktor or Junsi chargers. But this is better than not being to set the minimum at all... Perhaps a future firmware revision will allow lower than 4.15 V per cell maximum per charge.



I am about to get started... For this specific lipo I set the end voltage to 4.19 per cell and a charge rate of 1C (2.2A, I forgot the lipo was only 2.1 A lol).



And off we go... The top of the screen turns orange in color when a lipo is being charged.



At anytime during the charge you can scroll to get more info about the lipo and the charger. Below the charger is displaying the internal resistance per cell of the lipo. As noted above, this lipo has seen better days.

cyclo, these are some very cool little chargers that appear to be the start of a new design statement, bigger doesn't always mean better. I got my Q6 today from Bangood and I've had the 608 for a few weeks that I got from Progressive RC. The quality, outstandingly bright, sharp and colorful displays blew me away. Time will tell how well these stand up to frequent use but for now I'm liking these little jewels. As a side note ISDT just issued new firmware updates today. That's a pretty painless process.

After 27 minutes or so (note the charge timer at the top left corner of the screen) the per cell voltage reaches the programmed max of 4.19V and the charge amp rate starts ramping down:



It is not until after 37 minutes or so when the top of the screen turned green and a single beep sounded indicating Fast Charge completion. At this point it is fine to unplug the lipo especially if one is in a hurry.



At around 39 minutes the top of the screen turns blue and two beeps are emitted indicating charging completion:



I measured the lipo voltage with my lipo tester after disconnecting it from the charger... There is a difference of .03 V which IMHO is nothing to be worried about.



Finally the difference between the lowest and the highest cell voltage as measured by the lipo tester is .004 V. This is pretty good considering this lipo is very old.



This charger passed with flying colors on its first charge. It definitely worked as advertised and is very easy to use... I especially liked the very intuitive scroll button combo and also the colored multi-line display. The only charger I have used that featured a similar display is the more expensive iCharger 308 DUO.

Next up weather permitting will be more of a torture test where I will use the Q6 Plus to parallel charge multiple 6S 3300mah or 6S 5000mah packs.

Originally Posted by Caddguy6

cyclo, these are some very cool little chargers that appear to be the start of a new design statement, bigger doesn't always mean better. I got my Q6 today from Bangood and I've had the 608 for a few weeks that I got from Progressive RC. The quality, outstandingly bright, sharp and colorful displays blew me away. Time will tell how well these stand up to frequent use but for I'm liking these little jewels. As a side note ISDT just issued new firmware updates today. That's a pretty painless process.

Thanks for checking out this review Caddguy6! It does look like "Revolution Starts" with these iSDT chargers lol. I will give this charger a workout for a few more months and see if it withstands the abuse. If it does the my opinion is that the future of traditional four button chargers could be in peril. These iSDT chargers blow those out of the water when it comes to the compact form factor, very easy to use scroll button interface, plus the amount of info displayed by the colored multi-line display.

I still need to get a cable in order to flash the new firmware. But even with the existing firmware I have no complaints.

Originally Posted by cyclo

Thanks for checking out this review Caddguy6! It does look like "Revolution Starts" with these iSDT chargers lol. I will give this charger a workout for a few more months and see if it withstands the abuse. If it does the my opinion is that the future of traditional four button chargers could be in peril. These iSDT chargers blow those out of the water when it comes to the compact form factor, very easy to use scroll button interface, plus the amount of info displayed by the colored multi-line display.

I still need to get a cable in order to flash the new firmware. But even with the existing firmware I have no complaints.

if you own a FTDI breakout, it's pretty easy to connect a 4 pole headphone cable to the breakout to flash with.

Originally Posted by pjtruslow

if you own a FTDI breakout, it's pretty easy to connect a 4 pole headphone cable to the breakout to flash with.

Thanks I might just get one of those since the iSDT linker appears to be out of stock. As I said I am in no hurry to upgrade the firmware for now.

I've been waiting to see this and am getting one myself.
I've been trying for over a month now to contact bgtobey as he had sent me review offers on a few things. After a few passes I accepted the offer to review the ISDT parallel charge adapter that he then sent and it has never came. Tracking shows only one acceptance scan that was months ago.
Anyway this little Q6 is absolutely the coolest charger I've seen since my reaktor 300 which I thought was small lol.

Originally Posted by Jaketheone46

I've been waiting to see this and am getting one myself.
I've been trying for over a month now to contact bgtobey as he had sent me review offers on a few things. After a few passes I accepted the offer to review the ISDT parallel charge adapter that he then sent and it has never came. Tracking shows only one acceptance scan that was months ago.
Anyway this little Q6 is absolutely the coolest charger I've seen since my reaktor 300 which I thought was small lol.

It took a while before mine got shipped and I only got it yesterday. Yeah this is one neat charger... compact, weights next to nothing yet powerful. I would love to see someone open this thing up so I could see what makes it tick.

Just got my Q6 Plus today.
Looking forward to taking it home and testing.
Thinking I will convert an old 400W PC power supply box and use that.. hoping nothing will burn.
Parallel charging should be OK with this unit, right?

nice review.
this is a really small, powerful and smart charger.

- is the screen easy scratchable? it worrys me a little about this. for the other models there are protective screen films available.

- how is the current behavior on the cross-over-point of voltage? if you charge a 6s from another 6s, there is a point where input voltage and output voltage crosses each others, thats leads sometimes to current spikes

- how accurate is the displayed loading current? someone already measured?

Originally Posted by kevinsray2

Just got my Q6 Plus today.
Looking forward to taking it home and testing.
Thinking I will convert an old 400W PC power supply box and use that.. hoping nothing will burn.
Parallel charging should be OK with this unit, right?

The ISDT Q6 Plus will be happy with a power supply feeding it 24 volts or higher. Yes it can handle parallel charging no problem. I am feeding mine with 24 Volt, 1500A Power Supply which is also powering my iCharger 308 DUO. I typically use it to charge 2S lipo flight packs but I have charged 4S 6600 mah lipos on it with no problems at all. Below I am using the iSDT Q6 Plus to charge a 2S lipo flight pack while the iCharger charges the 6S 5000 mah main packs in parallel (3 per side).