i-Cybie Preservation Project (i-Preserve Cybie) - Making your own i-Cybie Charger

using an IMAX B6 & some pins

(YOU WILL BE WORKING WITH ELECTRICAL & METAL PARTS, DO THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK!!)

If you have an i-Cybie battery thats dead, but you don't have a charger and you can't find a dedicated charger or connector for it, this might be the place for you!

This project requires a few things:

An i-Cybie Battery (comes with a 3 pin Tamiya Connector) (NiCd or NiMH)
IMAX B6 Smart Charger (must include crocodile clips w/ Female T-Plug Connector along with other connector cables)
2 Male 18-24 AWG Molex Contact Pins (compatible with Tamiya)

Once you have received these parts, we will setup the smart charger.
If you received pins that have strip packing, you can easily bend the strip to the nearest pin and one side of the pin should come off, you can easily just bend the pin from the strip and it will come off easily. For pins that don't have strip packaging and are in different packaging, you may need to use a sharp metal tool from a toolbox to cut off metal pieces that are attached to the pin (ex: a Tin Snipping tool)

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Step 1. With the cables provided by the IMAX B6's package, connect the crocodile clips to the positive and negative connectors on the T-plugs (edited)

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Step 2. Connect the positive and negative cables into the charger, making sure that they match with the red (+) and black (-) holes

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Step 3. Push the 2 Molex pins into the holes on both sides of the batteries connector, corresponding to the red and black wires

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(DO NOT MAKE CONTACT WITH THE PINS WITH ANY METAL TOOL, WILL RESULT IN RISK OF SHOCK) (edited)

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Step 4. Clip onto the pins with your red positive clip, corresponding to the color of the red wire that goes into the hole of the connector, same with the black negative clip, corresponding to the black wire of the connector. The yellow wires hole does not need a pin, since that is just a 6v stepdown connection. 12v is the red connection.

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Step 5. Plug in your IMAX B6 from its power supply through the DC port on the left side of the charger

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Step 6. Hit the Batt. Type Button and navigate thru with the buttons, if you find "USER SET PROGRAM->", hit enter and set the values to the way I have set them:

NiCd or NiMH D.peak Sensitivity: Default
Safety Timer: 240min
Capacity Cut-Off: (the amount of mAh your battery can hold, you don't have to worry about this too much as it uses Delta-V to detect when the battery is fully charged)
Input Power Low Cut-Off: 10.0v

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Step 7. Navigate with Batt. Type and find "PROGRAM SELECT". If you have a NiCd battery, find "PROGRAM SELECT NiCd BATT" and hit enter. If you have a NiMH Battery, find "PROGRAM SELECT NiMH BATT", then hit enter. NiCd and NiMH Batteries work similarly, though NiCd batteries tend to warm up more than NiMH batteries, and they also have a memory effect, which causes batteries to forget their full charge threshold.

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Step 8. Once you come to the "CHARGE Man" screen, hit enter and adjust the current to around 0.3-0.8Amps. Once set, hold the enter button and it will begin to charge your battery! Since there is current running through the metal, make sure they are in a safe spot where there are no other electronically conductive substances around (water, metal, etc) (edited)

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IF your charger stops charging your NiCd battery in a short period of time such as 2 minutes, your battery may need a few charges with lower current to get it going again, charging at around 0.1-0.2Amps, low current. It may take a long time. (edited)

Once it's done charging the battery, you can take the clips off and pull the pins out of the connector. (DO NOT USE A METAL TOOL TO PULL THEM OUT!)

If your battery does not last long enough even after doing these steps, you may have to recell your battery, as a lot of i-cybie batteries have been overcharged by the official charger they came with. They were not using Delta-V or a timer, they were just pure ac/dc power blocks. The original instructions also stated to charge for 10 hours, which is way too long. You can recell your batteries at a nearby battery place such as batteries + bulbs, it is HIGHLY not recommended to recell it yourself if you don't know what you are doing. (edited)

It is normal for your battery to get warm while charging, though if it gets too hot to the touch, stop charging it immediately! This project is based on FIXED1T's own charger project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChovXB2wGGw (edited)

FIXED1T

i-Cybie Robot Dog Charging Battery Without The Official Charger

If you have future projects that is electronic related or you may need to use some more rechargeable batteries for other things such as R/C stuff, then the IMAX B6 may come in handy for future uses! (edited)