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Simple Single Cell NICad Charger

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electrocub

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**broken link removed**

I fly model airplanes and I would like to build a charging circuit to charge a single nicad cell. I would like to be able to charge it at the flying field at 1C (1100 ma) from a 12 volt 7 amp battery. I was planning on using the circuit in the link above called Constant Current Battery Charger using the circuit with the lm317, but the power consumption is very high. Is there a way for me to charge the battery consuming less power, but in the same time period?

Thanks
 
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**broken link removed**

I fly model airplanes and I would like to build a charging circuit to charge a single nicad cell. I would like to be able to charge it at the flying field at 1C (1100 ma) from a 12 volt 7 amp battery. I was planning on using the circuit in the link above called Constant Current Battery Charger using the circuit with the lm317, but the power consumption is very high. Is there a way for me to charge the battery consuming less power, but in the same time period?

I don't see your problem? - the current of the LM317 circuit is the charging current of the cell - no more, no less.

If you want to make the design more efficient, you need a far more complicated switchmode solution.
 
It just seems so inefficient.
From a power viewpoint it is inefficient since your are charging a 1.2V cell from a 12V battery which wastes about 10.8V at 1.1A or 11.9W.

As Nigel said, you would need to go to a switching current regulator to improve your efficiency. Unfortunately with efficiency comes complexity. They are significantly more complex than a linear current regulator.
 
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