Juicing up your vehicle's battery life should be a no brainer even for a beginner, but a bigger concern here is the safety and efficiency of the charging process. Not that buying a regular charger from a brick and mortar shop can necessarily do you more harm than benefit, but it's good to know what are your options and whether or not you have room for an upgrade. Understanding the type of chargers there are and when they serve best, is important, in order for you to get the best out of your vehicle and battery as well.
Balance
First on the list are balance chargers which are made to charge Lithium batteries, because they require specific circuitry called intelligent circuitry. This type of circuitry is able to monitor each cell and balance them out accordingly. The charging process here is very similar to another type of chargers called dealt-peak, except that here the charger remote control car is being used to charge only lithium batteries. Balance chargers are also similar to smart chargers, the only difference is that they operate at specific voltages and battery types.
Delta-Peak
What makes delta-peak different from balance chargers is that they are mainly used for NiMH and NiCd batteries, and they have a special feature that allows them to detect when a battery is fully charged. This feature is extremely helpful as it can prevent overcharging, which can lead to damage in the battery's cells. Delta-peak chargers will usually charge your battery from 1-10 hours. depending on the battery capacity and the model of the charger, and they also have a higher current output than trickle chargers (well talk about them in a minute).
Trickle
This is the most basic type of charger, that unlike delta-peak chargers, NiMH and NiCd are their only suspects. When it comes to charging, they are the slowest on the market, as it usually takes from 6 to 24 hours depending on the battery capacity and charger model. The reason behind this is because they have a very low current output, in order to prevent overcharging. Although a standard charger remote control car like this, has a LED light - not to show when a battery is full but rather when there's a connection established.
Smart
The smart charger is the most advanced and comprehensive type of charger because it is able to charge 6 different types of batteries: Lithium, NiMH, NiCd, LiPo, Pb and LiFePo4, meaning that they can charge every single battery type used in this hobby. The aforementioned battery types can be charged in a finely-adjustable, wide range of voltages, hence why smart chargers have different charging modes, like, normal charge, balance charge, storage charge, fast charge and discharge. Most of them are called 4 button smart chargers.
