Designed an interesting charger, considering crowdfunding, how do you think, is it

[CuriousOne]

I've already had built couple of prototypes and they work fine.

The charger has following features:

has Micro USB for 5V power supply.
Charge current is adjustable 0.1/0.5/1/2 A
Termination voltage is adjustable 3.3/4.2/4.35 V
Accepts CR123-26650 range
LED status indicators (charge complete, charge at CC state, charge at CV state, bad battery/short circuit/fault/etc)
After charge completion, battery is physically disconnected from charger circuit.


By my estimations, retail price can be set to $9.99 or maybe less. Technically, I can make any number of slots for batteries, just power source should have enough juice.

What do you think?

 

[magellan]

Sounds good to me but I'm no expert. There are very expert people here, though, like Selfbuilt, who reviews flashlights here, and HKJ, who has reviewed a lot of chargers, and also batteries and power banks. Maybe see if they'd be open to getting a sample to evaluate?

Here is one of HKJ's charger analyses if you're not familiar with his outstanding reviews:

http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb...-Review-of-Measurement-on-Xtar-WP2-II-charger

In any case good luck with it.

 

[reppans]

Designed an interesting charger, considering crowdfunding, how do you think, ...

Edit... Deleted. (appears you're most complete with the design - my bad)

 

[kreisl]

Re: Designed an interesting charger, considering crowdfunding, how do you think, ...

i take one

sent from galaxy in cn

 

[SubLGT]

I've already had built couple of prototypes and they work fine…………………….Technically, I can make any number of slots for batteries, just power source should have enough juice……………………...

How about a six-slot charger, with 2A in each channel? How will you keep it from over heating?

 

[CuriousOne]

Thanks everyone for support. Let me clarify situation a bit.

I've built this charger for myself and couple of my friends. While electronics-wise it is complete and works fine, visually it is not complete and needs nice housing, labels, etc. So, a lot of work is ahead, if mass production is planned, all documentation etc must be prepared, manufacturer found and so on. All this requires considerable amount of time and money, which I don't have.

So question basically is, that if you see such project on kickstarter, will you fund it?

For the 6 slot charger with 2 amps, I see no problems there - even in worst case scenario, this is 5w per slot - can be done with either passive or active cooling.

 

[ChrisGarrett]

Thanks everyone for support. Let me clarify situation a bit.

I've built this charger for myself and couple of my friends. While electronics-wise it is complete and works fine, visually it is not complete and needs nice housing, labels, etc. So, a lot of work is ahead, if mass production is planned, all documentation etc must be prepared, manufacturer found and so on. All this requires considerable amount of time and money, which I don't have.

So question basically is, that if you see such project on kickstarter, will you fund it?

For the 6 slot charger with 2 amps, I see no problems there - even in worst case scenario, this is 5w per slot - can be done with either passive or active cooling.

To answer your question, I don't personally need a 6 slot 2A charger, so I would rather stick with the known and tested brands like Xtar and Nitecore, who both offer quality chargers that are inexpensive to me, than gamble with some unknown guy cobbling together something that may, or may not work well and which probably doesn't have a viable 'support structure' surrounding it.

You want to throw some stuff together and bake me a cake, I'll try a piece, but li-ion chargers are something I'm not going to gamble on, but that's just my personal bias.

Chris

 

[CuriousOne]

Another thought is just to post schematics and circuit board layout online, so if anyone needs it, can build one for himself.

 

[kreisl]

would love to try to read your schematics thanks��

 

[hiuintahs]

I've already had built couple of prototypes and they work fine..............

What do you think?

$9.99 seems too cheap. I think the question in my mind is to make it that cheap.........just how good is it? Have you got any pictures and description of how you are going about the design? What about the housing or chassis? Those things cost quite a bit of $ for tooling.

............I would rather stick with the known and tested brands like Xtar and Nitecore, who both offer quality chargers that are inexpensive to me, than gamble with some unknown guy cobbling together something that may, or may not work well and which probably doesn't have a viable 'support structure' surrounding it...............li-ion chargers are something I'm not going to gamble on, but that's just my personal bias.
Chris

Ya, I can see your point. However, for me it was just opposite of what you are saying. I wasn't that impressed with the off the shelf chargers when I knew I could do better. Really what it boils down to is cost. Most people want cheap. The XTAR MP1S is an example. The chassis is good. Their board isn't very good.

 

[cogwheel]

has Micro USB for 5V power supply.
Charge current is adjustable 0.1/0.5/1/2 A

This is problematic. The micro USB connector is rated for 1.8A on the power pins, so if you want to safely support more than either 2A in one slot or 1A in two slots, you need to use a different power connector. Even if you want to ignore this, and skip around UL rating your product since it doesn't directly plug into the wall (i.e. always have the buyer purchase a USB power supply separately), you still won't find a UL rated PSU that puts out more than 2.1A due to USB-A connector current limitations.

You could get around all this by going USB 3.1 / USB-C, but not only is that brand new (say hello to a connector that costs $1 instead of $0.10 right now), it also requires a lot more intelligence to negotiate voltage and current at a USB protocol level.

 

[CuriousOne]

Yes I know, so my charger is one slot only. If there will be requirement for more slots, it will need separate power supply/connector.

 

[RoGuE_StreaK]

If you can get HKJ to show that it charges properly with CC/CV, terminates where you say it does, and isn't going to burn down a house, then yeah it sounds interesting and I'd consider buying one. Maybe add a "discharge to storage state" while you're there?

Cheap isn't an indicator. Li-ion has been powering a massive amount of the world's devices for decades, and the world's biggest and best chip manufacturers have been competing to make the cheapest and best charging and monitoring systems to capture that market. HKJ's shown that a $1 TP4056 USB board can do a perfect CC/CV charge for 4.2V termination.

 

[CuriousOne]

Just noticed that title misses a lot of info

I'm not going to send anything to anyone at current stage, nor I'm offering to sell anything.

The thread title idea was, if you see such a charger offered as kickstarter or similar crowdfunding project offering, and target price is $9.99, will you fund it?

 

[Closet_Flashaholic]

I probably wouldn't fund it because you will probably underestimate the following costs:

1) Certification testing (UL, CSA, etc)
2) Manufacturing setup costs will probably require mass sales of 1000's to recoup, driving up the cost way beyond 9.99 for any quantities less
3) Liability insurance costs. LiOn batteries are dangerous unless you know what you're doing. If you don't have a corporation behind you, you open yourself up for litigation when someone's house burns down, whether or not it was the charger's fault.
4) Documentation: How many different languages - and who's going to pay for that?

Too many established products already out there for not much more than your price and if the only thing yours will differentiate on is price, it's a losing scenario

As someone else stated, why take a chance for 9.99 when for 14.99 or even 19.99 will buy a known unit that's been reviewed.

My guess would be that anyone that crowd-funded this would likely never see anything at that cost because the project would never be completed.

Just go back and research the vast number of failed crowd-sourced projects and see why they failed, the reasons are usually the same. If you like making it, just keep making a few for your friends and give 'em away for holiday presents. Try selling one on ebay and see what someone is willing to pay for it (and how much shipping will be) if you really want to get an idea. You'll also be starting out with no brand recognition, that's a tough one to overcome.

 

[CuriousOne]

Thanks a lot, interesting concerns and some of them are already "solved"

1. How many uncertified chargers being sold, can you estimate?
2. This had been calculated precisely, I have 10 year experience in this field.
3. Interesting point, but do other manufacturers do? Say nitecore provides you with insurance if their charger will burn down your house.
4. Absolutely no problem here.

P.S. I already have another project running on crowdfunding platform and it does just fine, I'm not going to advertise/describe it here, but first production units will be delivered to customers at February 1st, 2016, so then will be some reports

 

[WalkIntoTheLight]

3. Interesting point, but do other manufacturers do? Say nitecore provides you with insurance if their charger will burn down your house.

As long as you are selling these from an incorporated business, liability might not affect you personally. You might lose the business, but chances are you're drawing most of the money out of it anyway, so wouldn't lose much.

I presume Nitecore certifies there chargers, so liability would be reduced as long as they followed all the rules from the certification authorities.

Or, if you live in some country where the chances of someone suing you successfully are about zero (such as China), then you can probably sell whatever you like without any kind of insurance. When too many of your customers end up dead, just close your Ebay store and open another.

 

[CuriousOne]

Well, it's just interesting, say if Genuine HP made laptop adapter makes a fire and causes some damage, who's responsible?
Also, from this forum, we've seen couple of brandname flashlights exploded and causing significant damage. Was there any legal action taken?

 

[reppans]

Designed an interesting charger, considering crowdfunding, how do you think, ...

To answer your question, I don't personally need a 6 slot 2A charger, so I would rather stick with the known and tested brands like Xtar and Nitecore, who both offer quality chargers that are inexpensive to me, than gamble with some unknown guy cobbling together something that may, or may not work well and which probably doesn't have a viable 'support structure' surrounding it.

You want to throw some stuff together and bake me a cake, I'll try a piece, but li-ion chargers are something I'm not going to gamble on, but that's just my personal bias.

Chris

+1 for me.

Thanks everyone for support. Let me clarify situation a bit.

I've built this charger for myself and couple of my friends. While electronics-wise it is complete and works fine, visually it is not complete and needs nice housing, labels, etc. So, a lot of work is ahead, if mass production is planned, all documentation etc must be prepared, manufacturer found and so on. All this requires considerable amount of time and money, which I don't have.

So question basically is, that if you see such project on kickstarter, will you fund it?

For the 6 slot charger with 2 amps, I see no problems there - even in worst case scenario, this is 5w per slot - can be done with either passive or active cooling.

So I'll re-post some of what I deleted earlier.

I personally don't see it being worth your time trying to compete in the low-end cheap desktop charger market along with the big gun brand names - you will need serious volume, and low production costs, to make any profit at that price.

I don't know if your 5V USB is a primary or secondary power input, but how many users are going to know most laptop and cellphone USB drivers and wall warts won't have the amperage to charge even one 18650 at 2A.

IMHO, Cottonpicker's exit left a big hole in the ultra-portable USB charger niche. Damn, if I could get something like that again, with V meter, cable/magnet leads (to minimize bulk), and super wishful thinking - a USB 5V/1A powerbank output, and 1or2xNiMh charging capability (a la, Klarus CH1), AND has an HKJ "Good" rating...... well then, I say "F" the $10 nickel and dime market, I gots $100 waiting right here waiting

 

[CuriousOne]

Re: Designed an interesting charger, considering crowdfunding, how do you think, ...

OK and I'll repeat what I've said earlier. I'm not discussing price range, manufacturing diffucilties or whatsoever similar here - I'm working in this field and my estimations were generally legit for recent 10 years at least.

I've asked- you see such project, will you fund it or no?
if no, then please tell me - why?

That's all.