It's not that it will 'suck' 1A from a 500mA port... It'll just deliver 500 mA to the battery.
I doubt there'd be any risk to a USB port.
Really cheap true cc/cv usb charging board
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It's not that it will 'suck' 1A from a 500mA port... It'll just deliver 500 mA to the battery.
I doubt there'd be any risk to a USB port.
Thanks =)
+1, there should likely be no risk to the port in 99.9% of the computers.
IIRC some older designed ports (we're going back a few years here) would shut off entirely if it detected a current draw higher than it wanted to give (and 500ma was being optimistic for some of those older ports). Sometimes power cycling the computer was needed to reset the protection, sometimes just removing the load and waiting 20 secs would do it. bottom line, no damage to anything, worst case, no charge in the battery.
Modern ports will typically just deliver the 500ma and give the charger the finger on the other half. Some will give more than 500ma
USB 3.0 ports are spec'ed to 900ma, but will probably give it the full 1a.
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AmperSand
Enlightened
In action and charging! Just made up some alligator clip leads and soldered them to the board and encased the board in clear heatshrink.
Multimeter in line monitoring voltage for now.
Going to order a few more for use with battery cradles and maybe voltage display. Adding a switch to change charge modes as mentioned previously would also be good! Cheap and effective.
Very nice! Can't wait for mine to arrive... might be a month from China
I hadn't looked at the connector and just assumed that it was full size USB... mini USB makes it even smaller than had thought, now I can think of a few more chargers I could use these in......
I hadn't looked at the connector and just assumed that it was full size USB... mini USB makes it even smaller than had thought, now I can think of a few more chargers I could use these in......
My new rig
The boards are in parallel from a 5v 2.5A power supply, and the carrier is MDF, timber screws and lots (read: a metric buttload) of hot glue and dodgy soldering.
Either way, I now have a dual independent, 1A per channel, charger that actually fits my 32650's
The boards are in parallel from a 5v 2.5A power supply, and the carrier is MDF, timber screws and lots (read: a metric buttload) of hot glue and dodgy soldering.
Either way, I now have a dual independent, 1A per channel, charger that actually fits my 32650's
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As a side note...
Has anyone noticed the boards getting properly hot while charging?
The input voltage is 5.05V under the 2A load - I'm guessing this is a bit higher than the voltage would be if it were being fed USB power?
It's the resistor that's getting toasty, it may just be shedding more due to the higher input voltage...
EDIT: The answer is yes. Under a 1A load, my 2A iPad USB charger measured 4.75V.
Also, conveniently, due to the way the input is wired, I can plug into one of the USB inputs and still charge both batteries In a pinch it'd be slow, but it's still work.
Has anyone noticed the boards getting properly hot while charging?
The input voltage is 5.05V under the 2A load - I'm guessing this is a bit higher than the voltage would be if it were being fed USB power?
It's the resistor that's getting toasty, it may just be shedding more due to the higher input voltage...
EDIT: The answer is yes. Under a 1A load, my 2A iPad USB charger measured 4.75V.
Also, conveniently, due to the way the input is wired, I can plug into one of the USB inputs and still charge both batteries
In a pinch it'd be slow, but it's still work.
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Follow up: the charger cooled down significantly as the cells voltage increased. I started the charge with the cells at 3.7V, so the charger was having to work harder to bring the input voltage down to the required charge voltage. Once the cells were at 4.0 - 4.1V the resistor was barely warm to the touch.
Nice looking little rig there mvyrmnd
I've got a cheap Chinese universal charger which is just begging to be gutted and replaced with an IC I can actually trust without keeping one hand firmly gripped on the fire extinguisher.
Ran across a few more models on the bay of e's today:
Item # 270958278638 - 1a rated, same TP4056 IC, no USB port wired in, no LED wired in. Board is a slightly different size. Twice the $$ ... looks like it would be good for a DIY integration project, not so good for plug-n-play.
Item # 160782678020 - 1.5a rated, 5.8-6v (but recommends 6v), almost the same board design as the one mentioned above, except this time its running TWO TP4056 IC's (still one output) and what looks like dual 1.6k resistors. Item description however is identical to much of the info from the original board, and doesn't seem to apply correctly to the new dual IC 1.5a designed board. going by the resistor tables, 1.6k would = ~750ma on a single IC, so it stands to reason that one each would = ~1.5a .... I don't know, anyone have thoughts on this one? Double the price at $6.... but tempting to get one to play around with.
Item # 150795982222 from the same seller provides a much better detailed and clear picture of the board components.
Item # 120898714536 - full size USB plug on it, board size looks to be quite about smaller.... but the picture is too small to see what kind of IC its using or any of its circuit designs... sold in pairs for $12 after shipping, so kind of an expensive experiment :/
I've got a cheap Chinese universal charger which is just begging to be gutted and replaced with an IC I can actually trust without keeping one hand firmly gripped on the fire extinguisher.
Ran across a few more models on the bay of e's today:
Item # 270958278638 - 1a rated, same TP4056 IC, no USB port wired in, no LED wired in. Board is a slightly different size. Twice the $$
... looks like it would be good for a DIY integration project, not so good for plug-n-play. Item # 160782678020 - 1.5a rated, 5.8-6v (but recommends 6v), almost the same board design as the one mentioned above, except this time its running TWO TP4056 IC's (still one output) and what looks like dual 1.6k resistors. Item description however is identical to much of the info from the original board, and doesn't seem to apply correctly to the new dual IC 1.5a designed board. going by the resistor tables, 1.6k would = ~750ma on a single IC, so it stands to reason that one each would = ~1.5a .... I don't know, anyone have thoughts on this one? Double the price at $6.... but tempting to get one to play around with.
Item # 150795982222 from the same seller provides a much better detailed and clear picture of the board components.
Item # 120898714536 - full size USB plug on it, board size looks to be quite about smaller.... but the picture is too small to see what kind of IC its using or any of its circuit designs... sold in pairs for $12 after shipping, so kind of an expensive experiment :/
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Quest4fire
Enlightened
Updates anyone? Lets keep this cool thread alive...
I charged those 32650's all the way up. When the lights went blue they settled to 4.18V (yay) and I left them in with the multimeter attached to see if there was any evidence of trickle charging. After another hour the voltage had dropped to 4.17V, leading me to believe there is full termination (double yay).
This will now be my full time 32650 charger
This will now be my full time 32650 charger
I saw your thread originally back when you posted, but it just hit me now after about reading old thread about using a cell phone a charger to charge battery, why not use a universal cell phone charger such as ebay item: 110816989744 ? It's dirt cheap and it has already AC plug (build in PS) you just need to connect/solder wires to a battery holder or magnets, clamp, whatever to connect. We used about 10 of these chargers at my work to charge our batteries. The only downside it's only 400 mah and will take a while to charge higher capacity 18650s. BTW, I did order couple chargers you posted, I like the fact that I have plenty of wall AC adapters that output anywhere from 350mah to 2000mah, so I can control charging current without messing with with replacing resistor.
I also looked at a couple of those chargers, and some cheap others like ebay item: 390310966680, or ebay item: 280855992241, but for me, the big problem with all of them is that i don't know what's inside. They might follow a cc/cv algorithm, but there is no way for me to know that. On the other hand, this little charging board, while being cheap uses a chip that as been tested and reviewed, and that i know performs as expected.
I just hooked up the charger from ebay, using magnets for the battery contacts and an Apple power cube for the power supply. Talk about a small charger! My li-ion cell charged up to 4.23V after resting for 1/2 hour, which is well within the 1.5% charge precision stated by the seller. The leds on the charger changed from red to blue, indicating proper charge status. Not bad for a charging board that costs $2.99 including free shipping from Hong Kong.
I tried charging an 18650 using one of these chargers and a CottonPickers large solar cell a couple of days ago, works perfectly. One small thing worthy of note, if the charge leads are disconnected from the cell the power to the charger will need to be removed momentarily to reset the circuit before it will resume charging.
Norm
Norm
Hi Aquanaut,
your module really stop the charge when the final voltage was reached or only change the led colour?
Many thanks
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That Ebay # is no longer available, but you can get the board from other vendors for about $4 now
Search for lithium battery charger board. There is one "listed" that says 1.5A but the stats don't match the 1.5A output so someone would have to contact the dealer to make sure it was a typo or not.. $5.69 for it.
Search for lithium battery charger board. There is one "listed" that says 1.5A but the stats don't match the 1.5A output so someone would have to contact the dealer to make sure it was a typo or not.. $5.69 for it.
:welcome:
There are two leds. When the red charging led turned off and the blue termination led turned on, the voltage was 4.22V. After one hour still on the charger, the voltage dropped to 4.19V. This is convincing evidence that charging has stopped.
Magic Matt
Enlightened
I've only skim-read the thread, so apologies if I've missed something, but the limited USB output of 500mA is only for USB1.1 - with USB2, you can use the port as a charger by shorting the data pins (2 and 3) - this tells the system that the USB device connected is a charger, and if the hardware is capable it will output far more than 500mA quite happily, and the spec allows up to 1800mA. This is exactly what the iPad chargers etc. do. There is risk to the USB port, and I've seen them fried, by trying to pull more than the 500mA without shorting the data pins, though most smart systems just turn off the port until the system is reset, and you'll get some sort of error reported in your Operating System.
