Review of SysMax/NiteCore Intellicharger i4 V2 Charger

[candle lamp]

Excellent review as always. HKJ! Thanks for your time & effort in test review. :thumbsup:

You've mentioned the NiMH charge mode prevents correct handling of over discharged LiIon. Could you explain in more detail?

 

[infinus]

It uses voltage detection to identify cells. So below say 2 volts is nimh. Above li-ion. There is no other mechanism. So if the cell voltage is low it may get incorrectly identified as nimh and terminate as a nimh.

 

[HKJ]

You've mentioned the NiMH charge mode prevents correct handling of over discharged LiIon. Could you explain in more detail?

The full LiIon charging specification is like this (Voltage varies with actual chemistry, the numbers I uses has not been checked with any datasheet):

1. Below 2 volt: Do not charge.
2. Between 2 and 3 volt: Slow charge
3. Over 3 volt: Full charge current
4. At 4.2 volt: Use constant voltage, until current is below termination threshold.

It is 1. that is the problem, it is designed to avoid charging over discharged batteries.

 

[candle lamp]

The full LiIon charging specification is like this (Voltage varies with actual chemistry, the numbers I uses has not been checked with any datasheet):

1. Below 2 volt: Do not charge.
2. Between 2 and 3 volt: Slow charge
3. Over 3 volt: Full charge current
4. At 4.2 volt: Use constant voltage, until current is below termination threshold.

It is 1. that is the problem, it is designed to avoid charging over discharged batteries.

Oh, I get it. Thanks a lot for your kind reply.

One more question. HKJ! Does that problem happen when Li-ion charging only or when both Li-ion & Ni-Mh charging?

 

[HKJ]

One more question. HKJ! Does that problem happen when Li-ion charging only or when both Li-ion & Ni-Mh charging?

It happens every time you but a over discharged LiIon cell into the charger, it does not really matter what is in the other positions.

Note: This problem is common on most LiIon chargers, except hobby chargers.

 

[infinus]

I've been a big time skeptic of this charger for a long time. When V1 came out and all the problems started happening I just took a "see, told you so" kind of approach. After seeing some of the reports on V2 I decided..... maybe at 25 bucks I should just see for myself....... so I bought it from Going Gear with some lube since I already read on the slider issue and them jamming up.

I was very skeptical. But I have to say, the more I use it, the more I'm swayed. It's just........ easy. Put everything in, it charges, it terminates, every li-ion comes off at 4.2 volts (even my slightly older cells which came off my hobby charger at 4.14). All my nimh charge and terminate fine.

It's easier than dinking around with the hobby charger, and being able to do 4 cells at once, despite the slow charge rate, simply makes it faster and less hassle.

I guess I'm sold on this little hunk of plastic. I wish they'd properly lube it, and I think it's heat generation is a bit high, but for $25 it's really not bad.

 

[cactus man]

I appreciate the detailed product review but I do notice one parameter missing!
RFI ..Radio Frequency Interference!
As an Amateur Radio operator we are plagued with consumer electronic devices and the
radio interference noise they generate!


As an example:
Ridgid tools [Home Depot] offer battery operated devices and battery chargers. Their single bay charger is now in it's
fourth generation of design and production. Each generation does indeed have a different circuit board and
most likely a different OEM!

The first three generations were terribly noisy...as well as Ryobi and DeWalt chargers!
Ridgid's newest X4 designed charger is quiet.

Well let me be the one here to tell you the Intellicharger i4 is QUIET!
I was operating my Amateur Radio station with the charger less than 12 inches from an
Icom IC7700 Transceiver [A high end state of the art radio]
On the radio scope I did not see any RFI or hear anything odd.

I was charging two protected 18650 batteries. I also noted no heat issues.
The charging time was around 4 hours so my batteries were not "used up".

I test all my batteries using the ZTS model MBT1 pulse load multi-battery tester,
and it's made in USA!!!!


Cactus Man

 

[tandem]

Put everything in, it charges, it terminates, every li-ion comes off at 4.2 volts (even my slightly older cells which came off my hobby charger at 4.14).

Have you checked the voltage of these older cells a few hours later? Next day? I'm curious to know what they fall to afterwards.

Personally I would prefer a charger not force every cell to 4.2V.

 

[infinus]

Next day they were still 4.2.

I was honestly a little bit surprised by that. I get no fall off from my off the charger voltage with this charger. I don't think it's over charging though, just getting much closer to 100% than my hobby charger. My hobby charger I usually set to 1 amp charge rate for 2500mah+ 18650's so it terminates at 100ma. That's what usually leaves cells at 4.14.

I know that not fully charging gives you more cycles but honestly by the time I hit enough cycles for that to matter my cells will be years old anyways and due for replacement. I have a number of cells that I cycle through so they only get charged maybe once a week or so. So I have no problem going right to 100%.

 

[Divine_Madcat]

Well, just like a few others, i picked up one of these, and two Eagletac 18650's. This charger really appealed to me, since i am in bad need on an NiMH charger as well. Certainly cant wait to see how they work out on my TK15!

 

[tandem]

Those slightly older cells of yours are still in pristine shape. Maybe that's partly due to your use of a hobby charger and the parameters you've set which result in a ~ 4.14 termination voltage. Or maybe they just haven't been used all that much. Or perhaps they are in good shape because they were good cells to begin with and/or all of the above.

As I said earlier, I'm not that keen on consumer style cradle chargers which attempt to stuff every last milliamp-hour of capacity back into a li-ion cell. The first objection I have you picked up on, in that bringing a cell to full charge every cycle is thought to reduce cycle life.

The other reason I don't care for such chargers is they spend far too much time shoving those last few milliamp-hours of capacity back into a cell. In the case of HKJ's 1x18650 charging chart, 4.15V is achieved somewhere around the 4 hour mark. There is very little capacity gain from that point to 4.2V as you can see in the far right hand scale of the chart - inconsequential capacity is forgone if the cell terminates early. Bringing the cell all the way to 4.2V takes another 2 hours.

Two hours for very little gain - honestly I can't see any reason to push the cell there except for bragging rights.

More importantly, the longer the charge process takes, the less likely it is to be supervised properly. This becomes an even more serious problem when the device is fully stuffed with cells and requires 11 hours plus before the done light comes on.

So there's three reasons why I'm personally not in favour of adding 50% more charge time: very little capacity gain to show for significantly extended charge time; reduced cell life span; and, more chance the charge process will go unsupervised.

 

[HKJ]

The other reason I don't care for such chargers is they spend far too much time shoving those last few milliamp-hours of capacity back into a cell. In the case of HKJ's 1x18650 charging chart, 4.15V is achieved somewhere around the 4 hour mark. There is very little capacity gain from that point to 4.2V as you can see in the far right hand scale of the chart - inconsequential capacity is forgone if the cell terminates early. Bringing the cell all the way to 4.2V takes another 2 hours.

Two hours for very little gain - honestly I can't see any reason to push the cell there except for bragging rights.

It does take a lot of time for the last few mAh, but not that much. You have to look at the current not the voltage, for a single cell it looks more like 20 minutes.

 

[infinus]

Some good points.

To clarify one thing. Cells on my hobby charger come off at 4.17 and settle to 4.14. I'm still would have expected some settling on the I4.

The primary advantage as I see it is the ability to charge 4 cells vs 1 at a time on my hobby charger. 1 at a time I can usually charge 2 in an evening where as on the I4 I can do 4. I usually don't put my cells on the charger until I need them (unless they've been fully depleted in which case they go on ASAP). So if I cycle through 4 cells it's nice to be able to throw all of them on at once.

If I need to speed things up I can always remove them from the charger anytime once the last LED starts blinking and know they are mostly full.

I attribute my cells to being good cells (AW's). They've been used in high amperage lights to depletion and charged on some lesser chargers in their time. They have lost around 10-15% of their capacity so far.

 

[infinus]

I also wonder how much the pulse charging of the I4 comes into play. I've seen papers on the Internet talk about the affect of pulse charging vs true CC/CV charging. Benefits include a more saturated (full) charge and less long term cell damage (capacity decay) vs a straight CC charge.

 

[infinus]

Can someone take some temperature measurements of their charger while charging 4x18650 (front and back) using an IR gun or something? I'm just curious what others are seeing as normal temps.

 

[TinderBox (UK)]

I have only really charged nimh, and a couple of Lin-ions, I did not notice an heat problems, if you are having a problem, maybe buy a few stick on feet from ebay, to give some air-flow underneath as their is zero now as it virtually flat to the bench.

John.

Can someone take some temperature measurements of their charger while charging 4x18650 (front and back) using an IR gun or something? I'm just curious what others are seeing as normal temps.

 

[infinus]

Knowing others temps would help me to determine if what I see is normal.

 

[Divine_Madcat]

I can only comment on 2x 18650's , the batteries didn't get warm, but the charger did.. though not so much you couldn't hold it in your hand.

Speaking of which.. both batteries arrived with ~3.7v charge, so i slapped em in. Confirmed the charger stopped charging both at 4.2v, and both batteries settled overnight to ~4.18-4.19v (my DMM bounces between said volts). Seems like a great little charger so far; can't wait to slap my Duraloops in to see how they go.

 

[jcw122]

Very interesting charger, thanks for the review.

 

[loquutis79]

Anyone want to change a very slightly used Pila for one of these?

O.K. Even I am not sure if I am joking or not....but this charger looks very good. If it was out before I bought the Pila just a while ago, I would have gone with this one.

But on the serious side, does anyone see this replacing the Pila brand?