HUANGAO HG-1210W charger

Does anyone have experience with this charger? It charges 2 cells in parallel using spring-loaded wells, and claims to recognize and charge any kind of NiMH or Li-Ion cell, and is switchable for 3.0/3.6V via a toggle switch. I've seen ads on various web sites and eBay listings that claim accurate cutoff voltage. It also indicates state of charge by alternately lighting the LED red, flashing red and green in different timings, and finally solid green.

http://www.bam-boo.cc/seihin-risuto/denchi---juuden-ki/hg-1210w
http://www.szwholesale.com/universal-charger-18650-16340-lion-nimh-nicd-battery-p-3241.html
http://www.kaidomain.com/ProductDetails.aspx?ProductId=6651

DX (and I think also Kai) have a lower current (suitable for 10440 and RCR123a), single-channel variant (but no 3.0V) that also charges 9V batteries and appears to come from the same factory. There was some discussion about this a while back but I can't find the thread.

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.14885

schuster said:

Does anyone have experience with this charger?

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No, but I ordered one yesterday. One of the few chargers that can charge 18650 LiFePO4.

mfm said:

No, but I ordered one yesterday. One of the few chargers that can charge 18650 LiFePO4.

Click to expand...

Wow, what a coincidence
Please post your analysis, as it has a rather unique feature that might get me more interested in LiFePO4

I got the HG-1210W earlier this week.



The specifications are:

Input: AC 100-240V, DC 12-24V

1.2V(1.4V)/800 mAh
3.2V(3.6V)/800 mAh
3.6V(4.2V)/800 mAh

It has a switch for choosing between 3.6V and 4.2V. It can be in different stages depending on the LED:

Solid red - Constant current?
Flashing red - End of constant current?
Flashing red / green - Constant voltage
Green - Done

The spring-based mechanism to hold batteries is very stiff and there is too little room for larger 18650's. The open voltage is 7.10.

First I tried to charge a 14500 LiFePO4 at the 3.6V setting, seems to work fine enough, CC then CV at 3.6V until the cell is at 3.46V, there is no charging at all (0 mA), the LED is green and the open circuit voltage is 7.10. It will probably start charging again if the cell voltage drops down enough.

I discharged one 14500 with my Ultrafire A10 then charged it but at that time I didn't have the DMM that can do 10A measurements. After that I found out that the A10 draws over 2A from the 14500, so now I have no way to discharge the 14500s for other tests.

I then charged a half-charged 14500 and have no idea if it was really at 800 mAh in the beginning but I got the results mentioned above.

I tried NiMH charging with an AA eneloop at 1.30, the current was jumping around from 0 A to 0.5 A the whole time and I got bored maybe two hours later at which the battery was 1.40V. Not that impressed and I wonder about that 800 mAh... The current was not pulsating when I measured the LiFePO4 either. Sometimes the voltage was jumping a bit too (but not that much).

Last I tried a LiCo Trustfire 2400 mAh originally at 3.82V with the 4.2V setting: 3 hours 45 minutes later I take it off when it is green (before that green with red flashes), it is probably still in CV since the voltage at the other terminal was 4.20. The cell was at 4.15V. It was a very tight fit and there was no way to fit anything to measure voltage or current. Tight and hard enough so that, when I remove the cell from the charger, the cell holder ruptures the plastic wrapper on the cell exactly where the wire for the protection PCB is.