Almost 24 Hours to Charge?

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Jerry B

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Apr 15, 2009
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I have a cheapo generic TL-100 charger from Battery Junction that I'm finding takes almost 24 hours to indicate that it has fully charged a set of UltraFire 18650 3000mAh batteries. This seems like a terribly long time. Is this par for this charger/battery combination? Is it just that the batteries are so high mAh or would a better charger be the answer?:sigh:
 
I have the Ultrafire WF-139 Charger
And I just got a pair of UF 18650 3000mA

One was a little bellow 4v so I put it on the charger .. Its taking a looooong time to charge ....

This could be a good sign ..
 
Been seaching,been searching ,been searching (Old Rock 'N Roll song).

Post here

http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=209785

shows that charger starting charge at 0.25 A 250 mA. and tapering down as voltage goes up which is normal for such chargers. Charge rate drops down to near 180 mA near the end.

3000 mA rate dcapacity. Very unlikely it would be discharged more than 2000 mAh and IMO it certainly should no be. 2000 / 215 ( mean/average) just a guess = 9.3 hours so tapered section of charge is much longer than it should be perhaps.

I do not have those cells however I use what are refered to here on CPF as Hobby chargers. I charge most of my Li ion flashlight cells at 0.5c (1/2c) or 1300 for a 2600 mAh cell. The charge takes approx.2 hours if the cell has been discharged say 2100 mAh.

Edit I looked at 138 instead of 139 . Looks like 360 mA at starrt and tapers (CV) stage 220 so adjust the math.
 
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Hello Charles.

I see that your posts are very helpful, the same as they are at RCgroups.

Its nice that you have found CPF, to help us all with your very long knowledge of battery and the problems that comes with them.

(Maybe Tom also had something to do with it);)

You are Very Welcome here at CPF.

Anders
 
Thanks for the welcome and kind comments Anders. I have visited CPF from time to time for the past five years or so as I was well aware of Tom's rather intense NiMH testing and I have had Maglites for years along with a few spot lights and such. The LED super lights are finally to the state that they have caught my interest and I do have a bit of battery experience and like to help when I can so here I am.
 
For safety sake I think it is not good to have a Li-Ion in a generic charger for that long. Don't know if your charger terminates at a certain voltage or if it trickle charges but either way it is not safe to have it in a charger for that long if the cell is an unprotected one. I hope the more knowledgeable members can chime in but it doesn't sound right to me. Check out the battery section for helpful info on safe and proper Li-Ion use.
 
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Oddjob said:
For safety sake I think it is not good to have a Li-Ion in a generic charger for that long. Don't know if your charger terminates at a certain voltage or if it trickle charges but either way it is not safe to have it in a charger for that long if the cell is an unprotected one. I hope the more knowledgeable members can chime in but it doesn't sound right to me. Check out the battery section for helpful info on safe and proper Li-Ion use.
Click to expand...

I've noticed that the batteries themselves, at no time in the charging process, even feel warm, let alone hot. Is that good or bad?
 
If they're not warm, they're charging very very slowly. Could be either good or bad depending on specifics. Some batteries like fast charges, some like slow. I don't know which li-ions are.

Anyway, looks like this is the charger: http://www.batteryjunction.com/combo-tl100.html

It says:


Charging time:
  • 800mAh: 3 hours
  • 2000mAh: 8.5 hours
  • 2200mAh: 9.5 hours
Doing a quick line of best fit, instead of doing actual expected charge time calcs, 3000 mAh correlates to 13.5 hours. So unless you're exaggerating (13.5 hours can sure feel like a whole day!), it sounds like there's something wrong with either the charger or the batteries. Shouldn't be terribly hard to figure out which. Do the batteries seem to run fine and last as long as you expect?
 
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800/3 = 266.66 ma/hr
2000/8.5 = 258.82 ma/hr
2200/9.5 = 231.57 ma/hr

taking into account that larger capacities =(maybe)= less charge per time (good/bad?)

It could take as long as :
3000ma/125 ma/hr = 24 hours

Note: this is only taking int account the liner regression of charge rate found between the 2000 ma and 2200 ma battery capacities. To actually have a valid calculation more (charge time VS cell capacity) are needed.:confused:
 
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