Charging within custom battery holder

[wpowell]

Figured I'd come to the gurus on this.

New hobby charger is inbound:
http://www.hobbycity.com/hobbycity/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=7028

so I have one of these...
http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=239502

Can I charge AW 17670s IN the oddmod holder ? You know clamp on the leads from the charger and giver her a go.
It seems like that would work..but I keep thinking about 'balance'

What are your thoughts?
I wanted to try NOT to have to build a charging cradle, but I am not sure my idea will work.
Thanks
-w

 

[sed6]

Yes, you can charge in that holder or most any holder without a problem. Only real concern is finding a way to secure your charge leads to the holder.

As far as balancing the cells, first understand that they are most likely to become unbalanced during high drain and high charge rates. Even in those circumstances you don't need to balance them with every charge. Every 3-4 charges pull them out and charge them seperately.

Remember to charge them at 11.1v and at about 1c (which is a charge or discharge rate equal to one times their capacity). So a 2600mAh battery charged at 1c will be charged at a rate of 2600mAh and will take a little over one hour to complete.

 

[45/70]

You could charge Li-Ions in that battery carrier, but I sure wouldn't try it. This would only work safely, if all the cells were at exactly the same potential and had the same charge curve, not a very likely scenario. As it is, you would run a chance of overcharging an individual cell(s), without balancing leads attached.

I suppose, maybe, it'd be safe if the cells were protected, but then it wouldn't work very well because as soon as one cells protection circuit tripped, the charging circuit would be broken.

Dave

 

[rmteo]

Charging loose cells in series is definitely NOT recommended. For 17670, 16340 and 18650 here is what I do. Get one (or more) of these http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.936 ($6.71 with free shipping). Toss the AC adapter, gut the circuitry, connect both cells in parallel and connect a +ve and -ve lead. Connect these leads to your 7028 charger using the croco adapter, set the charger to 1S (and other appropriate settings) and you are good to go.

For the $29 price of the custom adapter, you can put together 4 of these holders and be able to charge up to 8 cells at a time.