Is There That Much Difference in Chargers?

[Jerry B]

I am contemplating purchasing a Pila ($49) charger for my assorted mix of 18650 batteries. I have several sets from 2200-3000mAh, AW's, Pila's, Ultrafire's & Tenergy's. I am currently using a cheapo (TL-100 Universal-$15) from Battery Junction.
My question here is, is there that much of a safety, charging speed, battery longevity advantage here, or you just paying the extra bucks for the fact that the Pila is American made and you get several plug adapters with it?

 

[Black Rose]

The Pila IBC isn't American made.

Permalight is a Hong Kong based company that owns the Pila rights. They utilize Swiss designs and engineering, and manufacture the products in China.

Anyway, the main reason the Pila IBC is recommended a lot is that it is the best consumer grade Li-Ion charger currently on the market.

The TL-100 physically looks like the DSD charger and has similar specs (the power output specs on the TL-100 are lower than the DSD).
The DSD is one of the preferred low cost Li-Ion chargers, so it appears you might be OK with what you have.

 

[Glock27]

Pila chargers are Swiss designed and engineered and are assembled at Permalight's facilities in Panyu, China.

I believe it to be the best charger currently for Li-Ion short of a hobby charger....which can get more expensive.
You can buy cheaper chargers, but unfortunately, most of the cheap chargers don't follow the recommended charging standards specified by cell manufacturers.
G27

 

[325addict]

Yes, there's a principal difference between the el-cheapo chargers just following the CC-method, and the better ones that follow the true CC-CV method.

What does this mean? Chargers only having a CC charging system, charge the battery by means of a (more or less) constant current, until a certain voltage on the batteries is reached. This voltage should be no more than 4.200V otherwise it can get dangerous, on this point numerous chargers are going wrong already.
After this voltage is reached, the chargers simply shuts off.... in the best case. Others do some kind of "trickle charge" which isn't necessary (even DANGEROUS) when it comes to Lithium-based batteries.

What's the main problem in shutting down when this certain voltage level is reached? Simple: the second part of the charging, the CV-part, simply is not carried out.
A really GOOD charger doesn't switch off when the 4.200V level is reached, it holds the voltage constant at this level for a while (hence the abbreviation CV = Constant Voltage). From the moment, the 4.200V level is reached and held constant, the current will start to fall. Ideally, the charger will shut down completely, when the current has fallen to 3% of the battery-capacity. You can see easily, that your batteries will NOT be charged to their full potential if only the CC-path is followed. You'll loose capacity.

All this is done by the charger I designed last weekend. Next week or so, I plan to build the prototype....


Timmo.