problem with a made in china 18650 charger

[R10500]

hi, so yeah my charger has been acting weird. sometimes my batteries take more than 1 1/2 hours just to get 1 more bar higher on the charge bar and sometimes it suddenly reads full. just a few minutes ago when i was charging 2 out of 4 possible batteries at a time, i heard this snapping sound just like a tension spring when released and the bars went back to one bar again.

this charger supposedly trickle charges. when charging, out of 3 bars, whichever is blinking shows roughly to what charge the battery is currently at and when full all 3 bars light up. this one is capable of charging batteries of around the same diameter as an 18650 since it uses this spring loaded contact.

has anybody any experience with this kind of charger? it is called cnergy and i received it in a flashlight package from a local shop.

also is it normal to hear this zapping like sound in a trickle charging unit when it's just started up?

 

[borrower]

I'm a big cheapskate, but even I would bin something that crackles under power.

For good brands (no guarantee of individual assembly quality, of course) look to Pila, Nitecore, Xtar. If you want minimalist, check out the ML-102. HKJ's site has plenty of reviews to look through: http://lygte-info.dk/

 

[Joe Talmadge]

Or something that claims to trickle charge Li Ions. No way I'd do anything but throw it out

 

[VidPro]

when working with lectronics and you hear crackling sounds, it might mean a silicon component has "popped", especially if suddenly the voltage changed at that point. You can take it apart after something like that, and might see a component that has a charred region, or cracked container, or bulging.

Normally there can be whines and hums and buzzes, that are just the power turning on and off , be that PWM, or For the stop and check stuff.

One of the Cnergy chargers looks like These things http://lygte-info.dk/review/Difference between Sysmax charger V1 and V2 UK.html , does yours?

 

[R10500]

yeah just a day after reading about the xtar vp-1 and i'm already thinking of getting it but i might have to save up for a while. after all i have charged 2 different ttypes of batteries with mine for almost a year, maybe only 5-6 times actually but no issues till yesterday. i'm charging 2 at a time now avoiding the 2nd dock after it failed to detect a battery. still going fine after fully charging one battery already. how can i tell if it really doesn't trickle charge? mine makes a hardly audible sound, something like a beer dispenser after a few secounds upon start-up.

yeah thats the same one, maybe a different sticker on the top but otherwise it should be the same internally.

 

[VidPro]

From what i am reading (into it) you might have batteries that one or more of them are not doing well at all.
With a voltmeter, you can observe much of what your charger does, and see if it stops completly or not.
This votmeter might also be applied to see if your batteries are charging "fully" (depending on what is normal for the charger), and if your batteries are self discharging a lot. those 2 things might indicate that the batteries are not so good.

another usefull thing would be any method to determine capacity. a cheap hobby charger, or some single light that you know the runtime of and can safely discharge test in.

 

[R10500]

yeah i don't think so. all my batteries, 4 3000mAh 3.7v IMR LiMN and 4 ultrafire unprotected, same specs, read 4 volts at full charge. idk if it's only my charger that terminates at 4V but it seems constant in this sense. i think i last charged the batteries about a month ago with maybe 10-20 minutes usage for all of them and when i charged then they were read as charging up to the 2nd bar. i also unscrew the battery holder a little so that the batteries don't make contact. would running my skyray king look-alike on low be a safe way to discharge test the batteries?

all batteries fully charged now btw and no problems any more hurrah

 

[LEDAdd1ct]

My Pila IBC is my Number One 18650 charger, and it is made in China.

I would hesitate to use the nomenclature "Made in China" to automatically and without qualification denote a product as inherently inferior.

 

[R10500]

yeah i know. my best flashlights are made in china too. in fact they're the only powerful flashlights i have and they show no sign of giving up yet, it's just that i didn't know if anyone would recognize the brand of my charger. i guess the thing is QC in general, across maybe a few brands or brandless stuff.

btw, does that v2 intelligent charger have an in-built fan too? i remember reading something about that.

 

[LEDAdd1ct]

i guess the thing is QC in general, across maybe a few brands or brandless stuff.

Money In --> Quality Out

If the company wants to pump in more money, a better product will pop out.

If the company doesn't care...

 

[Joe Talmadge]

Well, consider the consequences of poor quality. If you buy a cheap flashlight, chances are the worst that will happen is your light may stop working sooner than you expected; no big deal as long as it's not your emergency light, I suppose. But if your charger uses a bad algorithm, which this one almost certainly does, at best it will chew up your battery's life, at worst it may overheat them and cause a serious event like a fire (and if it really trickle charges, you're halfway there already). If you're buying really cheaply-made batteries also, that might compound the issue.

These days, we don't have to go with AW + Pila for top dollar, and get quality. There are chargers with decent QC and acceptable algorithms, and well-made cells, that are inexpensive. No excuse to buy junk (dangerous junk) IMO, when for around the same price you can get acceptable quality and safety.