Test/review of Charger Olight UC

[HKJ]

[size=+3]Charger Olight UC[/size]

Olight has made a very simple charger with no slots, but only magnets for battery connections. This is nothing new, except Olight has improved it significantly: Both LiIon and NiMH and no polarity.

The pack is very simple and contains only the charger.

The clear plastic around the wire has a red and green led behind it. This means it will be read while charging and green when done. The led will flash slowly red when not connection to any battery (Both with open and shorted connections).
The leds are fairly weak.

In this block the wire split into two, one for each end of the battery.

The two magnets.

Here the magnets are connected to a battery.

Only limit on battery size is charge current.
The current is a bit high for small cells, but some 14500 and 16340 will be acceptable because the current drops when voltage increase.


[size=+2]Measurements[/size]

• Will discharge a LiIon battery with 1.1mA or 0.7mA (Depending on direction) when not powered
• Will discharge a NiMH battery with 0.3mA or 0.2mA (Depending on direction) when not powered
• Will charge a LiIon with 0.1mA with 4mA pulses when charging is finished.
• Below 1 volt it will charge/discharge with 4mA
• Between 1V and 1.7V the charger assumes NiMH
• Between 1.7V and 3V it assumes LiIon and it will slow charge (0.3A)
• Above 3V it will charge with full current
• The charger will not restart if the voltage drops.

The charger uses CC/CV charging, but cannot deliver full current when the battery voltage is above 3.9V, termination is at 100mA.
This is a good charge curve.

This cell has higher charge voltage and the current will be a bit below maximum current.

Works fine.

This cell is old, again the charge voltage is high and the current drops a bit.

On paper the charger current is too high for these cells, but in praxis it is not that bad. A new cell would be charged with too high current at the start of charge and this is the time where the battery can best tolerate it.

Here I have added a 0.5ohm resistor in series with the usb power to simulate a long cable or weak usb charger. The charger do not handle that well, it terminates at 4.1V and 400mA.

M1: 33,2°C, M2: 25,7°C, HS1: 43,0°C
The charger get a bit warm and the battery stays cool.

It takes a few second for the charger to initialize a LiIon charge.



NiMH batteries

The charger uses voltage detection for NiMH batteries and not any significant top-off or trickle charge. This means the batteries will be slightly below a full charge.
The charge current for NiMH is 500mA

The eneloopPro and powerex are handled fine.

The charger cannot handle my old worn out eneloopXX (This battery is not really useable anymore).

The AAA cell is handled fine.

With voltage termination the charger is fairly fast at detecting a full cell

M1: 35,7°C, M2: 26,0°C, HS1: 47,5°C
The charger get a bit warm, but the battery stays cool.

The power on sequence is a bit long when charging NiMH.

The charger is fairly fast to get into the precharge phase, but there are some strange pulses.

I do not know the reason for these pulses, they do both look the same. They do not prevent the charger from trying to charge alkaline cells.

As usual for a NiMH the current will be turned off when checking voltage.



[size=+2]Conclusion[/size]

This is a very compact usb charger and it is fairly useful for many cells, it works best with a good stable usb power.
Because the charger is isolated from the cells it will never heat them. I like the automatic polarity, but I would have like the charge indication leds to be a lot brighter.

I will call it a good charger and the best I have seen of this type (usb with magnetic clamps).



[size=+3]Notes[/size]

Here is an explanation on how I did the above charge curves: How do I test a charger

 

[TinderBox (UK)]

As you know i have been dying to see this review, So the current is a little to high for small cells like 10440 16340 and 14500

Great review as always.

John.

 

[Chaitanya]

Thanks for the review, going off the topic are planning to do review of new thrunite chargers(mcc-4s and 2s)? also will be doing some camera charger reviews now that Nitecore has started making those as well?

 

[samgab]

What a brilliant little go-anywhere last resort travel charger! You can throw it in the side pocket of a travel bag and take it with you anywhere. And use it anywhere, because USB outlets are everywhere now. I always travel with a laptop, for instance, so I always have USB ports on that, at least. Also in my car. And the fact that it can handle Li-ion and NiMH is very handy. For this kind of philosophy of use, it's not really a problem that it charges NiMH slightly under a full charge... The fact that you can give them a charge where-ever is the key thing. Brilliant. I think I'll pick up one or two.

Thanks as always for the very thorough review and tests. Cheers!

Edit: Here are my ideas for Olight, for the second generation of this:
1: A small switch for 3.6/4.2/4.35V, to cater to other Li-based chemistries.
2: Another small switch on the other side for 0.5/0.75/1.0A, to adjust the current, for different capacity cells.
3: Perhaps a tiny integrated OLED display on the USB plug which shows batt voltage, charge rate, and status.
4: A nice little storage pouch to pack it away in between uses. Something like what my Beats by Dre Powerbeats3 Wireless earbuds came in would be suitable:

I know all that cool extra stuff will make it more expensive which won't suit everyone. Maybe keep the Olight UC and add an Olight UC PRO edition?

 

[HKJ]

Thanks for the review, going off the topic are planning to do review of new thrunite chargers(mcc-4s and 2s)? also will be doing some camera charger reviews now that Nitecore has started making those as well?

I have not planned on any specific chargers, I doubt I will look at the chargers for cameras, but maybe I will look at the Thrunite chargers.

 

[ko4nrbs]

Will it restart upon a power interruption?
Bill

 

[HKJ]

Will it restart upon a power interruption?

Yes.

 

[Woods Walker]

I have found some strange quarks with this charger. It won't work with all my USB powerbanks and occasionally will terminate the charge at 4.1 volts via solar. Does work with solar but not totally flawlessly however need more testing. It's UL enough to be tossed in the pack in case I need to charge the AAs on the the fly. Nice review.

 

[davidt1]

I want one. Thanks for the review.

 

[Tachead]

What a brilliant little go-anywhere last resort travel charger! You can throw it in the side pocket of a travel bag and take it with you anywhere. And use it anywhere, because USB outlets are everywhere now. I always travel with a laptop, for instance, so I always have USB ports on that, at least. Also in my car. And the fact that it can handle Li-ion and NiMH is very handy. For this kind of philosophy of use, it's not really a problem that it charges NiMH slightly under a full charge... The fact that you can give them a charge where-ever is the key thing. Brilliant. I think I'll pick up one or two.

Thanks as always for the very thorough review and tests. Cheers!

Edit: Here are my ideas for Olight, for the second generation of this:
1: A small switch for 3.6/4.2/4.35V, to cater to other Li-based chemistries.
2: Another small switch on the other side for 0.5/0.75/1.0A, to adjust the current, for different capacity cells.
3: Perhaps a tiny integrated OLED display on the USB plug which shows batt voltage, charge rate, and status.
4: A nice little storage pouch to pack it away in between uses. Something like what my Beats by Dre Powerbeats3 Wireless earbuds came in would be suitable:

I know all that cool extra stuff will make it more expensive which won't suit everyone. Maybe keep the Olight UC and add an Olight UC PRO edition?

I agree with your suggestions but, I think the charge currents available should be 0.25/0.5/1amp. 0.25amp would be much more useful then 0.75(this kind of an oddball/in between charge rate imo) as for many small cells (10440, 16340, 14500, etc.) this a perfect rate.

 

[Tachead]

Thanks for the review HKJ:thumbsup: