KevinL
Flashlight Enthusiast
Re: High-cap unprotected R123s - first impressions
For the rest of our readers.. standard disclaimer: neither KevinL nor CPF nor its members will be responsible should anything bad happen to you..
(we will of course take credit for the good stuff /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif )
OK. The charger has wall power coming in all the way to the plastic housing, so disconnect everything first. I'm not sure whether the capacitors hold a charge, but I took care not to touch anything - I don't want to find out.
You're going to have to break a warranty seal, but then again, small peas to us. Unscrew, pop it open. Gently lift the PCB out of the housing, if it seems to catch, turn it over and look at the other side, the battery contacts may be caught in the plastic. Push them and free them, the PCB should pop open. You should then see the guts.
You will have to adjust a potentiometer, as shown. Turn it CLOCKWISE (at least on my unit it's clockwise) gently. Don't turn too much.
s2k has advised that you re-assemble the charger, put the plastic casing on and screw everything back together before you power it up. This is a Very Good Idea and I highly recommend you take the extra trouble to do it especially if you are not comfortable working with high voltages.
Plug the unit in to power it up, then take a DMM reading from the two battery charger terminals. This will be the open circuit voltage. I find that an open circuit voltage of 4.27V gives me approx. 4.03V-4.07V cell voltage. I could probably tweak it again but I think it's far enough so I'm all right with that.
Remember to unplug it before you start adjusting the pot again!
Once you're happy, close it up and be done with it.
For the rest of our readers.. standard disclaimer: neither KevinL nor CPF nor its members will be responsible should anything bad happen to you..
(we will of course take credit for the good stuff /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif )
OK. The charger has wall power coming in all the way to the plastic housing, so disconnect everything first. I'm not sure whether the capacitors hold a charge, but I took care not to touch anything - I don't want to find out.
You're going to have to break a warranty seal, but then again, small peas to us. Unscrew, pop it open. Gently lift the PCB out of the housing, if it seems to catch, turn it over and look at the other side, the battery contacts may be caught in the plastic. Push them and free them, the PCB should pop open. You should then see the guts.
You will have to adjust a potentiometer, as shown. Turn it CLOCKWISE (at least on my unit it's clockwise) gently. Don't turn too much.
s2k has advised that you re-assemble the charger, put the plastic casing on and screw everything back together before you power it up. This is a Very Good Idea and I highly recommend you take the extra trouble to do it especially if you are not comfortable working with high voltages.
Plug the unit in to power it up, then take a DMM reading from the two battery charger terminals. This will be the open circuit voltage. I find that an open circuit voltage of 4.27V gives me approx. 4.03V-4.07V cell voltage. I could probably tweak it again but I think it's far enough so I'm all right with that.
Remember to unplug it before you start adjusting the pot again!
Once you're happy, close it up and be done with it.