What do you use for a Spacer on your charger?

Here is a question,

Other than paying $6.00 bucks plus shipping for a Ball Bearing

What do you all use from around the house as a spacer for 16340 or 14500 Li-Ions in your charger?

Can a bolt or nut be used? does it have to be of a certain material? does it have to go on the Negative end of the battery?

Thanx for any input!!

I don't use a spacer. I modded the WF-139 by connecting the two side slots. Works great!

sbdwag

litetube said:

Here is a question,

Other than paying $6.00 bucks plus shipping for a Ball Bearing

What do you all use from around the house as a spacer for 16340 or 14500 Li-Ions in your charger?

Can a bolt or nut be used? does it have to be of a certain material? does it have to go on the Negative end of the battery?

Thanx for any input!!

Click to expand...

The points to look for would be; good electrical conductor, able to make it the right length and width, easy to find or make.......btw, didn't you get a couple of these with your charger?......anyway, I started to use coins as spacers in my lights, just tape them together on the outside with sticky tape or electrical tape, depending what you want to use this spacer for and that is it. The number of coins you use determines the length. I still have a collection of $AU 1c coins (made mostly out of copper) that are good for use with 17 and 18mm cells.......and use our 10c coins with the C cells........easy, cheap and available.

I have a WF-139 and I use .40 caliber FMJ's for my spacers. I mean, what could be better than copper plated lead?

Ball of tin foil.

I use my balls.

Here is what Silverfox uses for his pila IBC. You might need shorter/longer depending on the charger. https://www.candlepowerforums.com/posts/2537971&postcount=27

I use basically the same thing but with a regular nut. Probably pick up a brass bolt and nut for under $1 at any hardware store. Try ACE if you have one near you, they have tons and tons of boxes full of all sizes that you can buy one of, unlike the big home depot type that you will have to buy a bag of 10 or whatever.

*Old dead button cell batteries...














*NEVER use old dead button cell batteries. Bad things will happen. It's a horrible idea.

It's a horrible idea.... at least not wise, to even suggest that. Someone may hastily ignore the bottom line thinking it's your signature. I for one, much appreciate you expertise but... well, it just a suggestion.

Lite_me said:

It's a horrible idea.... at least not wise, to even suggest that. Someone may hastily ignore the bottom line thinking it's your signature. I for one, much appreciate you expertise but... well, it just a suggestion.

Click to expand...

I added a smiley to make the sarcasm more obvious.

Thanx everyone for all the great ideas!! Once again CPF is there for me:thumbsup:

I like the nut and bolt idea and was actually what I was thinking of doing. The coin idea also is good but I didnt know how conductive American coinage really is?

A bullet!!! That is priceless??? Hopefully you dont use the whole thing with the casing,gunpowder and primer RIGHT? Just the bullet RIGHT?!!!!!

I unfortunately went the cheap route and bought a DSD charger which is great for 17670,16340 and 18650 but not for 14500. I should have not been cheap and spent the extra 7 bucks or so for a UF-139. It looks like a much better charger. The DSD is kinda cheesy and I can tell very light duty . I wouldnt be surprised if it craps out in a cpl months and I will end up getting the 139 anyway... I just never learn:shakehead

And just to cofirm, the spacer goes on the flat negative end right?

I got a pair of nice professional spacers from AW that comes with the order of WF-139 charger.

I usually put them on the negative side, but the post below suggests alternating them.

litetube said:

And just to cofirm, the spacer goes on the flat negative end right?

Click to expand...

In fact AW recommends different ends like this if you are using two spacers that could conceivably short if knocked out of place. The risk may be small of something like that happening but it's not an easy control to mitigate it.