building a poor mans multi Liion charger. (pic heavy)

Batteries and Chargers Chargers
1

I have had some trouble getting all my batteries charged in time for my vacation last month. I only have 1 charger that takes 2 18650’s, trying to charge 10 batteries takes a while…
to solve this i went to banggood and bought some supplies to build my own “poor mans multi channel” 18650 charger

total cost was about 25euros including shipping for 10 channels.
about half of the cost was for the voltmeter’s:
volt meters
tp4056 chargers
18650 holders

I only made a 5 channel charger but if i have the need for more channels i can easly add them.

i started by getting a nice piece of wood as a base.
its sized to fit all 10 channels,

i started by test fitting the chargeboards and the aluminum bar.
the Aluminum bar is both for holding the boards to the wood aswell als for some heatsinking.

more testfitting for the voltmeter and the 18650 holder.

all boards fitted under the aluminum bar.
i had to bend the bar a bit to negate the bar bending upward when tightening the screws

after that it was time for the voltmeters to get fitted and soldered to the outputs of the chargeboards.

the groundwire of the batteryholder was a bit short so i had to make it a little longer. i also made some slits on the underside of the holder for the wire to pass making it a little cleaner.

i connected all board in parallel. using a standard USB charger (the one you use for your phone) will not be able to provide enough power for all chargers to charge at full power. i will be using a computer power supply. using a USB charger might overload the USB charger.

after that it was all done! time to pop in some batteries and … IT WORKS

Red when charging, green when done. the voltmeters are a little off but not by much (0.02V orso)
!https://i.imgur.com/AkAqjWU.jpg !

this was a very fun sunday afternoon project.

Greeting DenTilloZie

2

Great idea !!!
Looks very nice and a great way to charge a bunch of batteries at one time.

Thanks for your input.

3

Fun project!
A Litokala Li500 is just 20$ , sometimes with code even cheaper :wink:

4

Nice charger dentillozie. The volt meters I bought have an adjustment to correct the voltage readings.

5

yeah mine also but i dont really have a good source to calibrate them with. but all 5 of them are within 0.02 of each other which is pretty good for such cheap modules

6

Was going to say, you could buy a quality 4 bay charger for less. But still a cool project

7

dentillozie,

pay NOT attention to the HERETICS! A creation built with thine own hands doth ALWAYS be cheaper and more satisfying regardless of the cost of the parts! (LOL)

Nice job on the charger.

A suggestion for the MK II if you ever build one…

If you want a bit more heat resistance/fire proofness (just in case) go to Lowes or Home Depot and buy a ceramic floor tile to glue to the back OR Liquid Nails will actually bond all of those parts directly to the rough backside of a ceramic tile.

8

You could calibrate those volt meters to each other!
Choose one in the middle of the variance as your reference. It probably is spot on.

BTW, those voltmeters are very useful and the read outs come in at least 5 colors.
Awhile back I ordered 5 of each and I use them all over the place.

zespectre, great idea on the ceramic base.

9

yeah i know but the chargequality of the tp4056 chip is pretty good so overal a charger for 10 batteries would still run me more.
and buying a premade charger is less fun :wink:

yeah thats actually a pretty smart idea to use a floor tile!

10

:+1: This is great, it looks like a prop from a mad scientist’s laboratory!

I like the staggered voltmeters, exposed wiring, and multi-colored cells.

Hang it on the wall and your visitors will surely ask, “What is THAT?!” :smiley: