And?

I ordered one using a nice discount, as it has some obvious advantages over my aging Xtar VC4 and it was not a big investment. I would prefer if Liitokala had kept the 300mA charging current option of the previous model, but it is not a big problem for me, with my smallest capacity cells being 16340’s and AAA’s. I will probably use my Xtar SV2 Rocket charger, with its 250mA charging current option, to charge my 16340’s, but I don’t see any major cell-life shortening consequences from using the 500mA in this charger on those cells (still less than 0.8C).

As for charging NiMH cells, I do worry somewhat about the voltage monitoring charge termination method employed, as in other chargers that can lead to cells not being charged to their full capacity – but I will try them in the 500S and see how it works. I hope the engineers at Liitokala have developed firmware for this charger that can do a decent job of filling NiMH cells to capacity.

Yeah, I ordered one too. Looking forward to getting it to check it out & see how it stacks up against the old tried & true Lii 500.

I ordered one as well. I’m still waiting for it to ship.

Only difference I see with the (in my opinion very good) LII-500 Engineer is . . . . . . new display, new looks. Is all.

Cheers,
Nico

Can it load longer cells than lii-500?

Looking forward to receiving mine, my only concern is that i have an original too and dont like that they changed the polarity. I mean I never liked how you put the cells in backwards on the original but stick with it now! Probably gonna mark them with red/green paint or something.

atbglenn wrote:

I ordered one as well. I’m still waiting for it to ship.

Mishanchik wrote:

teacher wrote:

atbglenn wrote:

I ordered one as well. I’m still waiting for it to ship.

Yep, me too. Not sure if you noticed Fred, but it was a Pre-Order. Fulfillment is supposed to be by 18 June. Ward supplied me with that info. I think June told him.

Where have you found where you can buy on pre-order at an interesting price?

Nicolaas wrote:

Only difference I see with the (in my opinion very good) LII-500 Engineer is . . . . . . new display, new looks. Is all.

Cheers,
Nico

Mishanchik wrote:

Where have you found where you can buy on pre-order at an interesting price?

Going to wait for reviews, myself. If they’ve sorted the Lii-500 niggle of only charging to 90% on NiMH, then I’m interested

What? The 500 only charges Nimh to 90% capacity? I never heard of that. Where can I read more about it?

I have not noticed that phenomenon with my Lii500.

Phlogiston wrote:

Going to wait for reviews, myself. If they’ve sorted the Lii-500 niggle of only charging to 90% on NiMH, then I’m interested

hammerJoe wrote:

What? The 500 only charges Nimh to 90% capacity? I never heard of that. Where can I read more about it?

In HKJ’s review:

http://budgetlightforum.com/node/41442

Search for “Charge NiMH”; there’s a bit that says: “The termination look like a voltage termination and without filling the cell completely. Generally it looks like the capacity display is a bit high for NiMH cells.”

Looking at the graphs, it seems to be falling short by about 10%. The charger shows about 1900mAh – 2000mAh, but HKJ’s equipment only shows about 1700 mAh – 1750mAh going into the cell. The effect appears to be consistent across all four slots.

In his conclusion, HKJ again mentions that: “The charger is very good at charging LiIon, but stops a bit early on NiMH.”

I’m wondering whether the person who wrote the charging algorithm forgot to account for the pauses while it’s measuring the cell voltage.

Hmmmm…. Thanks for the info Phlogiston. I’ll have to look at/check mine out more closely.

Phlogiston wrote:

Phlogiston wrote:

Going to wait for reviews, myself. If they’ve sorted the Lii-500 niggle of only charging to 90% on NiMH, then I’m interested

hammerJoe wrote:

What? The 500 only charges Nimh to 90% capacity? I never heard of that. Where can I read more about it?

In HKJ’s review:

http://budgetlightforum.com/node/41442

Search for “Charge NiMH”; there’s a bit that says: “The termination look like a voltage termination and without filling the cell completely. Generally it looks like the capacity display is a bit high for NiMH cells.”

Looking at the graphs, it seems to be falling short by about 10%. The charger shows about 1900mAh – 2000mAh, but HKJ’s equipment only shows about 1700 mAh – 1750mAh going into the cell. The effect appears to be consistent across all four slots.

In his conclusion, HKJ again mentions that: “The charger is very good at charging LiIon, but stops a bit early on NiMH.”

I’m wondering whether the person who wrote the charging algorithm forgot to account for the pauses while it’s measuring the cell voltage.

Now I understand why my Ikea Ladda AA 2450 mAh batteries last considerable shorter in my Logitech Mx Mouse, compared to using disposable batteries. Hope they fixed it with Lii-500S.

The Lii-500 uses multiple Ni-MH end of charge detection algorithms, including voltage termination. Modern Ni-MH cells are not overcharge tolerant, thus if the charger decides to use voltage termination for some cells or in some cases I concur with this.

I recently measured the capacity of 11 Turnigy sub-C 4200 cells from a dismantled drill battery pack whose owner left the battery without charge a full day or more after fully depleting it (something which caused one cell to get reversed, die and get shorted). Cells had less than 10 cycles. Each cell was tested 2 times in slots 1 and 4, 22 tests total. Final average capacity was 4189.27mAh. None of these got a voltage termination in any case, for sure.

Saying the Lii-500 undercharges Ni-MH cells is a fallacious generalization. And in any case, what I said above. 

I am a little disappointed in the #8 “feature”. You can only use USB out if running on a/c power, not able to charge USB devices off of the cells in the charger.

The main problem of using external or removable cells to feed a power bank boost circuitry is additional cell contacts and slot resistance burden, causing voltage drop, lesser efficiency and overall making the boost engine's life harder. If slot rails were made tight, high quality and were to remain always clean the idea would make more sense. On top of this lesser drain and/or small cells cannot provide enough power output to make the power bank function work reliably. When you tally up all of this, plus general user's ignorance and easy availability of standard power banks, I can understand why the power bank function is dropped from the charger.

Received my Lii-500S today. I like it a lot, so far. The display is really nice, and it is easy to learn the user interface.

I know it will now be my go-to charger for Li-ions. Time will tell if it also will work well for me in charging NiMH cells. I will be interested in seeing a review by someone who can methodically test the ability of this charger to fill NiMH cells without overcharging them and post the results. I am optimistic, based on the reviews of the previous model, that the 500S will likely be kind to the cells and will not overcharge them.

@ NorthernHarrier

1. When did you order yours?

2. Did you get it from Banggood??

….
Glad you received yours…..

The Lii-500S can also be bought in AliExpress at an even lower price than the current one in Bangbad Banggood, or bundled with a vehicle ashtray plug adapter. With “free” tracked shipping.

Barkuti wrote:

The Lii-500S can also be bought in AliExpress at an even lower price than the current one in Bangbad Banggood, or bundled with a vehicle ashtray plug adapter. With “free” tracked shipping.

Thanks anyway Barkuti….