Re-quoted for emphasis.
I think you should have told them to take a hike, I am impressed that you did the best thing business wise, but it should be stated, the protection circuit is not there to replace common sense.
It also should not be a gateway for idiots to buy your products and feel there’s no need to be sensible or safe as you’ll financially reimburse them.
I’d be very suprised if the protection didn’t in fact trip and cut the voltage off, and the guys just seen the hobby charger screen, panicked and played on your good will. The cells my gut says are probably fine.
I also can’t see the point in messing about with a hobby charger for one cell. I have a decent hobby charger but have not as yet bothered to use it to charge a flashlight cell, not when I can just plug a trusted dedicated charger into the wall, put the cells in and let it do its job, why mess about with magnets, flying leads, power supply, just to charge one cell?
how about this then?
This is ridiculous. If you actually read the PMs we exchanged Bob, there would be no need for this thread.
Most everything is explained here
I have absolutely nothing to hide.
I also have yet to see any information(pics?) about the protection circuit that I had requested.
EDIT
I’m upset by some of the things that are being said here, starting with the first paragraph. Full of (I truly hope to be unintentional) misinformation.
This right here was the worst part. I would never demand something. I fully weighed the events that took place and was ready and prepared to suffer the consequences until I did more research and determined that the issue was not caused by me, but rather revealed by my error.
Hmm. The plot thickens.
Its time for me to buy a few KeepPower cells to take apart.
Which exact cell was it that got charged to 4.5V?
PPtk
The KING Protected 26650s that KumaBear sells. They came looking like any other gold unprotected King Kong, although I have never seen the others in person.
Do you have the ability to take a good high-resolution photo of the negative end of the cell in question?
KumaBear has it. I can tell you that it was a flat and smooth steel color and my magnet leads stuck right to it. I have to tape the negative end to my TFs.
I should also note that the 4.5V mas measured on the cell with a DMM, I think HKJ said that the PC would cut out before 4.5V, but it did not.
EDIT
It didn’t have the appearance of being protected, but I am still fairly new to this and also did not have warp to open it up and re-shrink-wrap it.
Sounds like a pretty cut-and-dry case of getting Unprotected rather than Protected. You need to be more careful with Li-Ion cells, but if you paid for protected cells, you should have gotten them.
I’m just glad that 4.5 was as high as they got. You were getting awfully close to the shock-and-awe display.
Be safe,
PPtk
That is the conclusion that I came to.
I am very very lucky and thankful that I did not step away for 1 second longer.
It does sound like an unprotected cell.
It might be a good idea to verify your DMM on another battery.
You do not need to remove the shrink wrap to see if it is protected, you can see the bumps from the wire on the side and the protection pcb in the shrink wrap.
It is a cheapo DMM, but it has proven to be decently reliable, I’ve tested many cells upon arrival and before/after charging or putting them in multi-cell lights.
Yes, but I couldn’t seem to find it. So the only way for me to find out for sure if it were protected would have been to cut the shrink-wrap.
EDIT
That was the first thing that made me suspicious was not being able to make out a significant “dent” where the PCB would be.
That is common with cheap DMM's, the problem is that they have no warning when the battery is running down, instead they will show a wrong value.
I.e. with a cheap DMM you either replace the battery or measure a known value, when you get a strange result. This way you know that the strange result is correct.
It didn’t really show a strange result, unfortunately it just verified what my charger was already telling me.
my keeppower king 26650’s have a black label and its very clear to see the protection circuit.
this is not the king pictured, but they are very very similar. This is the MNKE.
Here you can see the tapering of the end of the cell that shows the protection circuit.
I’m thinking you have unprotected cells there.
But i have to say kudos to Bob for giving you a refund. I have faith in all the cells i have purchased from him.
Bob, can I buy one of whatever cell That Ninja Guy had? I'll do some tests on it to ensure it is protected. :) That Ninja Guy, your charger should not charge it up to 4.5 volts that is a definite fault in your charger.
1) Kumabear never mentioned you by name; the "consequences" suffered here are nothing compared to a potential call to the fire department.
2) You did not follow safe Li-Ion handling procedures, period; no protection circuit is a substitute for such. The issue was one of overcharging.
3) You did, in fact, ask for a refund on a cell that was treated improperly.
These are the things we know to be a fact; other bits of information are missing. I am very curious to know about the cells, their protection circuit (if any), and the charger/DMM.
Lithium-Ion cells are not for everyone and every situation - If the wrong cells were sent out, I believe that the customer is responsible to let the vendor know this before putting them into use. If the cells were defective, then the vendor still did the right thing by offering a refund.
The charger issue has been remedied…
I had no intention of overcharging. I honestly didn’t even know there was an incorrect(which I later discovered it to be) setting on my charger(Gens Ace iMars) due to running the charge/discharge tests first on my TF 26650s. The charge cycle would end with “Battery Disconnected”, being new to the charger and the cell being at 4.20V, I dismissed it as a limitation of the charger.
I believed that the cells were unprotected, but I had absolutely no reason to not trust KumaBear.
My DMM is a Cen-Tech from Harbor Freight.
You still broke the #1 rule of li-ion charging, always keep an eye on it while charging.