Liito Kala Engineer 500 giving up on me

So the Liito Kala Engineer 500, my default go to 4 bay charger is about to start crapping the bed. The culprit here is the barrel plug connector, as any mere touch in the “wrong” position, causes the charger to restart and switch to the lowest 500 mAmp charging current. Did you guys face any such issue with this popular charger? Im thinking about opening it up to check for any loose wires or so. Is it even worth repairing? Or would you go for a new, different brand charger? Perhaps the Nitecore UMS4?

Yes, it is worth opening up and repairing.

Seems like it has got a faulty contact. Replacing/repairing it should be easy compared to something else.

Try just recooking the solder joints on the connector, but while you’re there, look for split peecee board traces in/around the area.

Time to brush up those soldering skills I guess. I used the charger only like 10 times, that faulty plug is really annoying. Especially when you leave the charger running at 1000 mAmps only to come back later to find all cells charging at lazy 500 mAmps :smiley:

Are you sure it’s on the charger, not the power cable?

I can probably test the cable by plugging a multimeter to it and then twisting the cable around. For now Im almost sure it is in the charger. Any ideas how to test beside the multimeter?

If the cable checks out, which I think likely but easy to test, it’s more likely the charger end has a bad solder joint where that connection goes to the main board. Should be fairly easy to fix if you have any solder skills.

Ha, I’ve never even tried to charge above 500mAh with mine.

Slow and steady… :innocent:

For now I tested the cable with DMM, seems to be working fine. Time to open that sucker charger.

I opened the charger, port soldering seems rock solid. Perhaps I need to bend the central pin in the barrel a bit to press more firmly. I noted one interesting detail during disassembly. There are two barrel like objects molded in the plastic case. These are filled with some semi liquid white goo. When the PCB is screwed down, there are 2 electronic parts that are dipped in this white stuff. Any idea what these might be?

What do you mean?
Could you download one of these pictures and use paint to mark what you mean?

It is quite well visible in your linked pic. I mean those 2 small things between slot 1 and 2 and between slot 3 and 4 covered in white goo. On the plastic part - i mean those 2 square shaped, white things in the centre of the charger.

By the way, the issue was fixed. Problem was in the barrel plug on the cable. Multimeter could not detect it, as the probe was plugged right in the middle of the barrel and there was good contact. However i noted that the wire like thing in the centre of the barrel was kind of loose and worked only in certain position. So i took a needle and pressed this wire part from both sides closer to the centre of the plug. Now the electrical contact is good and charger seems to work fine. Hope this helps somebody.

Aah - those are temperature sensors so that the cells don’t overheat.
The white goo is thermal paste

Thanks for your info. Do you know if they measure just the “ambient” temperature inside the charger, or they monitor any particular thing? I just dont get that they are dipped in those plastic square things. Normally I would think the sensor is attached to something that heats up, like some piece of metal. Maybe they read the temperature from the plastic case?

Mine came with a defective barrel connector. I just ended up using another one. I’m going to check this when I get home. Thanks.