I have always wondered why someone didn’t just turn one of these
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Into one of these
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Use a simpler open source UI that could be firmware upgraded thru the usb port.
The advanced user could upgrade to a downloadable Pro UI for some advanced features.
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The power would have to be limited quite a bit from the hobby charger to make room for a power supply. A power to size ratio would have to be figured out. Also it be nice to have at least a 3 amp discharge with a single cell instead of the typical 500ma found in most chargers of this type.
This is a great idea Blue, I would like to see 2- 4mm banana plug ports for those batteries that are not cylinder. You could even charge your car battery with it, with the proper banana plug to alligator clip cord. The cost for adding those should be relatively low.
One way to tackle the size vs cooling problem would be to offer a bolt-on external heat-sink as an option. The firmware would default to “muggle mode” and assume no additional heatsink. This makes the base model small and cheap, increasing sales volume.
Maybe it could have attachment point that’s compatible with CPU heatsinks?
Can I use my nzxt kraken with it?
Oh, nice. And a simple 12v header to power the CPU cooling fan for active cooling. This thing would be a BEAST with these features.
Can we get this spec up 1 more volt to 21v? The problem with 20v is it’s a bit short of operating directly off any 5S power source.
EDIT: *The reason this is important is to be able to recharge your flashlight batteries during a power outage.
12V-22V then.
Excellent! Thanks.
That sounds very interesting for sure.
IF this happens, can we raised the discharge rate too?? If so, that would be very appealing.
The funny thing is, I use a Nitecore i8 at home. It's extremely simple, and I often charge my eneloops in it. But it auto-detects to my liking, and while it's a bit big and expensive, it was also a gift. It also charges slowly, but I care more about battery health than charge speed. The only step up that makes sense in my head currently is to the MC3000, because for the fun don't-actually-need-them features, that's the one that ticks the most boxes.
I do have a spare single-cell USB-powered charger, it is actually a SupFire AC-16, but I've only used it once. It actually currently lives at work. I have a cool tiny charger for my 10250s from CRX and my Klarus Mini One Ti charges its own 10180 cell. I can't remember for sure, but I might also have a charger that came with one of my ThorFire lights somewhere...
Not for sure yet.
You need to make sure that if a shadow moves across the solar cell and voltage drops below the minimum spec the charger recovers gracefully and continues to charge —- rather than resetting to starting from scratch again. This has been a problem and caution I’ve seen brought up repeatedly with small chargers when people tried using solar cells with them.
sounds awesome very interested!
Input voltage range: 10V-22V
DBSAR’s LT1 lantern built-in charger has this issue figured out already. 
@DavidEF, that’s a bit different
But you just gave me an idea on the software side that would be extremely nice.
Why not make an emergency mode in which it turns off charging if the voltage drops between 4,5-10V, trying to consume as little power as possible just to keep itself on and preventing settings from changing?
It should be relatively easy to implement.
Well, what I meant was that the hardware doesn’t have to crash or “reset” when a shadow looms overhead. It can be made to gracefully recover as if nothing happened. I don’t know if it needs software support for that or not. I assume not. But I’m not an EE.
Only french will understand : drapal !
If the discharge rate for a single cell was limited to 4.2v at 3 amps it shouldn’t take much more than a 30mm x 30mm space to have it inside the unit.
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32528721413.html?storeId=923042&spm=a2g1y.12024536.productList_2808692.subject_9
In the model above, you would have to have a few more components added to turn the potentiometer into electronically digital controlled. Like this one.
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32882318330.html?storeId=923042&spm=a2g1y.12024536.productList_2808692.subject_8
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The icharger 208b is relatively small in size with alot of power handling but the power supply to reach the capabilities of the charger takes almost twice the size of the charger.
Charging 4 li-ions at 3 amps each would need around 70 watts from the power supply. The max charge rate would all depend on how small and efficient you could make the power supply for it’s size.
I think this was going to do 4 cells at once. 4cells*12.6w=50.4w