Recommendation for 18650 charger and cells for single cell lights

UPDATE in post #9, old title was "Is my charger OK or should I buy a better one?" and my charger was NOT OK. ;)

Currently I got this one: http://dx.com/p/oem-2-18650-lithium-battery-charger-110v-240v-ac-13820

Is it OK to use or should I get a better one? So far I only use 18650 cells, maybe I'll switch to bigger ones in the future, smaller.. dont think so. Also I'm still stuck with single cell lights because I dont want to measure the voltage of all cells before every use to make sure they are still fine.. that charger "terminates" (light turns greent, dont know if it really stops) at about 4.17-4.18V.

Well, if your chargers stops @4.17-4.18 it’s not so bad, more lifetime for your cells.

Thats what I also thought, but after reading some of the posts @ DX I was a little unsure about it. Dont want to take any risk, thats why I'm also gonna dispose my fake TF2400s and hopefully get some XTARs (I guess those are still kinda the best bang per buck). Any advice on how to dispose old cells? Gonna tape the poles.. but should I discharge it before?

I have a Xtar WP2 charger, Not expensive like a PILA but a great charger with the correct kind of charge current, Im very happy with it

i would switch the cells in order to interrupt the circuit and reset the connection. my UF charger shows a red LED and continues to charge. with my charger a green LED only means that the charger has stopped the charging process but not that the cell itself has reached 4.200V exactly.

i dont mind reconnecting the cell a few times until its voltage has indeed reached the 4.200V (or up to 4.225V). once it has, the red LED would turn green within seconds.

This way i am able to force any li-ion cell to reach the 4.200V harhahh :evil:, for this to happen i only need to put the cell back into the charger repeated times. I like this feature of the WF-188: it lets me control the terminating voltage!!

Hej Nightcrawl,

The charger you linked does not really stop charging after the LED turns green, but according to this thread it should be OK because the current gets too low to add any significant charge to the batteries (but of course it is still recommended to remove the batteries as soon as you see that the LEDs have turned green, better safe than sorry). The charger initially reviewed in that thread is the predecessor of the one you linked, if you didn't receive a inferior built clone it should work the same way and be good to use. To check if you got an OK one you can look inside, see post # 281-283 of that thread for further reference.

I have one myself (was my first one) and still use it when I want to charge more cells at the same time than my WP2 can take.

I have this charger to and it’s faulty (actually I have two pieces with the same symptoms, bought 3 and just one works |( ), whatever I do it always shines green and shows –0,25V to –0,80V :~
so I disassembled it, not a pretty sight:



(to see @ 100% left click -> View Image)

Any chance to fix it? What could be broken here?

No idea what could be the problem or how to fix it, but the electronics in your version looks different from the ones that are tested as good, so maybe it's faulty by default? Does the one that works look the same?

All three of them are the same from outside (sku.13820), I gave a working-one to a friend, didn’t knew that the other two are faulty…

Mine looks just like the one from Sirius, partially fell apart on opening it and the large black thing in the middle bottom of the second picture already started melting the plastic.. time for a new charger!

Any recommendations? Also, I'm searching two cells for single XML lights. Now if I look at the chart of HKJ

there are a lot of possibilites.. any budget recommendation? XTARs seem to perform worse than TF3000.. but I'd like something else than TF. ;)

It’s like this one
(last 5 images in post #368)

With XM-L lights, you should be looking at 3.4V chart, not 3.6V :stuck_out_tongue:
Your truly best bet would be LG D1 3000mAh charged to 4.35V, but another good option is Keeppower 2600mAh or RediLast 2600mAh.

Yup, noticed that.. I came almost to the same conclusion, but I dont have a 4.3V charger.. and I dont think there are any, except for hobby chargers. And I dont think I want one.. I'm looking for a normal 18650 charger.

Fenix cells would also be good. But I havent found a really good source for any of these 3 cells so far.. do you happen to have one? :P

Fenix - http://www.hkequipment.net/?sp=&p=6&cat2=74&cat1=1&cat0=2&id=1387&cat1=1&cat0=2&new=&more=&s=4478e851a271e42000b7dad2222d1d02&lang=en
LG D1 - http://www.ebay.com/itm/LG-18650-3000mah-Original-Li-ion-Rechargeable-Battery-2PCS-/230784852871
RediLast - http://edcplus.com/redilast-p186502600-2600mah-p-3.html

Note: with pair of RediLast’s costing $10 more than pair of LG’s and yet having less capacity and lower voltage, you really need to give 4.35V option a 2nd thought. :stuck_out_tongue:

No, for RediLast/Keeppower 2600mAh. :)

Updated by post above with RediLast’s, and Keeppower isn’t available for retail yet IIRC (apart from their 3100mAh cells sold by just 1 seller on eBay)

Thanks. :)

Tho I'm looking for protected cells.. and there arent any retail chargers charging 4.35V, or are there?

I don’t think there are… but for single usage, does protection really matters that much to you? :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

I think some of my lights have low voltage protection, so it should be fine.. and if I can read HKJs diagrams correctly, these cells perform better when charged to 4.2V than the Keeppower cells.. hum. :D

You posted about getting the WP2 II for 15$.. where is that possible? I think that one might fit my needs.

Doingoutdoor, the ebay guy selling Keeppower, now has 2800mAh and 3000mAh protected batteries. These are both Samsung based cells. Alas, the seller is away until 18th June. I asked if he had the 14500 Keeppower a week or so ago, but he doesn’t.