Now that was a good one......yes your right about the chargers....i kind of like the 188, and for the price you might want to get one as well.
I don't know if I was the only one but I was thinking the WF-188 does NiMH like some others because it mentions AA. Looking more closely it clearly does not, no mention of 1.2V or NiMH or anything. I guess by AA they mean 10450 and by D they mean 32600. Ooops :-P
Some better pictures here which actually show the switches properly http://www.szwholesale.com/ultrafire-rapid-charger-32v37v-lithium-batteries-wf188-p-3715.html (I could only make out one switch in the KD pictures)
Hi anduril
Why don't you try the ultrafire WF-188, only cost $17.92 or $15.05 does all batteries
AA,CR123A,16340,18500,18650,25500,32600 D type,etc.
http://www.qualitychinagoods.com/ultrafire-rapid-charger-32v37v-lithium-batteries-wf188-p-1710.html
http://www.kaidomain.com/ProductDetails.aspx?ProductId=10638
By AA there referring to 14500's and similar size cells, in the description it says that it cannot charge 18650's flattops i wonder why because when you look a the chargers postive side it seems to protrude.
Thanks to everyone for posting all the information and links.
Just about to step up to Li-Ions and buy some 18650s, 14500s and 16340s, will probably go for the Trustfire Flames just now and maybe AWs later.
Have also just split an old laptop battery and found 9 17670s.
My 2 top charger choices are the Shekor and Ultrafire WF-188, leaning to the latter due to features and shorter 18650 charge time if I understand correctly.
I might just wait a bit to see if someone posts a review of the WF-188 and to give time for more stores to stock it so the price stabilises.
Cheers,
Gary
Dang if you lived in the states i would love to trade you a couple of 18650 sanyos for one of those.
Heh to be honest you’re probably better off that I don’t live over there anymore, I’m not sure how much more life the 17670s have left in them as they’re from a very old laptop.
Seemed to charge up ok in the laptop but will wait till I have a proper charger before I split them.
Make sure to check the voltage of each cell before you charge them, and disgard and ones that are below 3.2volts. Since the cells are old make sure when you charge them to please keep an eye on them since there unprotected and check the voltages of each cell when they come off the charger, an ideal charge would be around 4.15 and over but no more then 4.2volts.
Thanks for the advice Al.
I’ve got a lot of reading up before I attempt to split the battery pack.
Heres a good read, this was put up by my buddy Craig..... http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=246699 Just make sure your able to take them apart if you can outside of your home, so this way if something happens like swelling or a terrorist cell your able to chuck the pack. Its easy just as long as you take your time and make sure not to make a connection with your tool. This is a good way to save money and all it takes is a little bit of your time.
Sorry Al, forgot to thank you for the link, very useful.
Will be looking into some sort of fireproof material to sit the batteries on when charging and possibly a very larger pot for storage if I get paranoid.
I stumbled on to a CPF thread about a TK Monster turning into a pipe bomb due to faulty/neglected cells.
I think I'll stick to single cell Li-Ion flashlights for now.
At least until I find that I have too many fingers and can afford to lose a couple.
But that was a marginally safe device at the best of times - I mean, a 250W bulb (overdriven) is pushing things a bit on thermal grounds and it is clear that the guy who got it didn't really know what he was doing. The cells were expected to produce about eight amps at high temperatures. This is not going to be good for any cell. What's worse is that they were much safer cells - basically the same formulation at the AW IMR cells. There's quite a bit of discussion here.
http://flashlightnews.net/forum/index.php?topic=2569.0
Really, multi cell lithium lights do require a bit of sense and a voltmeter. And tossing any cell that doesn't recover to about 2.8V under no load.
The Solarforce L1200 explosion I mentioned in http://budgetlightforum.cz.cc/node/318 is another example of what can go wrong. That one is less extreme, well I didn't know much about the light but a quick search shows it uses a 30W bulb so perhaps about 2.5A per cell (there are 3 of them). The explosion wasn't as catastrophic but it did happen in the persons hand with the resulting consequences (although he was fortunate and didn't lose his fingers). It's interesting many of these cases seem to involve incandescent bulbs although whether that's just because of the higher power usage and heat output, more common use of multiple cells, other factors or just randomness (we've only discussed two cases).
Oh and both involve WF-139 chargers too! These seem to have been owned for a while so I do wonder if they terminated properly, I think this was discussed but I don't know if it was ever answered.
Another thing that has been discussed somewhat in the CPF thread and probably other places and occured to me even before I read about any exploding flashlight, many flashlights with li-ion batteries aim to be strong, water proof and likewise people do screw things on tight, upgrade the o-rings etc both for good contact and to improve water-proofing. But this is problematic when the batteries go badly wrong since you now do almost have the workings of a pipe bomb as the OP suggested.
Vent outlets are of course a common design feature of devices using li-ion batteries that torches tend to lack. I don't know for sure how much it would help but it seems to be some sort of vent outlets may reduce the chances of serious injury from batteries gone wrong inside a flashlight. While it would likely reduce water-proofing particularly if you're talking about things like diving, I would think you can use some sort of rubber or whatever covers/attachment which will still provide decent water-resistance. These don't even have to be designed to be reattachable for obvious reasons. It will raise costs of course but surprisingly few (well I'm not aware of any but I never really searched) seem to have done it even among the high end.
Edit: Actually I see the TK Monster does have a vent of sorts but this obviously didn't help much and the discussion in the thread suggest a better vent may not have either.
I've been doing some more research on hobby chargers and it seems the best cheap one is probably the Turnigy Accucel-6. Extensive discussion http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=886698 here. You can get it for $22.99+$12.12 airmail shipping (for most places I think) from HK*2 (HobbyKing's Hong Kong office :-P) http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbycity/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=7028 which ironically is cheaper then the Dealextreme stuff. Many of the these hobby chargers are very similar, from what I've read the Accucel was based on the IMAx B6. Many others then copied one or the other but the Accucel appears to be one of the decent variants and really has CE and not the 'China Export' variety (also evidentally RoHS but I don't get how that guarantees the safety of the product, unless your opening it up maybe). It also uses decent components, MOSFETs are properly heatsinked, generally is well calibrated, balance is fairly balanced and has a fan. Does need a PSU though and despite some confusing comments in one of the reviews the USB port doesn't work by default http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1046318. Ironically Hobbyking themselves also have several other slightly cheaper clones even though they warn you about clones in their Accucel product page.
Damn you sir!
It took me long enough to narrow my choice down to 2 possibilities and now you complicate matters by making me aware of 3 more decent looking chargers, albeit more complicated and more expensive.
If I have read the thread you posted correctly the one you mentioned Turnigy Accucel-6 and the HobbyKing ECO6 look to have similar internals but the ECO6 is in a cheaper case and has external connectors and the seemingly new HobbyKing Variable 6S also seems very good.
Probably more features than I'd need but the price makes them very tempting.
Yes the Eco6 and Variable6S are the cheaper clones I mentioned which Hobbyking warn about in their AC6 page ("There are several chargers now entering the China market that look similar to the Accucel. These chargers are produced with cheaper FETs and are unfortunately much less accurate and very unsafe. There has been reports of the copied chargers over-charging packs and not balancing correctly") but are now selling anyway.
Some people say the calibration, heatsinking, components and general quality of the clones also tend to be more spotty then the AC6 although the reviews of the Eco6 are good so far (the Variable6S is too new to have reviews). I noticed the Eco6 and Variable6S are lighter which means you have more weight for shipping extra stuff if you're going with the 251-500g option. BTW in terms of the fan, I'm not sure how important it is for charging, I've read comments suggesting it's only really necessary for discharging (which isn't that surprising if the charger isn't super inefficient), some of the clones come without a fan and even with the AC6 a common complain is the fan is noisy and/or dies.
This is getting OT but one of the shortcomings for me with Hobbychargers is they are only one channel chargers (well there is one that appears to be 4 cheap hobby chargers in one box that is multi channel but even for many of the expensive ones they are usually just designed for high power for charging lots of matched batteries and lipo batteries at very high rates like hobby charging people do). So you should only charge 1 cell if you aren't sure how well matched they are or you know they aren't matched well at all. For li-ion you can use balanced or parallel charging and provided the cells aren't too different this works fine (I've read conflicting info about how well matched the cells should be but within 0.5V seems common for parallel charging, definitely one nearly completely charged and one nearly fully discharged is not recommended). In fact it would generally be better if you want to use both cells together like in a 2x18650 flashlight since you do obviously want to cells to be well matched (although from what I've read the cheap chargers like the AC6 don't give any indication if the cells aren't well balanced so you should still test them, you could of course use the hobby charger to do so). Some useful links http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=249066 http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=263961 http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=255467 although plenty of related discussions from a quick search (the RC forums would also be useful).
But because most hobby usage of NiMH and similar chemistries generally involves packs without any balancing option and the difference in the chemistries means parallel charging is a bad idea (http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=263514 http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=187120 http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showpost.php?p=3443903&postcount=13), so you can only charge in series and if the cells aren't fairly well matched you should only charge 1 at a time (or whatever you have that are matched). This may not matter for some and you do get a decent 1 channel NiMH charger including with the ability to set the charge rate and do a discharge for conditioning but for me as one of the thoughts with a hobby charger was I also can use it as a general purpose NiMH charger it does make it somewhat limited (although you do get the ability to charge only 1 cell at a time or 3 matched cells or whatever, something a few NiMH chargers can't do since they are 2 cell 1 channel commonly x 2).
Another thing to be aware of is that hobby chargers aren't exactly plug and play (well some of the more expensive ones may be). Other then usually needing an external PSU and of course some sort of home made cradle or magnets or whatever if you want to charge loose batteries, you do need to be careful with the settings and not accidentally set them wrong. And also take care with how you plug in (and assemble any cradles) since you could kill the charger, or worse cause a fire or explosion if you set something or plug something in wrong. (There are a few reports of such problems, more so then with the cheap cradle chargers, the AC6 manual has various warnings about what you shouldn't do which I think are more then just CYA.)
There's a review of the Ultrafire WF-188 out now from old4570 http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=282815. The results are somewhat as I expected. It's basically similar to the refined WF-139 but with voltage and current/charge rate adjustment. In other words no CC/CV but it does terminate at about 4.2V sort of. I say sort of because it evidentally has a similar contact point flaw to the Shekor. Not to ruin anyone's research but I noticed from there that there's also an Xtar 6 cell charger http://www.cpfmarketplace.com/mp/showthread.php?t=231713 but it isn't exactly cheap.
Hi Nil,
Have decided against jumping in the deep end with a hobby charger.
My head tells me I should err on the side of caution and go for the Shekor as it seems to be one the safest both for cell health as well as charge termination.
But if I understand it the WF-188 without modding does the same slight undercharging, just a bit faster.
I'm interested to see how the reviewer gets on with charging 10440s.
Am I right in thinking that the charge current on the Xtar WP6 is not great for 10440s?
Thanks,
Gary
Yes 600mA would be considered too much, from what I read the true capacity of these tends to be under http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=236351 350mA so you're nearly 2C not good for li-co cells where 1C is generally the recommended maximum.
The WF-188 seems okay particularly if modded although even then it doesn't follow the CC/CV that the Shekor probably does if modded. In my case I've decided close to CC/CV is best (well ultimately it's what the battery manufacturers recommend) if I can do it cheaply and it seems the Shekor hopefully fits that bill (but I don't really care about anything other then the 18650). It's actually a pity the HXY are so questionable since for my case if they were CC/CV as they were at some stage they would be better since they'd be great for 18650.
Not all agree about CC/CV, e.g. old4570. The Shekor isn't adjustable so is fairly slow for 18650 (which isn't in itself dangerous although it may mean you can't monitor it so well) and still too high for 10440. Mind you at 450mA vs 600 mA which seems very common (e.g. Xtar and Pila) it's not that much slower then other common chargers (well the WF-188 may be somewhat faster because it doesn't use CC/CV too) I think.
BTW as you probably know in terms of cell health there are two basic things, whether it damages the cell enough to risk it blowing up, what you really don't want and whether it reduces cycle life (meaning how the batteries capacity etc varies over cycles). It's my understanding that while you don't want too high, a low charge current isn't good from a cycle life POV either. Then again from what I've read 0.7C is a common recommendation which for 18650 with true 2400mAh or close to it 1680mA would be the sweet spot, only hobby chargers do that. So whether 600mA vs 450mA would really improve cycle life I don't know. (Then of course you've got the complexity of how the unrecommended charging profile would affect cycle life.
P.S. If anyone ever does want to buy from HobbyKing, they have this strange thing where they offer you a lower price after leaving a page open for a while (doesn't have to have focus) for some items. I think some existing customers always get this price if logged in but I don't know the criteria (I made an account but didn't seem to get the low price). It doesn't work with all items, you'll get a message either offering you the price or suggesting you check the forums (which I presume means no discount for this item). It doesn't work for the cheap hobby chargers although does for some of the cable things you may want if you ever do get a hobby charger.
Found this on CPF http://www.batteryspace.com/smartchargersforli-ionbatterypackseries.aspx
These aren't cradle chargers but they're supposed to be CC/CV and have real (I presume) certs. These aren't cradle chargers but harder to screw up then with a hobby charger since there's no settings. In particular the 0.15A one should be good for 10440 and okay for 14500. They also have 1.5A and 1.8A. All only single channel. If you're using 10440 or 14500 you should be able to get cradles relatively easy I presume since you can use most AAA and AA holders.
However they only seem to ship UPS or Fedex when I tried for NZ. I would guess most other international destinations too, although perhaps Canada they might ship something else. So not worth it for us.