I know that I am no expert on li-on batteries but I read this forum every day and have at least a general understanding on li-on safety. My brother and I are going to do a distance test on all of our lights tomorrow night so we have been charging batteries for the last two days. I have a couple of single cr123 lights with XPG emitters and don’t trust using IMR cells on . I have a couple of ultrafire 3.7vt 16340’s that put out way more power than primarys but not quite as much as the IMRs. They were both reading about 3.7 volts so I put them in my charger to top them off. I went to check them 5 minutes later and for some reason touched them and both were so hot that it burned a blister on my thumb. I unplugged the charger and let them cool off and threw them away. This is just a little charger that takes about 2 or 3 hours to charge 2 10440 batteries. After the 16340’s had cooled off and I could handle them, I noticed that the paint had melted off in one place on one of them. I am sure glad that I checked them when I did. They might have caused a fire. I put a couple of 10440 batteries in the charger and check them about every 5 minutes and they are cool as a cucumber. Scary!
Wow! What charger is this? It probably is overcharging your batteries, I would recommend not using it anymore. Lion batteries really are pretty hardy, while taking apart a computer battery I accidentally shorted a 3p pack of them and there were sparks flying but it didn't explode or vent. It just burnt where the short was and that stopped the short.
Wow.
Glad to hear that you're not posting from the ER.
I have charged lots of batteries from 10440’s to 18650’s and when the light turns blue they check from 4.18vt to 4.22vts. It is a little cheapy 2 bay ebay charger. I just bought an intellicharger i4 and bought a trustfire tr006 that was DOA from Manafont that I have been fighting with them about for the last 3 weeks. I have stopped buying anything but quality batteries and chargers. I agree with you scaru. I think that little charger needs to be thrown away too.
If you have a intellicharge i4 just use that. I have both that and some more expensive nicer chargers and I prefer to use the I4 as it terminates at 4.2 much more reliably.
Thanks Chicago x. I don’t know what made me touch those batteries but I am grateful that I did.
Yeah I like this charger already. I was trying to get them done faster by using multiple chargers but believe I will stick to the i4.
I am paranoid. Whenever I charge li ions, I always touch the cells every 20 mins or so to check if they are getting too hot. Ideally I would like to charge my cells in some kind of enclosure or fire-proof container
Me too !
But my Solraforce charger is really reliable, the Li-Ions never got warm, not even slightly and one Slot terminates exactly at 4.20V the other at 4.16V
So I put the lower charged battery in the other slot to charge it fully to 4.2V, works for me.
Never tried this, but I stumbled over these safety bags several times.
Is it wrong that I touch my LIon cells every 20 min. when I am not charging them?Seriously though…I’m glad you didn’t have any venting with flames Manxbuggy1.
I do that too. Just a touch of the 4 cells in my i4 charger.
I feel good quality Samsung, sony, sanyo unprotected cells stay cool.
The ultrafires n trustfire recharlible bailley gets quite hot to the touch.
My AA n AAA GP green cells are quite hot too.
If you want a good fire proof container just go to your local surplus store and buy an ammo can. Then take some tin snips and chop a slot into the side so the wire can feed in.
Yes, that would be neater. ATM, I was just thinking of inverting a large empty Milo tin over the charger
This is really weird. The EXACT same thing happened to me last night with a Xtar 16340 and an Intellicharge I4. Mine just didn’t get quite as hot. But it was so hot that I first dropped it in the sink and then in an empty trash can. I evacuated the room and shut the door for an hour, until I thought it had cooled down enough. I cannot belive that it didn’t blow.
I have NEVER had a problem with any other battery and that charger.
I wonder if the circuit misidentified the Xtar and gave it more juice? I don’yt know enough about these chargers to really guess.
I was worried that it was taking so long (an hour?) for such a little battery. Touched it and WOWZA.
Then again, the other Xtar went dead (the twin to this one; two to a package) and I had to toss that after a few chargings. One day it was suddenly 0.25 volts after a charge the night before.
I think maybe I used a cheaper trustfire or ultrafire charger to originally charge those xtars? Darn. Can’t remember.
Now I’m afraid to charge any 16340s.
Old school technology , touch the charging battery to make sure its not cooking …
Some MM come with a thermal probe , but still , a very good idea to check the temperature from time to time …
I might check 3 or 4 times in a charge cycle , at the start , at the middle and at the end …
I may also pull a cell or two to check V with the MM from time to time
Oh, forgot to mention. Right before I threw away the xtar after it cooled down, i measured it: 4.07 volts. So it wasn’t like the charger overcharged it. I seem to remember that bad batts can really heat up if the battery internal resistance gets too high?
In any case, something was very wrong.
Educated guess: I think the battery was crapola OR the charger thought it was a larger battery. But that’s only if li-ion battery charge voltages differ.
Anyone know if the charge voltage for a 16340 is different than a 26650, for example?
if memory serves, that FBI report on exploding batteries seemed to blame most incidents on Chinese 16340 rechargeables; Chinese Cr123s; or mixing dead and charged Cr123s/16340s.
Any more 16340 charging will take place OUTSIDE — away from the house, children and small animals. And most of all, AWAY FROM ME. :–0
I already had one 14500 blow 6 mos ago and it shot the the battery case into my coffee maker from 20 feet away and essentially cracked it like it was hit by a slow-moving bullet. Blew the Trustfire charger into shrapnel and spread little pieces of battery crap everywhere in the room, which required like 8 hours of cleaning to decontaminate. The little flakes of black stuff from the inside of the battery went EVERYWHERE, even sticking to the ceiling.
Put your charger in the fireplace
nope, i am staying at the tropics - no chimney in my house!
Before I had a battery blow-up. I would think the fireplace would be a great idea. It does afford some protection, but won’t protect you from the shrapnel and battery case.
But more importantly, the evil stuff inside the battery case goes everywhere in a true explosion, which is waht happened to my 14500. I don’t know about a “vent” without explosion. The vent actually seems more common. So you might be okay.
But in a battery explosion, I NEVER want to clean that black stuff up again. A GAZILLION littlle gooey black flakes. It was EVERYWHERE. And sticky, not dry, so it couldn’t simply be vacuumed up. It all had to be wiped down, foot by foot. HOURS in rubber gloves and a respirator. a royal nightmare PIA, excuse my French.
> and threw them away
Remember, the fire from a lithium cell that’s been damaged can happen a while after the damage.
I recall reading that it’s caused by slowly growing crystals eventually poking a hole through an internal membrane, followed by mixing, followed by trouble.
Wherever you threw them ought to be on the alert for trouble at some point.
I’ve only had one very small cell fail to charge - I set it aside and a few days later noticed it had discoloration around the vent holes; it’d leaked quietly.
Lucky.