Post your charging temps

I thought it might be useful reference to have for others if we could do this.

I refreshed four eneloops today in my Shan SH-168DLCD, so the cells have been discharging and charging for three hours and it is quite warm:

Room temp: 26.2°C
Middle cells: 36°C
Hottest part of charger: 41°C

Interesting, what thermometer are you using?

iCharger 106B+ without outer case or fans
Room temp: 30 Celsius
Batteries temp: 30 Celsius
Charger temp: 38 - 43 Celsius
Current: 2.0A total to 4x 18650’s in parallel, about 0.5A to each.

Nice thread!

I am using a TP101 food thermometer from FastTech.

I will test the little Soshine next.

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I have the same set-up as yours and I have exactly the same experience. (mine at .75A@)

Using my Pila IBC on the same cells, it gets quite warm. My conclusion is the heat generated is not from the heating of the cells while being charged but from the rising up of the heated air coming from the charger’s electronics during charging, going through the chargers holes in the cradle. I have a discarded PC power supply that has a sucker fan on top and a blowing fan on its side. I just put the Pila on top of the sucker fan grille, and the warming of the cells is gone, just like using the hobby charger.

Yes, and it’s quite sensitive to changes. I think it’s good value for the price.

Charger AccuPower AccuManager 10.
Charging 4 PowerEx AA 2700 fully depleted.
Images taken approximately 3 hours after start of charge.
It claims to charge at 800 mA.
Ambient temp about 30C. That is the background and lowest temp in each image.

All in all not too bad. It is strange that the cell second from the left is hotter than the others. I can see no reason for this looking at the charger case temps. The hottest spot seems to be on the right side up above the space for the batteries. All in all the charging circuits seem to be away from the area for the batteries to so very little thermal contamination from those circuits.

Enjoy. I will post more as I get them done.

I gotta ask danaco - how did you take those pictures?

ie. What camera, filter, method, etc? I'd love to know more about it.

Looks like a FLIR thermal camera.

Those things are costly! :smiley:

Those thermal images are the bomb!Er, I mean they are realy neat!

Thank you, Danaco! It is interesting how the second cell is the hottest. Maybe it has higher internal resistance than the others.

I discovered shortly after taking those images that warm cell finished first. So it could have been heating from end of charge. The other 3 took about 15 min longer to finish charging.

I take the images with an Infrared Solutions thermal IR camera. They were later purchased by Fluke. It looks like the Ti50 but has a 160X120 sensor. Unfortunately being an older IR camera it does not have the IR fusion ability. More pics to follow.

Ahh, does the charger change to a trickle charge afterwards?

AccuPower AccuManager 10.
Yes, it switches to trickle charge after full charge is detected.

I am working on the La Crosse BC-500 now. It is a little baby charger that will work from 12V car adapter also. Pics soon.

I’d go further and say it is an unwanted feature. Besides, if I wanted to cook my eneloops, I’d get an i4. :stuck_out_tongue:

That is an idea. But I’d prefer it as default behaviour simply because in event of power loss I don’t want it to reenter a charge cycle (for a period of time) and then trickle charge.

Here is your poll:

La Crosse BC-500

Wow, this is a toasty little charger. Hotter than boiling water. You could get burned by this thing. I am shocked.

Charging 4 PowerEx AA 2700 fully depleted.
Charge is 500 mA. Claimed by La Crosse.
These images taken about 90 min after starting charge. The temps may still be climbing. I will post more pics later if so.

BC-500
Something inside this charger is cooking itself.


Could be a regulator with poor heatsink. Hopefully it is not about to die from overheating. :~

It is now showing one of the cells as defective. I think not, it is a brand new PowerEx AA 2700. I assume it reached a thermal limit but not sure.

I never knew this little charger had such poor performance. Once it cools down I will disassemble it and see how it is made.

Took apart the BC-500.
The hot spot is a buck regulator. Mounted to the PCB as heat sink. The hot spot on the top side of PCB is the inductor for the buck regulator. Obviously components are running pretty close to limits.