Shipped price was like $1.58, purchased to gut and use as a fixture with Imax B6 clone. I popped in a 14500 to see what happens, unplugged Green LED, plugged in and goes red for about half an hour, then green. Battery shows 4.19v on my meter.
Ebay listing showed it as universal AA and lion, doesn’t recognize Nimh or Nicad, nothing happens. Not a problem for me.
Spring is a bit strong.
Bumps on both ends, needs a “little” care to center battery, but no real issue and seems to make a solid contact.
I hate to gut it now, but haven’t decided to see how long it lives or pick up a second to gut.
Its a single cell, slider looks like wide range of fits, claims 330ma at 3.7v. Image in listing shows a striped battery placement label, single red/green LED at top and folding USA style prongs on back.
You must resist. :bigsmile:
Resist the urge to keep it as is. Gut it. Make a nice slider single cell holder.
I would never trust a $1.58 AC device from ebay… You can guarantee it follows no safety regulations in its AC circuit design. Nor would it likely do a safe li-ion charge profile. Never mind actual CC/CV, constant current / constant voltage.
Just b/c the $2 charger APPEARS to work right now doesn’t mean it wouldn’t fail at a later time.
Just some perspective -> i.e. a cheesy fauxton clone goes for $0.50 to $1. Would you really trust a $2 charger?
AZ
Price has gone up to $1.65, so maybe you should rethink your view on the quality.
Seems like a dandy choice for my cheap Lion batteries, perhaps if I invest in a greater than $4 battery I will consider a fancy charger. Wow, 10440 aren’t cheap (4x 10440 $8.13 shipped), maybe it is time to consider a $2 or even $3 charger?
Save up your dosh and buy an i2 or i4. Then you’ll only need 1 charger for just about any battery you can think of. Unless you decide you want a 32650.
I have a few of these that came with different cheap lights. Two blew up by themselves. Another two are actually pretty decent, they actually do charge properly and actually stop charging at 4.2V.
The problem is that they all look pretty much the same and unless you know how to properly check - maybe better not take the chance.
But if you plan to gut one out, this is a pretty good charging case for your hobby charger - takes 10440,16340,14500 and 18650 all easily.
These are batteries for flashlights, not holy relics. Most of mine are cheap ebay Trustfire flames, going in SK68 clones that cost $5 shipped. A fancy charger is not in there future.
I do practice safety, always leaving the charger unattended sitting on a cardboard box on top of a pile of dry newspapers.
Though I usually like to leave my batteries charging somewhere excessively warm, like near a gas/kerosene heater or other toasty heat source(preferably one powered by a large ammount of a highly flammable accelerant)
It's winter and I don't want cold batteries!
I have not noticed any difference between batteries charged on my my $100 charger vs my $2 cheap chargers.
My non-cheap charger does let me charge faster than my cheap ones, but that's at the cost of capacity.
The light is just as bright using a battery charged on either charger and I have never had a battery die on me.
I'm not a professional on batteries, so that's just my uneducated observation.
Doesn’t need to be fancy or expensive.
$3.49 Miller ML-101 Mini USB Charger
Won’t blow up or cause batteries to shoot flames & vent toxic gases.
If you don’t care about safety, a real charger also won’t progressively destroy battery capacity with every charge. Li-ions require a real charger.
Put a meter on my $1.58 shipped charger using one of the new efest 10440 that arrived super fast from RMM, 4.19 to 4.20, shifting back and forth, measured battery first at 3.79v.
OK, its now just a holder to use with my hobby charger.
Efest 10440 doesn’t have much of a bump on the end, apparently wasn’t making contact when I made my DMM measurements. No info on the charger, and I assumed green maybe meant it was charging, not charged. Stopped the process a couple times and checked voltage, which was sitting at 3.95v, tried the cell in my Olight i3S, wow, very bright, put it back in oriented differently and LED turned red and I realized it was now charging and wasn’t before. Busy doing stuff, noticed the green LED, checked cell with meter and now 4.35v, so its no longer a charger.
Peeled up the sticker on the back that stopped me before and found two more screws, case came apart without issue. Nothing surprisingly good or bad, did not meet any normal safety standards, masking tape used over AC transformer connection, clear “scotch tape” used to hold on the spring (guessing during assembly only. AC traces next to low voltage traces. Some poor looking solder joints, but nothing very bad. Spring slider makes contact only indirectly via the metal strip the slider moves over, for no good reason I can think of. Anyway, its now parts.
I’m lazy about doing pictures, but later when I wire it up for use with the Imax B6 I may take some shots. It will need to come apart again for that and have some wires soldered, but until I need to charge another Lion, no rush.
