Hi all,
I am hoping you can point me in the right direction on a multipart question. I currently have a Accucell6 and a Lenmar Mach1 SpeedCharger.
I would like to be able to charge multiple 18650s and multiple AA/AAA NIMHs. I like the data the Accucell provides and I wonder if the Lenmar is hurting my Eneloops and EBLs.
For 18650s, I had previously used a 4x holder and soldered on a balancing harness. However, it could not handle the amperage and melted. The leads are far too small. Can you recommend a better holder or do I just need to get a separate charger?
For NIMH, I have the Lenmar hooked up to a PC PSU instead of it’s original PSU. Is this giving too much power to my NIMHs? Is this charger OK otherwise?
If I need a separate charger for one or both of the above questions, I would like to be able to get some sort of charging info. Is there a way to get the Accucell6 to feed a ‘dumb’ charger so I can keep some sort of info about how much power I am putting into my batteries? I would like to be able to hook this charger to my PC PSU. Either the 12V rail or the 5V rail.
Thanks for any input!
John
I use minimum 18AWG, 16 is better if you have access to it. Make short leads, high quality copper strips for the holder (inside) and eliminate cheap springs or those parts. make sure you don’t have any connections you don’t need, ie XT60.
I did my first 6A charge yesterday and nothing melted.
if you want to know how much current is going in just use a clamp meter or ammeter in between.
People have ‘gutted’ the stock multi-cell (AAA>D) dumb/timed chargers and made them simple holders for NiMh. IMO it’s way less hassle to get an Opus.
FWIW I have an AC-6 and have made single cell holders out of clamps to do tests. Works fine for single cells. Once you make a parallel holder you get PACK info but no longer single cell info. The Opus is just plain easier to use for this purpose.
I think Lenmar products are crap and that charger is damaging your cells. You would be better off with a 15 hour slow charger.
Side note - doing pretty much identical discharges (0.5A from a fully charged cell) on the AC-6 vs the Opus I get considerably different results. I also get seriously different results charging the same cell at supposedly the same rate (0.5A) between the AC-6, the Opus, and Xtar VC4. Cells were 18650, discharged to 3.0v, rested, then charged. I know charging is not nearly as accurate, but discharging should be kind of a ‘standard’ if done the same. I have no idea which one is actually ‘accurate’. Mostly they become an ongoing reference system.
I agree on the NIMH particularly, I didn’t think there would be a good way to charge multiple cells through the Accucell6. But I thought I would ask…
I thought it might be possible to have it be the output power source (PC PSU > AC6 >* NIMH Charger > cells) to an NIMH charger to see how much power is being put through at the astericks…
What model charger would you recommend? It looks like these things range from $20 to $50.
Data on charging NiMh is almost useless. It’s like filling a bucket full of holes while in the dark. About the only thing of value is determining if it undercharged, overcharged, or came out ‘about right’. You can only really determine discharge value with any accuracy, AND as I pointed out the user grade tools we have are only approximate for that purpose. But, keep measuring the same thing with the same stick and you get functional data.
The NiMh chargers all have their own power source so that connection with the AC-6 or a PC PS isn’t going to work anyway. The best you could do is make a dumb holder out of it and then you would not have control over single cells, which is what you really want. Why bother?
I settled on the Opus BT-C3100 software V2
So far I’ve been fine with it after about 8 months of use. I almost never use the AC-6 anymore. HJK has lots of excellent reviews on chargers and it’s well worth studying up on any that are of interest to you. I would not buy anything of this type without his review. There is simply too much junk out there, and the hype is considerable and often inaccurate.
I found the reviews page and Woah, the first review I read was for the SkyRC MC3000 for $90! That is quite a charger and quite a bit more than I need. That section is about ready for it’s own search tools to filter out the numerous reviews he has done. I am going to read some more reviews, but I will start by checking the price on the reviewed charger before I read…
That’s his more recent top end purchase review. The Opus is pretty much a best buy. Some people seem to like the LiitoKala Engineer Lii-500.
If you don’t care about analysing, which you obviously do, there are lots of pure charging options. I got the Xtar VC4 just for charging.
There is not perfect charger. You need to figure out what you really want and is critical, and what you can do without.
this is one of the examples how I modded a NiMH holder for the balance charger.
I can charge two or three in this holder, springs are different and polarity is correct (this holder was reviewed on BLF - believe Old-Lumens did that - and the polarity is wrong)
I agree that the cheaper balance chargers only have 1 channel; so if you would want to analyze every single cell you are charging in a pack you would only be able to see the voltages if balance charged. the multi-channel balance chargers seem pricey.
However, I noticed that I only want to know how many amps are going in to a single cell every once in a while - not every time I am charging! In that case I just charge the one cell and I know (roughly) how healthy it is.
Currently I am also using the VC4 but I don’t like the power it has, charging takes a while.
edit: I always charge Lithiums in parallel, and NiMH always in series.
fast-charging (1A cc or more) is something I was told not to do with NiMH? always use 0.5A.
For the most part that is a good charger but beware of gear best, they dont have a good warranty policy. It will cost almost just as much if not more than what you would pay for that charger to send it back in case you need warranty work. I bought a skyrc mc3000 and it was doa , I paid 90 for it. it will cost between 30-60 dollars to send it back for warranty work or replacement. just warning you about gear best.
For the most part that is a good charger but beware of gear best, they dont have a good warranty policy. It will cost almost just as much if not more than what you would pay for that charger to send it back in case you need warranty work. I bought a skyrc mc3000 and it was doa , I paid 90 for it. it will cost between 30-60 dollars to send it back for warranty work or replacement. just warning you about gear best. i have a thread over on CPF AND HERE TOO about gear best and their crappy warranty policy.
Thanks for the warning. I have had a deal go bad on Aliexpress. The seller took as long as possible for all of the steps of the dispute process. So when I got a bad product, it took probably a month to get a refund. I ended up paying something like $20 instead of $90. If that happens again, I may consider asking my credit card to stop payment.
This is not only with GB, but is the same with all packages shipping into China. They make the cost excessive to deter imports and to protect their companies from having to handle returns of the junk so many of them produce. This is why I hesitate to make a significant purchase from China even if I have to pay more to get the same thing elsewhere.
I’m also looking for a charger primarily for Lithium Ion and have never had any relative data as to the health of my cells. How does the Opus c3100 v2.2 compare to the Liitokala lii500?
2A vs 3A
USB Output
Do they both do the discharge/capacity cycle test?
From HJK:
Lii-500
Conclusion
I like the user interface, put a couple of batteries in and select mode/current with the respective buttons. As long as the number keys are not touched the selection is for all slots (Showing all slot numbers would have been nice).
The charger is very good at charging LiIon, but stops a bit early on NiMH.
The fast test works fine on LiIon, but with NiMH it shows too much capacity (the full test looks more correct).
As usual I am not impressed with the resistance function.
The usb output has very low noise, but need multiple cells to work well with 1A load.
The final result must be that it is a good charger with a useful analyze function.
Opus
Conclusion
With this update to the battery analyzer many of the problems has been fixed.
Generally the peak charge and discharge current for LiIon are a bit high, I would have preferred constant current, instead of the pulsing.
The user interface is fairly easy to use, but it may take a some time to learn what the different modes do.
The conclusion must be that it is a good battery analyzer, but for normal charging I will still prefer a charger with non-pulsing CC/CV charging.
So GB still hasn’t shipped afaik. The order says “Processing”. They have dropped the price of the Opus to $34 from $41. Wondering if it has actually shipped or if I can get them to adjust the price…
