hello , can anybody tell me if there is a notification when the samsung 18650s are fully charged as ive been charging mine and now they just flash at 100percent, i just wonderd of i have to wait till its a solid light to indicate full. many thanks
I have two of the 100s and two of the 202s and even though they can show 100%, until the LEDs stop blinking, the charge hasn’t terminated.
Some chargers take forever and a day to terminate, some cells are older and take longer, there are a few reasons for this, but suffice it to say that you wait for the LEDs to go solid.
You’ll be very close to full if you yank them sooner and you won’t hurt anything and some of us even prefer to undercharge our cells to varying degrees, in order to preserve their life spans, but they’re cheap enough that I don’t worry about charging to 4.20v on a regular basis.
Just so you know, my two 100s slightly overcharge to 4.22v-4.23v and my two 202s slightly undercharge on all four bays, to 4.18v-4.19v, using my Rat Shack 22-805 DMM.
Chris
thank u chris. i just received my q8 today… at what point would u pull them from the q8 to recharge? 3v? thanks mate
ive yanked them before it terminated and acording to my q8 voltage check im at 4.4v
Let’s be specific for a moment, as something isn’t right.
The Q8 is a light that has a visual voltage blinky, of some sort?
Do you have a digital multi meter, or any voltage meter apart from your Q8?
3.6v/3.7v (nominal) li-ions should come hot off the charger at 4.20v (+/- .05v: 4.150v-4.250v), which is the standard.
If you’re seeing 4.40v, that’s way to high. If you’re using 18650s/18350s in series, then 4.40v is way to low for two stacked cells.
Always have a DMM handy when playing with this stuff. Always check your cells when they’re done charging so you can verify things. Always play with your runtimes in increments and then let the cells cool and measure them so you know what your light is doing over time.
The above only takes a few moments, so it shouldn’t be considered a hardship.
Chris
In my experience, both Lii-100 v1 and Lii-202 start lighting up all 4 leds once cell voltage is at 3.9+V. While charging, once battery voltage reachs those 3.9+V the upper leds start blinking alone with the remaining 3 solid. At that point, there's still the constant current phase between 3.9+V and 4.2V remaining, and once it reachs 4.2V at the rail can still take a while to top out, the bigger the cell and the higher its internal resistance the longer. 
Cheers ^:)
i dont have a multi meter, as i said thr charger was just blinking on 100percent, not solid light, thats (4 )18650s . also they were not hot at all
i have a 2nd liitokala 402 and when i put the 4 ,18650s in it just flashes at 100percent not solid, and the q8 says 4 blinks pause 4 blinks, thats 4.4v or
You really should get a multimeter to read them, especially for Lion cells. As far as what the Q8 reads, I think TomE said the variance in some components, might make the readout different, than actual cell voltage. On my Q8 with fully charged 4.2v cells, I only get 4 blinks.
How long is the pause between the 4 blinks?
I don’t know much about the Q8 voltage meter, or its tolerances, but that was my guess. It’s off.
Anyhow, yeah…one needs a DMM when fiddling with this stuff.
Chris
hi dusty , its about 4 seconds
You are messing around with a 4x18560 light system, fairly high end. You really ought to think about getting suitable tools: a DMM and an analyzing charger minimum. The smaller Lii chargers are a great bargain but not known for highly accurate termination.
yes your right. If something is overcharging surely the batterys will feel warm?
And they were not atall warm
Is it possible it’s reading 4.0v and not 4.4 as the charger had not terminated…. It blinks 4times then a4/5second pause then 4 blinks ect
If you have a 4 second pause between blinking, I think it is telling you 4v. It should be a short pause between blinks. Let the light run for a bit, and do the bat-check again. Run it down below 4 blinks, just to know how the bat-check flashes.
ok bro I’ll do that and check back and report
here’s a short vid of my battery check on my q8
The charger max output is 2A….IF you have adequate input. If your USB output is subpar (PC will be subpar) it will choke the charger and will charge even slower.
IF you have good input, the max for 4-cells is still only 500mA/channel. For high cap cells it’s going to take awhile. During the terminal phase it slows….way….down, so will take even longer with 4-cells. Without an accurate way to measure voltage you really don’t have adequate info. Blinking indicators on a light are a very crude measure.
i think i was missreading the blinks
Your video appears to show a charge of 4v. Here is the what the manual says:
Battery Check
Battery Check mode displays the current voltage reading of the cells, blinked out continuously – 1 click will terminate the voltage reading. For example, a 3.7V reading will results in 3 blinks, short pause, 7 blinks, long pause, then repeats again. This pattern will continue forever until a click terminates it. It can also be used as low power beacon and should last many hours. The voltage reading ranges from 2.8V to 4.2V, but does not scale linearly. This is an approximate scale of percent discharge to voltage reading:
• 25%: 3.9V
• 50%: 3.7V
• 75%: 3.5V
• 90%: 3.25V
So typically, Li-Ion cells will drop more rapidly as they get closer to the end, so from 3.4V on down, there isn’t much capacity left.
As far as your Liitokala Charger. They are very popular around here, with a lot of discussion. Though some have variance in termination voltage, I don’t think I’ve read of any that were above the +/- tolerance of the battery manufacturers. No way to know for sure without checking the batteries with a multimeter. Even a cheap $5 department store, digital multimeter, should be accurate enough to provide battery voltage.
When to recharge is your decision. 3v would be good, but as you can see above, 3.2v is approximately 90% discharged.