With all the bright 4 battery lights I have been getting lately I have found charging all my 18650’s to be a little onerous. So I ordered a couple of these battery holders from DX here and built myself a 4 cell battery holder with a balancing lead to connect to my hobby class chargers. This will safley charge and balance 4 batteries in a little over the same time it normally takes to charge one battery. I got the balance circut here
So far its working great just remember polarity when putting into the cradle !. A photo of the pre and post completed project:
all my 18605’s fit in it ok. I have even charged the button top efest 2400’s and they are about the longest fattest 18650’s i have ever seen and they fit with about 2mm to spare.
I’m still learning about LiIons having bought my first light that uses them and I just have one question. Why not parallel charge them? From what I’ve been reading, parallel auto balances. Does charging them in series with balancing have them charge faster or more accurate?
You are correct. Hobby class chargers like these have balancing ports and are setup to safely charge batteries in series. I can charge 4 batteries in series at 3.4 amps in a little over the time it takes to charge one in parallel. If I charged 4 in parallel the max my charger can output is 5 amps so it would take way longer because you would essentially have a 1400mah battery. Also that’s the way that these charge cradles are made