So Yesterday I finally got my Nightcore Intellicharger i4 for my Protected 18650 Panasonics I got a few months before from Bangood.
Before I put the cells in the charger I checked them and all showed 3.60V. I put all the cells in and plugged it.
I only got one solid amber and one flashing on all cells, but didn’t think anymore and left it alone. It must have been in the region of 4 hours later when I looked and the i4 showed the same indicators :~ .
I plugged it in again today but only for one hour and did manage to get two solids and one flashing. I stopped it early because I wanted to check on here before I let it run any longer
Does this sounds like its taking far too long to add just 0.1V or is my noobness showing and the charger will do this because the cells are almost fully charged?
It sounds normal. When using four cells the Intellicharger splits the charge between two bays. I can’t remember what the charge ratio is, but it’s not real high and when two cells are in side by side bays it splits the charge between them. Charging four cells from 3.6V is going to take a while. Basically, it’s a two bay charger that’s working to charge four bays.
Sounds normal to me too. The time it takes to fully charge a cell is directly affected by the cell’s capacity and it’s discharged state at the time of charging plus the current it’s being charged at. Say you have a fully depleted 3400mah cell. You have a charger that applies 340ma to the cell. 3400mah divided by 340ma equals 10 hrs to fully charge with a little extra time for the constant voltage phase of charging li-ion’s. 10.5 hrs should be a close estimate. If the same cell is half discharged when stuck in the charger, it will take about half the time to fully charge it.
It also works in reverse for figuring run time. If a cell has 3000mah of capacity and the flashlight (single cell) you put it in draws 3 amps at the tail cap, 3000mah (capacity) divided by 3000ma (current draw from the cell in ma) equals 1 hour to fully depleted. The flashlight should run about one hour before the light goes very dim or the protection circuit kicks.
Thank you everybody for your replies. I’m surprised though. I really thought something was wrong. From the review here on BLF it took 11 hours to charge 4 x 18650 so I was thinking it would be a fraction of that just for a top up and I should have had more solid yellow when already at 3.6V. BUT! Obviously I’m wrong LOL. Newb status for sure for me
You know the only thing missing now? A torch that uses the 18650’s but that is for another thread.
i4, bay 1 and 3, and 2 and 4 have 750 mA, if you have both slots populated you have 375mA per port…big batteries will take a very long time to charge, double check polarity when you put in the batteries
if it’s still acting weird, then might want to RMA it
