I got in three of the packs today. Easy to open since the seams are held together with internal snap tabs. Hard to get the bottom row of cells out due to very aggressive tape.
I use heptane to cause adhesives to temporarily forget how to stick. It is a solvent sold (expensively) commercially as a produce called “UnDu”. It is also sold as rubber cement thinner. I dripped it into the bottom half of the shell and pried the cells out with a curved tool used for prying chips out of IC sockets. The first time I used a screwdriver and no solvent and dented a cell and damaged the wrapper.
First cycle on a cell: Charged a 1A, put in 2950 mAh. Discharged at 1.5A and got 2522 mAh out. The cell did not get warm during the discharge. The charge algorithm that I used typically undercharges the cell, so the true capacity is a few percent higher. I have four more cooking in an I4 at the moment…
I’m pretty sure there is a timer, but I thought that only applied to like if the charger got to a certain state? I’ll check the cut-off a capacity cut-off.
FYI, right not my Accucel is at the default, i.e., haven’t messed with any settings at all.
I just checked and there is both a timer and cut-off, but the manual doesn’t seem to say how to get to the menu? Does anyone know for an Accucel?
Off-topic: Just noticed that the Accucel is suppose to be able to automatically do several discharge=>charge cycles, but it doesn’t say how? Does anyone know how to set that up for the Accucel?
I did look at the manual. That page where they have a kind of flow chart is how I figured how to get to the settings. However, still haven’t figured out how to set it to do auto discharge=>charge cycling?
I need to get one of those battery charger/analyzer things someday. Paid $60 for a Ni-mh one that died fast. Just haven’t had the heart to get another since.
Broke open the pack before going to bed last night. Easiest pack to break down I have ever encountered. There is what appear to be inspection stickers inside both halves the plastic shell. Label says, “JLA2009.11.26. Appears they were hand applied given the angles they were applied. Probably an inspectors initials and date of inspection. Another indicator that the battery was built in 2009 as opposed to 1999. Date code on cells is 9926.
Checked voltage this morning. Cells were at 1.92, 1.94, and 1.99. I’ll start charging the cells tonight.
The four I bought are on the little white truck, I should get them later today.
I have the Turnigy MAX80W, been playing with it for less than a full day, but I think the UI is very close to the Accucell - when you scroll to an option, a short press on the start key really is more like enter or select, long press is start. (but I think you have that figured out now)
Go to the timer option, hit start, it flashes the 'on' setting, up/down to change it, start again flashes the time limit (default on mine was 120minutes). I didn't increase it, just turned it off. Default for the capacity limit was 5000mAh, of course I didn't need to change that.
I know it's capable of doing an auto break-in cycle, as I have seen the menu setting for the rest time between cycles, but I have yet to find out how to make it do the actual break-in thing.
Since there are hobby charger people in here already I'll ask here: is there a good writeup out there for the basics? Like for doing multiple LiPos at once, should they be in series or parallel? What about cells for multi-series-cell lights, best to charge those in the same config they're used in the light? Multiple NiMh must be charged in series, I think I read somewhere?
The cells that I got were in the 1.9V range (BTW, Panasonic data sheet says that these cell can be discharged to 2.5V under load).
I put one fresh out of the pack into the I4, it was recognized as a NiMH cell, charged for a few seconds, then all three lights came on… charge done. Removed and checked the cell. It was at 2.6V. I put the cell back into the I4 and it was then seen as a LiIon cell and spent the next several hours being charged. The I4 uses the cell voltage when you insert it to determine the cell type. It looks like 1.9V is low enough to cause it to think that it is a NiMh cell.
FYI, here’s the manual/PDF for the Accucell 6. It describes the charge/discharge cycle thing, but it looks like it’s only for NIMH. So, can you use that NIMH program for Li batteries?
Also, I think that it says it’s better in series, but the English is kind of hard to understand :)…gives me a headache everytime I read this manual :)!!
Ok, thanks for the clarification (I did see your thread about the analyzer earlier, but didn’t tie two and two together).
Also thanks for info on what you did, as it might help others who got these packs. I only have a TR-003p4, and that wouldn’t see the 1.9V batteries at all (lights were all green), until I put them into an el-cheapo charger, which brought them up enough that the TR-003p4 would see them. I just ordered a JETBEAM i4 pro yesterday, so we’ll see how that goes, but I don’t have any 1.9V batteries anymore :)…
So, thinking about all of this, I’m still a little confused about something. As I mentioned, I got a few responses earlier that seemed to pretty STRONGLY discourage using these batteries because of the 1.9V initial voltage, as I said, if I had followed that advice, I would have tossed all 12 batteries by now.
So, what IS the situation? Is it just that if a USED battery is low voltage (< 2.5V?) to toss it, but for a NEW battery that has low voltage, it’s ok to try to charge it/them?
Still confused about all of that, but am interested in this, for the future…
Like I said earlier, I have no doubt that if you took one of these packs, at 1.9v/cell, and stuck it into a Fujitsu laptop, it would be recognized just fine and charge (though it would take quite a while, which isn't abnormal) and then run from it without anybody ever knowing what the voltage was when it came out of the package.