Hobby Charger

Using a multiplex ln-5014 and the charge cycle stopped at 4.08v. My i4 is charging that same cell and it registered as not fully charged.

I noticed that in the manual it said that it should stop at 4.1 for li-ion and 4.2 for li-po. So my question is could I just use the li-po setting for li-ion to get them to the 4.2v mark?

Yes. The only thing I use li-on mode for is the storage mode.

Most hobby chargers have default settings of 4.1V for Li-lo and 4.2V for Li-po

In my case, my iCharger’s adjustable termination settings are set to 4.2V for Li-lo, and 4.3V for Li-po (chosen when charging 4.3V cells).

Charging to 4.1 will be kinder to your cells, the only downside is you capacity will be down a little bit. Depending on the age and condition do not think your cells have to come off the charger at 4.2V.

most older oder newer cells don't come off any type of commercial charger at 4.200V because of singularly one phenomenon, the charger's termination current. the termination current is not even a phenomenon!, but a technical detail which is inherent to the make of the charger. hobby chargers are programmed to terminate the charge at 10% of the user set current, or at 20% for FAST CHARGE, and there is a minimum: the termination current doesn't get lower than a ~30mA average, even though the hobby charger may display stuff like "0.01A lol", so the hobby charger formula is:

20% > 10% ≥ TC ≥ 30mA

with this primitive formula used in hobby chargers your typical used cell can't come off at 4.20V.

but fact is that the cell would come off at a (rather) stable exact 4.200V reading, no matter how old or new or abused the cell is, if the charging current did not terminate but continue the CV-charging phase 'infinitely' by continuously decreasing the charging current for another 12-24hr down to say a level of 0.001A or 0.0001A and then trickle charge with such an infinitesimally small current.

problem is, no unhacked charger known to mankind does such a thing. trickle charging li-ion batteries is bad for the health anyway.

for example, if the hobby charger current was set to 1.0A, then the termination current will be exactly 0.1A (100mA). That's a common number but in practice too high: with 100mA, the new/old battery will read notably less than 4.200V on your multimeter. 10 seconds after taking out the cell from the hobby charger, voltage will have dropped to say 4.18V depending on the health/condition/age of the cell.

if the current was set to 0.05A, then the termination current will be 30mA (average), not 0.005A, and you're getting closer to the 4.20V target but still clearly not there, especially with old abused cells.

in theory, stable 4.200V off a (hacked) charger is possible with any old abused cell, in practice, because of the 'phenomenon' in commercial hobby chargers:

new cell, low user-set current (e.g. anything between 0.05—0.3A) => comes off at 4.19V

old cell, high user-set current (e.g. 1.0—5.0A) => comes off at 4.14V

Maybe HKJ can sign these pipifax claims?

LiIon is not supposed to be charger to 4.2V, but charged with 4.2V (It is not the same).

Some badly designed chargers does not terminate charging, but continues to charge, this way they can get the voltage up to 4.2V and wear the cells down faster.

But as pipifax writes: Hobby chargers are often a bit early in terminating charging. This is probably on purpose, because it allows people to get back to their RC toys asap, the last % of capacity does not really matter (On some hobby chargers it is possible to adjust termination).

From your reviewed chargers collection, please do you have any example charger product in mind?

The last time i checked there was no charger which continued the 4.2V-CV-phase down to 1mA or 0.1mA "untermination" current :p

i must have overlooked them, thank you for the pointers!

yes these cheap chargers don't look too good. Cytac, Trustfire, Fire can be Trusted

the voltage is clearly over 4.20V. these 2 chargers are overcharging and wearing down the batteries!

The voltage is within range, the current is not.

A little light reading concerning Li Ion charging

However HKJ IS the resident expert on batteries…you can BANK on that :wink: