I recently purchased a icharger 208B. When I try to charge a almost fully charged li-ion, the charger goes into some kind of weird unknown state where it produces current spikes at the beginning of the charge, upwards of 6 amps, even though the charge current is set at 500ma. Usually tripping the protection circuit of the cell and the charger will give me a connection break error, shortly after seeing the 6 amp spike. It will also sometimes at the beginning of the charge display applied voltages in the 6 to 7 volt range while its not applying any current (display current reading 0) and then it keeps searching for the proper voltage without applying any current (fluctuating between 6 to 7v) when it should be 4.2v. Its like its confused as to what to do.
All this happens with li-ions with a protection circuit, with a unprotected cell it doesn’t seem to happen.
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I can’t find anyone else having this problem from a google search.
If it will not charge a protected cell, then what use would I have for it over my turnigy 8150, it charges them just fine with the exact same setup. Any ideas from some of you icharger hobbyist? Anyone else have this problem?
Did you get it from ProgressiveRC?
They are pretty good people and would probably take the question.
Are you charging single cells, series, or parallel?
I got it from buddyrc, which I have already sent back in the mail. They are replacing it with no hassle at all and they paid the return shipping. Talked to them on the phone and seem to be nice people. I have had several dealings with them and this is the first time I had a problem with a product.
I just wanted to know if I had just got a lemon or if someone had experienced the issue before. I’ll have a new one on the way probably tomorrow, didn’t want the same charger if this is normal behavior from a icharger, which I didn’t figure was the case but wanted to see if someone else might have had the problem before.
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Charging single cell li-ions. 18650’s, 14500’s and 16340’s.
My 208B charger works fine. What brand of batteries were you charging?
What type of power supply are you using, iCharger need a stable voltage. If the supply voltage increases slightly, the current will increase significantly for some time.
I tried several different brands, some quality and some cheap. The problem seem to get worse if the battery was almost fully charged say around 4.1v.
I had read the icharger may be a little finicky about the power supply. I’am using a computer power supply that works fine with the turnigy 8150, but its possible the icharger is having a problem with it. If the replacement acts the same way, that will be the first thing I check with a 12v auto battery. The funny thing is it didn’t seem to have the problem with any unprotected battery I tried, no matter the state of charge. I had first thought it was the pcb on the Nitecore batteries, then I tried some protected trustfires and the same problem happened. I then went to trying several battery makes and the problem was still there and seemed very erratic. It didn’t happen ever single time. Sometimes it would apply a over current spike that was way greater than the set current (even at 50ma it would apply 6 amps erratically), sometimes it would apply to much voltage with out any current displayed and would not stop or throw a error. Other times it would just throw a connection break error with out even starting the charge (that could have been after a current spike tripping the pcb). Other times it took all of 20 seconds or so checking the battery (after you hold the start button for 3 seconds) before it even began the charge. If I have similar problems with the replacement, I’ll do far more testing, as it shouldn’t be doing this even with protected batteries. Thanks for all your help!