Just got my Xtar 18700 and my Nitecore i4.
When I placed the four batteries in the charger they were about 3.79V.
Bottom light on the charger is glowing with a fixed light and the second indicator is blinking.
After more than one hour, there has been no change on the indication lights. The batteries all measure 3.95V.
Removed two of the batteries for a quicker charge (at least I think it works that way).
Still the same light indication and no change after one hour. I have not measured them yet.
Is it really this slow to charge these battteries? I have never had any Li-Ion batteries before. Could it be the charger?
After one and half hour only charging two batteries I’m up to 4.09V.
Still the same indications on the charger though :~
What is the max the battereis goes up to?
Can I expect the charger to show they are fully loaded although now the indications has not changed after 2.5 hours of charging?
The i4 is a slow charger, with one or two batteries it takes 6 hours to charge (if you are using the correct slots), with 3 or 4 batteries is takes 11 hours to charge.
When you removed 2 of the batteries, did you remove from the proper slots? If I remember correctly you'd have to remove 1 cell from slot 1 or slot 2 and remove another cell from slot 3 or slot 4 (see HKJ's review thread for confirmation on this).
It is on the slow side, around 4 hour for 3400mAh is much better (A real 1A charger). In my battery reviews I charge with 1A and you can see the charge time for different batteries.
The cycle rating for a battery is specified at a higher charge rate.
Generally I am not worried about cycle rating, I doubt that I uses more than 50 cycles (That is one full charge each week) in a year on any of my batteries, this means they will die from old age, not cycle usage. During winter I do use a battery each day, but because I have more than one battery there will be some days between each charge.
That's true, consider if you charge your li-ions weekly, you only charge them 52 times a year.
Cycling through all my lights, my charging is closer to once a month/battery, or 12 cycles a year. So if I charge @1A and that drops their life to 100cycles, that's still over 8 years.
Anyhow I charge @0.8A because Panasonic NCR is rated as such (850mA charge).
And a tip for hobby charger - when fast charging a protected battery, it could trip the protection near the end so after a full charge, charge again @100mA. I normally could get another 100-200mAh that way.
I doubt that their cycle life is down to 100 with 1A charge, one old datasheet I have says 300 cycles at 1475 mA charge current.
A hobby charger will not trip the protection, but because it terminates at 1/10 of the charge rate, you can add more mAh when using a lower charge rate.