I just got my lii-500 charger. Up until now, I’ve only used simple chargers that automatically run a certain number of hours and then stop. So please bear with me, not used to having a more intelligent charger.
I charged some NIMH batteries. When they were done, they had various mAh readouts. I wanted to see what it would do if I tried to recharge them after they had just been charged.
I expected it to show me how many mAh each battery had and maybe run for a few minutes before ending, since they were already charged.
Instead, it looked like it was starting all over again. Each terminal started out with zero mAh displayed, and increased as time went on until “End.”
Is it discharging every single time it charges?
Is there a way to do a battery “top-off,” where if the battery is already partially charged, it charges up the remainder without discharging it first?
The instructions don’t explain what all of the displays mean, so I’m probably misunderstanding it.
Cant be 100% sure about the charger you have but many chargers can perform what is called a break in or refresh where the battery gets discharged first from whatever point its in, then charged again. You really should not be doing this every time and I have never seen to be a default out of the box behavior.
Thank you for your response. That’s just the problem. The whole reason I wanted this charger was so that it would be smart and only charge as much as it needed to, and prolong the life of the battery by not doing a bunch of unnecessary stuff.
I find it hard to believe it would discharge every single time but that’s what it looked like it was doing. Unless the display means something other than how I was interpreting it. Starting at zero doesn’t look good to me. They were already charged.
Thanks for posting the manual. I had read it before I posted here but it really does nothing to explain what’s actually going on when you put the batteries in there.
I may just return it. I don’t think it’s doing what I want.
I think you’re just hitting the wrong button . It sounds like instead of asking it to charge you’re running it thru a test cycle to determine how good or bad your battery is . There are two tests one is a full discharge and recharge and then it shows you total capacity of the cell. They also have a Quick test which does the same thing but quicker . … still slower then just simple charging.
Take a look at the instructions again or a video . My guess is you’re just pressing the wrong button .
I haven’t used mine for years but am guessing if you hit one button multiple times it will give you two or three different options .
I always liked my littokala 500. I mothballed it for the Zanflare C4
You are going to find THAT problem with ALL the chargers. Some of it IS lousy instructions. I suspect some of it is also your lack of understanding some basics, which unfortunately take awhile, and persistence, to learn.
Do you have the lii-500 or the lii-500S? Makes a difference. The “S” was not an improvement. I suggest you read the review carefully. Lot of info, and not easy to understand at first. |
A couple of noteable points in the review: [The charger uses a -dv/dt termination, here it needs about 20 minutes to detect it, this means the battery gets fairly hot at the end. Then it continues with a trickle charge of about 17mA. Detection of a full cell is fairly fast for a -dv/dt charger.]
All of the chargers need to “figure out/detection” what the state of charge is before they begin. Time can vary between chargers, sometimes a good bit.
ALL NiMh will lose some charge sitting and cooling. If you test-recharge a NiMh that has been sitting overnight it WILL charge for a bit. How long depends on a number of variables: how long it’s been sitting, how OLD and in what electrical condition the battery is in (old/poor make that worse), and how well that particular charger determines termination. The lii-500S is not the best at NiMh termination, but that applies to a lot of the decent smart chargers. I’d guess what you are seeing is normal unless, as suggested, you put it in a different [mode] accidentally.
It’s the 500, no S. When I unplugged it, I plugged it back in literally 5 seconds later so it didn’t have time to lose anything overnight.
You’re right for sure that I am not knowledgeable about this and so I’m sure it’s all just misunderstanding on my part. I’ll look around for some tutorials and maybe I can figure it out. The instructions really stink.
No, it isn’t discharging every single time. The value indicates how much current was “put inside the battery”, and everytime you put a battery on it it resets to 0000 and starts going up again (it doesn’t know yet if the battery is depleted or charged). If the battery is already full the value shown will be very small, and it represents the energy needed for the charger to know that the charging is terminated (nimh and nicd batteries will show a substantial value because of the -dv/dt logic). To show how much energy you have inside the battery you should do a discharge test.
I have 2x lii-500 and had another I sold to a friend. I had no reservations on passing it on.
They are a decent smart charger and I have no qualms about using them.
Their glaring flaw is the internal resistance for NiMh. All 3 of mine gave the same reading for ANY NiMh. Seem to maybe work for LiOn.
OTOH, IR for slider type chargers is somewhat erratic, especially as the charger gets older. I’ve moved to a different device for that feature.
Termination for NiXX batteries is complex. You may find this worthwhile.
Battery U is an excellent site to start building your info base on. Budget light goes into different and more particulars.
Specific answers:
Simply charging used batteries will give you various mAh readings. This is only an indication of how much it took to ‘fill up the tank’. The voltage it shows when starting is poorly associated with the remaining capacity. This is characteristic of NiMh.
Putting in a charged NiMh and doing nothing else, the charger will test the battery, then attempt to charge it at 500mA (which is adjustable). When the dv/dt termination algorithm determines it’s full, it will show you ONLY what it put in, not the battery capacity. It will not discharge the battery. See [TEST] below. You can ‘top off’ NiMh any time you want. It is NOT recommended to simply leave an NiMh in the charger after it’s been charged. The lii-500 does have a low trickle charge, which is not optimal for LSD NiMh.
Simply trying to charge, or re-charge, a battery will NOT show you the capacity. You need to discharge a full battery to get capacity.
The charger has a [TEST] function you start at the beginning of the charge process. It shows up on the LCD screen. This is a combination of charge, discharge and then charging again. Use that to get the capacity. It will take many hours. This is normal.
Charging a completely discharged NiMh is not very accurate at giving you capacity. It will only give you a rough approximation. The charging method used for NiMh is somewhat of an overcharge method. This is why discharge is used for capacity testing.
