so i bought the cheapest liitokala and it doesn;t do 21700 or 26650
what is a cheap charger that has ‘magnets on wires’ for the contacts, so it can handle any size cell?
doesn;t need display other than done/not done
don;t care if it takes 2 days to charge, slow is fine
thx
wle
olight uc
Probably just an issue with the one I bought but it stopped working after using it around 10 times.
There was that rather infamous doodad that was light gray, had the magnet “tails”, and had usb in and out so you could plug it in to charge, or plug something into it to power the doodad from the battery.
Fiicr what brand it was, though. Can’t recall if it was from GB, FT, or somewhere else, but they were going for like 7bux each back then.
If that jiggles loose any memories for someone else, maybe they can chime in.
Amazon, goggle “magnetic charger usb 18650”.
There’s a 47s for 23bux, and a no-name for like 5bux.
FOLOMOV, however they do not seem to be maintaining their 'Zon storefront.
You can make any of these chargers a magnetic charger if you have some neodymium magnets already and you’re careful.
You solder a wire to the positive and another to the negative contacts of the charger, or tightly wrap the wire to and tape them down. Solder a nickel strip (or just fan out the strands and then solder them to themselves) to the other end of each wire. Stick a couple magnets to that. Done. Now you have a magnetic charger that works on any size battery
Yeh, that jingles some memories. That was round 2 when they came out, and I think I “stocked up” on a few of those, too.
The first ones had to be on GB. The ones I’m (mis)remembering from FT were the Miller chargers. White doodads, something like 5-6bux, pretty handy for some reason (first to act as a charger/powerbank?). I got one of those, don’t think I used it much, but it’s… somewhere.
Someone here made a dummy cell out of wood, and using screws’n’wires, came up with flying leads to connect to… was it 26800s? Something like that.
Ugh, I remember the gist of so much of this shiite, but not the details.
Ah. Yep, there it is on their storefront… the A1.
Those A1s came in the nice plastic+cardboard packages, I think. The generic ones came in the infamous Cheap White Cardboard Boxes. (So yeah, CWCBs kinda screams Gearbest.)
Lmaooo that’s genius. I never thought of that. I just used a cheap single slot charger I didn’t care about turning into a dedicated 26800 charger. Using a piece of wood as a dummy is so much smarter. This is a revelation.
Since then Ive just made a bigger adjustable battery holder and hooked up the board from a cheap charger to that tho.
Dummy cells for charging, magnet leads and the ML102 chargers! This thread is a blast from the past, next you’ll be talking about that ultrafire Vs the pila which were basically the only two choices way back when…
For some reason I thought the light UC was discontinued? I’ve contemplated picking one up for a while for use travelling, it’s same design as the Cottonpickers charger, with the magnets on leads. To be honest you could make one up yourself nowadays with a cheap charging circuit off AliExpress or eBay and some scraps of wire and some magnets. Stick the board in a usb sized project case, or just heatshrink it, to prevent shorts.
Edit to add: cursory search of AliExpress didn’t turn up and sliding cell holders, there’s plenty of those “4 wire battery test holder” things, but I was hoping for more of a sliding rail type holder, looks like magnets are easiest, however, you’ll likely kill the charger if they short (which is easy as they’re both magnets attracting each other). Maybe solution is to solder onto same polarity then cover with kapton or something, at least then the surfaces aren’t trying to commit suicide all the time.
Yeh, you can get those boards, raw, for like a dime each in bulk.
The Big Clive takes 'em to bits every now and again, too, when they’re part of some doodad.
Yeh, that’s what those A1 chargers and similar are, under the hood. Teeny postage-stamp board, only embedded in plastic with magnet-leads on the outputs, vs the springy clippy thingy.
Lookit the way those A1s and similar are done. The magnets are set up so that when they do stick to each other, they do so front-to-back, so the exposed end of one sticks to the insulated end of the other.
To coat those beasties, just use Liquid Electrical Tape or Flexi-Dip or similar.
i may do that
the dummy method
can use sheet copper to touch the regular charger wires
then the wood thing to keep them apart
then the wires
how to solder to a magnet
hm
ugh
oh
i like the metal strips with the magnets stuck to them
and the neodymiums have nickel or something already on the outside
yeah
$10 saved!
actually i could use 4 magnets
the other 2 to connect to the charger terminals [steel]
then the steel/nickel strip
then 2 more magnets, between strip and battery!
I often use magnet leads (which I made) for charging cells. Recently I had a cell that would not take the magnets. It repelled the magnets regardless of their orientation. So evidently it will not always work.
I made up a set of leads that I currently use for charging 26800 cells. 18 gauge wire with Banana plugs on one end and magnets soldered to the other. Soldered direct to the neo magnets. You need a hot iron and do it quickly or you can demagnetize them. But I made a set and have been using them for a long time. They work. I use them with a hobby charger, but I would think that just soldering the non-magnet end directly to a charger contacts would work just as well.
Heck, I even made up a balance harness using magnets directly soldered to wire. Just so I could charge 4s/6S cells. Lots of connection break errors from the charger. But if you get it just right and don’t mess with it…it works. I never fully analyzed it, but I think the added resistance might impact charging a little… I don’t do it much anymore, because I have so many decent chargers that actually hold the batteries correctly. 
Just be aware of the increased resistance. It can impact charging. like cc/cv transition and termination voltage.
Soldering at least one end would probably be better.
But I haven’t had any significant problems using magnets over the years.