I see constant talk about chargers (Li-Ion mostly), which usually cost at least $10… so far I have 3 chargers, one for my NiMH batteries, one for my 10440/14500, and one for my 18650/26650 batteries… and was looking at maybe buying the Intellicharge i4… Then I though ok… I will have one charger which can charge all my batteries, it will be actually my 4th charger, but on the other hand it’s another $20 for a charger that’s spartan, no discharge, no features etc…
So… would I be wrong if the best move would be to buy a hobby charger as my next charger? Ok, they might not have the convenience of having battery compartments, but they do so many things and then some! So if my thinking is correct, can someone suggest me a hobby charger around $50 max and tell me what else I would need as accessories?
Unless you need to charge 4 batteries at a time (and some people do), you can’t beat a hobby charger for something that can charge just about anything, measure capacity of batteries, etc. And they use a perfect charging routine for li-ion. The downside is they aren’t simple, but if you don’t mind that, I think a hobby charger is the way to go, along with a couple of simple chargers like you have already, but I pretty much only use my hobby charger now.
Exactly what I was thinking. For Li-Ion I don’t see the need to charge more than 2 at a time, I only charge sometimes NiMH 4 at a time. So I am thinking of starting slowly to switch to a hobby charger. What limits a hobby charger from charging 4 Li-Ions simultaneously? And which hobby charger do you use?
A typical hobby charger just has two leads for charging, so you have to rig something up if you want to charge more than 1 battery at a time. A lot of people have done that, but I just charge one battery at a time. Charging one at a time is more brted-proof. You can charge in parallel or series. Some people have said charging in parallel works fine with li-ion because the cells sort of self-balance that way. The good thing about the leads is you can charge any length or any diameter cell you want.
Here’s the one I have:
It has an alarm if you hook something up wrong or if the leads don’t make contact, and it sounds when the charging is complete. It lets you charge to 4.1V or 4.2V. The maximum discharge rate is 1A, which is okay. I’ve been really impressed with it. It’s like a Maha C9000 for lithium ion batteries.
I will say that the precision of the display is to the nearest 100mA and doesn’t seem that great for 10440’s, but I may be imagining that. If you charge a 10440 at 400mA, it will terminate at 0.1 of that charge which would be 40mA, except I think it actually cuts off when it goes below 100mA and shows 0mA on the display. I haven’t tested that with a DMM to see if that is what is happening, but that’s what is going on with the display.