I Need Charger Help

[Kragax]

OK I have a question. Im using a new mod that take the 14500 battery. They seem to charge strangely. Sometimes they charge in a normal 1-2 hr period and some times the red light never goes out. I suspect its just a cheap charger, so could anyone recommend a good quality charger that will take the 14500? The one I have is a single battery charger, plugs direct into an outlet and has a slide to make connection with the battery poles. Its like a 5.00 unit and as you all know, we can't be with out our batteries. Any suggestions?

[Jeffb]

I've had trhis one for a few months now & it works great. http://www.dealextreme.com/feedbacks/BrowseReviews.dx/sku.4151

[Sinikal]

I've had trhis one for a few months now & it works great. http://www.dealextreme.com/feedbacks/BrowseReviews.dx/sku.4151

Yep, i also have the same charger, expect to wait about a week and a half or so because its shipping from hong kong . My best advice, try putting some new batteries in there and see if the red light goes away, if not, its probably the charger. In any case i would just order a new charger, they are cheap and chances are thats what the problem is.

[mcquinn]

I have one of these and it works good http://www.madvapes.com/AG-126-Lithium-Ion-Battery-Charger_p_2062.html Easily fits 18650, 18500, 18350, 14500, 17670, 10440, 16340 and CR123

Edited April 16, 2010 by mcquinn

[Kragax]

I was trying to include a pic but don't have a clue. My charger is black with one LED that is supposed to go from red to green when the battery is charged. It starts green, when you put the battery in it goes to red but after 2 hours it's still red. The first time I used it it charged the batt and turned green in about 1 1/2 hours. Could the indicater be bad? If I take the battery out it has a charge but I don't know how much. What do you think a normal charging cycle for a 14500 is? I hate to order anything all the way from Hong Kong. It also has the slide contacts like the one from Mad Vapes. Should I leave it in longer than 2 hours? How long? I don't want to burn the place down. Could it be a problem with the battery itself. I don't know a lot about LI batteries.

Edited April 16, 2010 by Kragax

[nana]

It always took my 14500 batteries about 4 hours to charge. Sometime just little bit more. I'm not saying your charger isn't bad, but I know it took a lot longer than that to charge mine.

[mcquinn]

That is like the charger I recomended except the one I have is two bay.They are a little picky on how the battery is inserted ,sometimes you need to kind of spin it over with your finger tip to get it to make contact.For some reason they do not always make good contact and they will not charge .As long as the battery is not getting hot I doubt it will cause a fire as there is no circut being completed.I would say that battery should charge in less than two hours.There is a caveat.The charger has a built in protection board that will not allow the battery to charge if it has been discharged beyond a certain point.If you are using nonprotected battries you may have drawn it down too far.If you are using protected batteries and I suspect you are there is another circut board on the battery that also will not allow it to take a charge if it is drawn down too far or in the case of some of my 1440's the connection from the positive terminal to the circut board came loose due to me dropping them I suppose and the circut board on the battery could not read the voltage on the battery so it disconnected the negative terminal and precluded them from charging.If your batteries are of the blue jacketed UltraFire variety I would say this is a good likelyhood as they do not seem to be very well constructed.(My opinion only)I would order the Trustfire charger and a few Trustfire batteries if I were you.

[Jeffb]

Hi Kragax, I assume this is the charger you have. Like mcquinn said they can be a little tricky. Maybe the pic below will help.

[Brandon]

Kragax, I experience the same issue as you. Plug a battery in there and the red light never goes off (can happen on either charging port). I have a TrustFire charger that is quite similar (but bigger) than the ones pictured in this thread. However, I really feel there is nothing to fear. Here are my observations:

This only happens with 1 battery I own, and only happens when it's already fully charged (or just barely barely used at all). It's as if the charger isn't recognizing that the battery is already topped off. At first I was afraid that the charger was continually cramming power into the battery and that it would explode or something! Fortunately, that won't actually happen. I've left the battery and charger in this perpetual state of 'fake charging' for long hours on end to test it, and the battery never once got warm.

I think specifically what's happening in my case is that the PCB protection circuit on the battery itself is just a little bit faulty. The PCBs on the 14500 batteries protect the cell in both directions: protection from over-discharging and protection from over-charging. I'm thinking that the PCB on this one particular battery is tripping the protection too early, at a lower voltage than it should. It's tripping the protection at around 4.18 volts (I've tested it several times and it's always at this voltage) instead of 4.2 volts. Not a huge difference there, but the charger has it's own cutoff voltage of 4.20volts. So, the PCB protection on the battery kicks in too early and doesn't allow anymore charging, while the charger is only seeing 4.18volts on the battery and continually tries to charge it up to the full 4.2volts.

So the battery's PCB and the charger's PCB are in a state of tug-of-war. And neither will win the battle b/c no electrons are flowing anywhere. So it's basically in limbo. Obviously this isn't an ideal situation, but I don't see any danger in it.

What seems to help in my case, is fully discharging the battery before putting it back on the charger. For some reason this works every time. Give it a shot and see what happens. If you notice this little quirk happening with one specific battery, you can toss it if it worries you.

[Kragax]

First of all I want to say thank you. You folks are without a doubt the most friendly and helpfull people Ive met on the web. I found a solution. I went to Radio Shack, they carry a charger with two slots, 110 cord,and a 12 volt auto cord that is micro processor controlled. It will fully charge a 14500 in one hour and works great. The part number is 23-503. Now the regualr price on these is 40.00 but until May 1st they are on sale for 20.00 with a 90 day waranty and an extended one avaliable. I wanted to pass that alon its a great charger and well worth 20.00. Thank you again for your help. You're a good bunch.

[mcquinn]

Hmm that must be a new part as Radio Shack usually does not stock anything 3.7 volt related.I couldn't get it to come up on the website is that all the numbers?

Edited April 17, 2010 by mcquinn

[Kragax]

That was the number on the back on the website it is 23-972. go figure. Check here Out of stock on the website but they had it in the store.

Edited April 17, 2010 by Kragax

[mcquinn]

Sweet ,hope it works out for you.