18650 charging- should this take 10+ hours?

[Joey_P]

So, some followup a month later:

The Intellicharger is fantastic. Working exactly as I'd hoped, and I find that even though it uses sliding cathode terminals, they work much more smoothly than those on the old Trustfire charger.

I picked up a pair of AW IMR batteries from the vendor zapped suggested. On the plus side, they fit the Lavatube just fine. I'd gotten hung up on the button-top aspect, and ignored the fact that body length is not a constant. Overall, these are about 0.5mm shorter than the old ones, and I have no fitment issues. On the minus side, they don't seem to perform any differently from the no-name cells that originally came with my Lavatube. vaping on a 2.4 ohm Vivi Nova, I get about one full day of heavy use out of either one, with the voltage reading about 3.4v by the time I throw them on the charger before going to bed. The AWs seem neither better nor worse than what I started with, so while I'm perfectly happy with them, they don't seem to be superior in any way to the cells that everyone was claiming were "fake." Knowing what I know now, I'd have saved the $20 and stuck with what I had.

Thanks again to those who suggested and seconded the Intellicharger. This is exactly what the doctor ordered.

 

[Blix]

Good the i4 is working out for you.

Btw the AW's are superior in that they also are safe.

 

[cherrycakes]

mine charges in like 4 hours?

 

[Riverboat]

I've got no problem at all spending some money for a decent setup, I simply have no idea what to buy.

Pila charger and AW batteries.....

 

[tc1]

My cheap 2 bay Chinese charger fried the other day so I picked up the i4 as well. Not too shabby for $25 given it charges tons of battery sizes.

Have to admit though ... while waiting on it to arrive I became spoiled by using my Tenergy Accucel 6. Nothing beats a cpu controlled hobby charger when you want a battery charged quickly and correctly.

I was charging my 18650 Pannys in a hour. The i4 takes much longer obviously but so far no complaints.

 

[madstabber]

Fasttech.com has 2 cgr18650ch's for 10 bucks and amazon has 4 cgr18650ch's for $26 both sites have free shipping. Also I bought the xtar sp2 and it's a great charger it has 3 charging speeds 2 of which are recommended for the 18650 the .5 amp charges it up in 5 hours from depleted and the 1 amp it takes 2.5 hours. I haven't tried the 2 amp charging speed that is for the 26xxx series batteries. It also has a spring loaded negative post so you don't need spacers for the shorter batteries.

 

[cherrycakes]

I freakin DROPPED my intellicharger yesterday. it still works, though xD

 

[Racehorse]

Pila charger and AW batteries.....

That's the ticket if you ask me.

 

[estrader]

My trust fire 3000mah imr took over 10 hours the first time. I thought it was a dud

 

[Oktyabr]

I have an outlet next to my stove so I drape the thing so the charger is in the center of it. It has a hood over it too and nothing flammable within a few feet. I wish the cord was 3 feet longer so I could put it inside the stove over night. That would be the best and safest spot while I slept

Now THAT is a brilliant idea! I have a Trustfire TR-001 (as pictured a page or two back, with the patent number on the front) and while I haven't put a meter on it I'm not entirely satisfied either. I simply cannot be awake and present for 10 hour charge times (My smok 2800mah 18650s take about 8-9 hours to go from 3.6v to 4.2)... unless I devote all of one of my days off babysitting it. UHHGGGG!

Currently I charge in a stainless steel sauce pan on top of the stove (much to my wife's chagrin) but I still don't leave it overnight... Maybe putting INSIDE the oven might let me (and her!) sleep with some sense of safety!

I'm tempted to buy one of the Nitecores or Xtars as well, just to get some faster charging out of it. I know the battery won't live as long, with faster charge times, but hey... time is only FREE if your time is worth NOTHING!

 

[Kaywalsk]

Fasttech.com has 2 cgr18650ch's for 10 bucks and amazon has 4 cgr18650ch's for $26 both sites have free shipping. Also I bought the xtar sp2 and it's a great charger it has 3 charging speeds 2 of which are recommended for the 18650 the .5 amp charges it up in 5 hours from depleted and the 1 amp it takes 2.5 hours. I haven't tried the 2 amp charging speed that is for the 26xxx series batteries. It also has a spring loaded negative post so you don't need spacers for the shorter batteries.

He's right, these Panasonic batteries are wonderful.

Amazon.com: 4pcs Panasonic CGR18650CH 3.6 Volt Li-ion shipping free 18650 Battery 2250 mAh: Everything Else if you have an amazon prime account, you can get them in two days at no extra charge. It's what I did, I'd have made the purchase again if I didn't already have a lot of 18650s