AW 18490 issues

jifjifjif · Aug 18, 2014

jifjifjif said:
Can I check each of the four charging ports on the charger with a voltage meter just to make certain that the charger is working? Will this tell me what I need to know to ensure they are all working properly?

How about this? Is there a way to test the charger to make sure it's working properly?

MichelleOhio · Aug 18, 2014

Thanks, Filthy Beast. I'll get everything tested this week.

Filthy-Beast · Aug 18, 2014

jifjifjif said:
How about this? Is there a way to test the charger to make sure it's working properly?

Unfortunately not really. These are "Intelligent chargers" that pulse and change charge based on current level of charge in the battery. So on my charger the meter just pulses never landing on a number.

Filthy-Beast · Aug 18, 2014

MichelleOhio said:
Thanks, Filthy Beast. I'll get everything tested this week.

One thing I forgot to mention is that voltage drop increases as load increases. Meaning, the same battery will show a higher voltage drop on a lower ohm coil. So if today it shows a drop .09 on 1.2 ohm coil but tomorrow shows a bigger drop on a .5 ohm coil that would be normal. Do the comparisons over time on the same ohm coil.

Alamedean · Aug 18, 2014

Filthy-Beast said:
Test the voltage before charge and after charge. Over charging will kill them fast as well.

batteries can have different internal resistances. Another test is to determine the voltage drop that happens inside the battery under load.

Test a fresh battery off the charger, Then test at the batteries positive and negative terminals while firing the coil. This reading will always be lower and the difference is the voltage drop in the battery. a very high drop means the battery is bad and needs to be replaced. A battery may show 4.2 volts when charged but can only deliver 3.5 volts under load.

recent test of one of my batteries;
Off charger = 4.19 volts
under load at battery = 4.10 volts
So the battery has an internal voltage drop of .09 volts.

How much is a very high drop? i.e.: two 18650's that I checked in my woodvils had a drop of 0.20 and one at 0.18. Too much of a loss?

Filthy-Beast · Aug 18, 2014

Depends on the ohm of the coil, as the ohm drops the voltage drop increases. Every battery is different also. Those numbers don't jump out as huge problem to me on lower ohm coil

TruSound · Aug 18, 2014

As previously stated, running these batteries completely dead will kill them quickly...I get thru a full day with one battery on 1ohm Kayfun builds, changing ever 3 hours isn't necessary and will have you living at your charger.

Vapeaholic · Aug 18, 2014

The Xtar VP2 Battery Charger is a bit pricey but IMO it's worth the money. It claims to be able to revive a battery that has been over discharged. I have never tested it's ability to do this since mine are rarely below 3.8 when they go on the charger. It has 3 charge settings 0.25A, 0.5A, and 1.0A. The lower setting is better for the battery (longevity) but if you need it charged quickly the higher setting will charge faster. Digital display will show you the voltage of your battery when you put it on to charge and shows progress as it charges. Usually goes to 4.35 for full charge.

Raynman · Aug 18, 2014

The Doohickey is only rated from2.8 volts to 25 volts. If you can't read the voltage with a Doohickey it's probably close to toast.

six · Aug 18, 2014

Testing a pwm charger would be quite a trick with a multimeter... Put a known good battery in it to charge. Do you have any old batts around that were for PVs you don't have any more? Sitting at rest for even a few weeks is enough to drain them a ways. If you have one around that's down to ~3.4v, put it on that charger and see if it charges to 4.2v as you would expect. If it does, I think there's a good likelihood the charger is OK.

As to deciding to toss batteries that have been over-discharged and are having difficulties recharging... Same thing. Charge them to that 3.5v you are able to and then let them sit for a couple of days or so. Put them back on the charger and see if they get back to 4.2v. If they have 4 cells in them and you are only getting to 3.5v, that means one cell isn't taking a charge. Letting it sit with the rest of the cells charged might just "wake up" that dead cell and get the electrons moving again.

ancient puffer · Aug 18, 2014

TruSound said:
As previously stated, running these batteries completely dead will kill them quickly...I get thru a full day with one battery on 1ohm Kayfun builds, changing ever 3 hours isn't necessary and will have you living at your charger.

Pardon my incredulity, but a full day on an 18490? They are only rated at 1100 mAH, I can't get through a "full day" with a 2000mAH 18650.

Rickajho · Aug 23, 2014

Little late to the party but...

jifjifjif said:
Good morning, REOfam.

I have a few questions relating to my wife's mini 18490 that I need some advice with. We've been struggling wiith some battery issues recently and I would like to get them all straightened out.

I bought her 3 brand new AW 18490s from RTD Vapor two weeks ago.
Our charger is a Nitecore Intellicharger i4.

She is so used to using ego batteries and vaping them until they completely discharge, that this has been what is happening with her mini. She will vape it until it no loner hits and when I meter the battery, I don't even get a reading with the doohickey. I put the battery on charge and it begins charging. Hours and hours later, sometimes the LEDs on the charger are all lit indicating the battery is full and sometimes the LEDs are still blinking. Either way, I take the battery off charge and it meters something like 3.67.

Is she killing the batteries by running them until they no longer meter anything? Is the intellicharger at fault? My 18650s charge perfectly using the same charger.

Why yes, yes she is.

When you run Li-On batteries under voltage you break down the cathode-anode chemistry. Do it often enough and you end up with a battery where the anode has become so deteriorated that it cannot perform as a battery. That is when you start having venting incidents, typically while charging. Running an IMR chemistry battery under voltage on occasion is no reason to panic, but doing it chronically is really bad practice. The implications of running ICR chemistry batteries under voltage is the reason why battery protection circuits was invented. (It doesn't end well with that one...)

If the doohickey does have the limitations reported it would be a good idea to get an inexpensive volt meter to know what is going on here. (You will also need it to answer your question below.) If she is really driving these things down into the below 1.5 volt range - and has been hammering on them like that for two weeks running - best practice is to simply replace the batteries.

As to what your Nitecore is doing with them... that's a hard one to answer. In theory, Nitecore says their chargers can recover under voltage batteries. In practice a lot of people report they do not.

jifjifjif said:
Can I check each of the four charging ports on the charger with a voltage meter just to make certain that the charger is working? Will this tell me what I need to know to ensure they are all working properly?

A volt meter can't tell you if it's working properly, but it can give you an indication if something is drastically wrong. You would want to check for DC volts and mA current across the bays with no battery in place. It will show voltage (my Xtars show 4.95 volts with no load) but over charging Nitecore's have shown in the range of 10-12 volts across the battery terminals with no load. It should also show no current output across the terminals with no load.

As to battery testing to determine if a charger is playing nice your best bet is to test them with a meter with no load, and do it as close to the end of the charge cycle as you can. You want a true voltage reading from the battery and in-line voltage meters that connect to the 510 draw current and/or require you to place an atty on the meter in order to not kill the thing. You don't want to see end of charge cycle voltages higher than an ideal of 4.2 volts. Nitecore's need monitoring for this. When they fail they over charge, and it happens more than I would like to see it reported on ECF.

Vapeaholic said:
The Xtar VP2 Battery Charger is a bit pricey but IMO it's worth the money. It claims to be able to revive a battery that has been over discharged. I have never tested it's ability to do this since mine are rarely below 3.8 when they go on the charger. It has 3 charge settings 0.25A, 0.5A, and 1.0A. The lower setting is better for the battery (longevity) but if you need it charged quickly the higher setting will charge faster. Digital display will show you the voltage of your battery when you put it on to charge and shows progress as it charges. Usually goes to 4.35 for full charge.

An Xtar can recover just about anything. I have seen an Xtar VP1 bring back batteries that have gone below 1.0 volts - but they have the smarts built into them to do that safely. Even their lower priced WPII series can recover under voltage batteries - without the advantage of the digital display though so it's harder to tell what the charger is doing. It does not mean driving batteries under voltage is any safer though.

As to your VP2 charging to 4.35 volts Vapeaholic - it shouldn't be doing that. I would follow up on that about getting a warranty replacement. Last I checked almost all Xtar chargers are backed with a two year warranty.

That, or you have it set incorrectly. The VP2 does have a specific charge setting for those few weird "high voltage" lithium batteries that require 4.4 volts in order to fully charge. That setting should not be used on the vast majority of standard lithium batteries.

jifjifjif · Aug 23, 2014

Rickajho said:
Little late to the party but...

Why yes, yes she is.

When you run Li-On batteries under voltage you break down the cathode-anode chemistry. Do it often enough and you end up with a battery where the anode has become so deteriorated that it cannot perform as a battery. That is when you start having venting incidents, typically while charging. Running an IMR chemistry battery under voltage on occasion is no reason to panic, but doing it chronically is really bad practice. The implications of running ICR chemistry batteries under voltage is the reason why battery protection circuits was invented. (It doesn't end well with that one...)

If the doohickey does have the limitations reported it would be a good idea to get an inexpensive volt meter to know what is going on here. (You will also need it to answer your question below.) If she is really driving these things down into the below 1.5 volt range - and has been hammering on them like that for two weeks running - best practice is to simply replace the batteries.

As to what your Nitecore is doing with them... that's a hard one to answer. In theory, Nitecore says their chargers can recover under voltage batteries. In practice a lot of people report they do not.

A volt meter can't tell you if it's working properly, but it can give you an indication if something is drastically wrong. You would want to check for DC volts and mA current across the bays with no battery in place. It will show voltage (my Xtars show 4.95 volts with no load) but over charging Nitecore's have shown in the range of 10-12 volts across the battery terminals with no load. It should also show no current output across the terminals with no load.

As to battery testing to determine if a charger is playing nice your best bet is to test them with a meter with no load, and do it as close to the end of the charge cycle as you can. You want a true voltage reading from the battery and in-line voltage meters that connect to the 510 draw current and/or require you to place an atty on the meter in order to not kill the thing. You don't want to see end of charge cycle voltages higher than an ideal of 4.2 volts. Nitecore's need monitoring for this. When they fail they over charge, and it happens more than I would like to see it reported on ECF.

An Xtar can recover just about anything. I have seen an Xtar VP1 bring back batteries that have gone below 1.0 volts - but they have the smarts built into them to do that safely. Even their lower priced WPII series can recover under voltage batteries - without the advantage of the digital display though so it's harder to tell what the charger is doing. It does not mean driving batteries under voltage is any safer though.

As to your VP2 charging to 4.35 volts Vapeaholic - it shouldn't be doing that. I would follow up on that about getting a warranty replacement. Last I checked almost all Xtar chargers are backed with a two year warranty.

That, or you have it set incorrectly. The VP2 does have a specific charge setting for those few weird "high voltage" lithium batteries that require 4.4 volts in order to fully charge. That setting should not be used on the vast majority of standard lithium batteries.

Thanks for the info. I did chuck the batteries and I have her on a "swap batteries when you refill" plan now, which seems to be working.

Ian444 · Aug 23, 2014

Probably the easiest way to check each bay in your charger is to take a battery that is partly or mostly discharged, measure the voltage, then put it in the charger, wait for the charge cycle to finish, remove the battery and measure the voltage again. If the voltage is now around 4.16V to 4.20V then the charger is definitely working. You will have to do this for each bay. The partially discharged battery you use to do this test needs to be less than 4.0V before you start.

Something to be aware of if you think funny things are happening, i.e. inconsistent charging rates, the Nitecore I4 charges half as fast when you have a battery in each of bays 1 and 3 or in each of bays 2 and 4, this is because the charge current is shared alternately between those bays.

Also, and this may have contributed to your woes too, a quote from
Review of Charger SysMax/NiteCore i4 V2
"The NiMH charge mode prevents correct handling of over discharged LiIon (This is unavoidable in a multi chemistry charger with automatic selection)."

I did a reasonable amount of research and recently bought a Nitecore I2, and am happy with it. As far as safety of the charger itself goes, they are all made in China as far as I know, so I couldn't really pick one to be any safer than any other. It did occur to me though that a safe chemistry battery like AW's is probably less likely to catch fire in a failed charger than other batteries.

jifjifjif · Aug 23, 2014

Great info, Ian. Thank you, bro.

Rickajho · Aug 23, 2014

Ian444 said:
Probably the easiest way to check each bay in your charger is to take a battery that is partly or mostly discharged, measure the voltage, then put it in the charger, wait for the charge cycle to finish, remove the battery and measure the voltage again. If the voltage is now around 4.16V to 4.20V then the charger is definitely working. You will have to do this for each bay. The partially discharged battery you use to do this test needs to be less than 4.0V before you start.

Something to be aware of if you think funny things are happening, i.e. inconsistent charging rates, the Nitecore I4 charges half as fast when you have a battery in each of bays 1 and 3 or in each of bays 2 and 4, this is because the charge current is shared alternately between those bays.

This is true of all multi-bay (more than 2) chargers in the market right now, including Xtar and eFest. If you want to pull batteries off a charger quickly stick with 2 bay chargers.

Also, and this may have contributed to your woes too, a quote from
Review of Charger SysMax/NiteCore i4 V2
"The NiMH charge mode prevents correct handling of over discharged LiIon (This is unavoidable in a multi chemistry charger with automatic selection)."

Yeah... that...

Since they "reinvented" the i4 to be an everything charger - LiOn, NiMh & NiCd - it can't possibly recover under voltage LiOn any longer. It's relying on a presumption that "if the battery voltage is this then it must be that chemistry battery" and sets the charge mode accordingly. So definitely scratch that feature off the list.

It's the same way $4.99 mullti-mode 2 bay chargers work. Like this one: Dual AA/AAA26650/18650/18500/17670/14500/16340 Slots Charger - Black (AC 110~240V / 2-Flat-Pin Plug) - Free Shipping - DealExtreme

I did a reasonable amount of research and recently bought a Nitecore I2, and am happy with it. As far as safety of the charger itself goes, they are all made in China as far as I know, so I couldn't really pick one to be any safer than any other. It did occur to me though that a safe chemistry battery like AW's is probably less likely to catch fire in a failed charger than other batteries.

Ian444 · Aug 24, 2014

Rickajho said:
This is true of all multi-bay (more than 2) chargers in the market right now, including Xtar and eFest. If you want to pull batteries off a charger quickly stick with 2 bay chargers.

The Nitecore I2 charges at 500mA, the I4 at around 750mA, or 375mA depending on which bays you are using, so its probably better to check charger specifications for the charge rate.

Rickajho said:
Since they "reinvented" the i4 to be an everything charger - LiOn, NiMh & NiCd - it can't possibly recover under voltage LiOn any longer. It's relying on a presumption that "if the battery voltage is this then it must be that chemistry battery" and sets the charge mode accordingly. So definitely scratch that feature off the list.

That is true of a charger that will charge Nicad, NiMh and Lithium-ion batteries, but once a battery is over-discharged it becomes an unknown quantity anyway, which then questions the usefulness of this "feature."

Rickajho said:
One of the reasons I went with Xtar is their 2 year warranty backing. Companies that warrant a product against defects for two years don't do that for giggles - they actually expect their chargers to last at least two years. That tells me they are both building them right and have enough quality control checks to make sure they leave the factory right.

I read of one today that had its wires reversed to the battery bay - one that obviously never got tested at the factory.

I see well-respected knowledgeable people on ECF using Nitecore's, as well as Xtar, Efest, Pila. If the Nitecore's are so bad, why have they not attracted attention from the authorities to recall them? Isn't that what "regulation" is about, "protecting" the consumer?

It can be confusing selecting a charger, there are many conflicting reports. The reviews go on and on and on, you could research this for a week, and still have no definite conclusion.

http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/fo.../571509-best-charger-market.html#post13377476
http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/fo...ta-get-portable-charger-x-2.html#post13460170
http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/fo...-why-they-considered-so-bad.html#post13787391
http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/provape/540948-anyone-use-vp1-charger.html#post12560345
http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/fo...es-potentially-overcharging.html#post12524670

If you read these posts (just the first post that comes up, not the whole thread), you might see why I'm confused :unsure:

AW 18490 issues

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