Is there a battery charger that shows "Estimated time REMAINING"? Preferably 4 ports. I know there are quite a few that show Elapsed Time but that isn't very useful. Time remaining until charge is complete would be quite useful.
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In order to calculate time remaining the charger would need to know more about the battery being charged. 4.15v is a common stop point and it would be hard for the chargers we use to offer that feature even if it was possible. Maybe there's one I don't know about.
A rough calculation would be the MAH capacity of the cell divided by the the charge rate. If your cell is a 3000mah cell and you charge at 1A (1000ma) it would take roughly 3 hours. That's just a WAG.
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That is pretty much what I was thinking. I was just hoping against logic. That rarely works out, but every now and then I get lucky.
Here is a calculator.
Battery Charge Time Calculator
For a charger to be able to do it, you would have to be able to enter the mah of the battery, and how much mah is left in the battery for it to be accurate. This isn't too easy since we have no idea how much mah is left. That calculator would also be off too since we never fully discharge our batteries, making it so we never use up all the mah avaliable and we always have some left over. Accurately guessing how much is left isn't very easy, so we have no accurate info to put into the mah field in the calculator.
Battery Charge Time Calculator
For a charger to be able to do it, you would have to be able to enter the mah of the battery, and how much mah is left in the battery for it to be accurate. This isn't too easy since we have no idea how much mah is left. That calculator would also be off too since we never fully discharge our batteries, making it so we never use up all the mah avaliable and we always have some left over. Accurately guessing how much is left isn't very easy, so we have no accurate info to put into the mah field in the calculator.
MAH is based on a fully charged battery being discharged to 2.8v and our ecig cutoff is usually around 3.2 to 3.4v depending on the mod. There's capacity left in the battery at that point, but it's not enough oomph to provide a good vape. I always notice much more vaper after changing a battery as opposed to what I was getting when the mod declared a change.
I thought it was measured down to 2.5v, but I may be mistaken.
You're right about it not having enough oomph. If the battery could run at 4.2v all the way through the charge, we could use all the power from the battery. But that just isn't how a battery works, so we can only use around half before it becomes too weak.
At around 3.35v, you are usually at the half way point on the batteries we typically use. So on a 3000mah battery, the 3.35v mark should mean we used up 1500mah.
Would this charger be helpful? It won't tell you how many minutes it will take to reach full charge, but if I understand correctly the tachometer display will show how many mAh has been delivered in real time.
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2.5v is the recommended maximum discharge point. Past that the cell is unduly stressed and the voltage level is useless for most devices, anyway, even flashlights.
Baditude's recommendation of the Xtar VC2/4 is a good one if you want to know how much MAH is restored to your battery. Knowing that would allow you to estimate ballpark run time in hours. Amazon has the VC2 for $14.85 and the VC4 (4 bays) for $17.97. For the price difference you might want the 4 bay model. Same charger, but 4 bays. You'll need a 2A USB wall charger to use it (not included). The VC2 charges at .5A - The VC4 charges 2 bays at 1A, all 4 bays at .5A.
https://www.amazon.com/XTAR-VC4-Lithium-ion-Batteries-Authentic/dp/B010J9GE5G
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Gee it is easy to calculate how much time is left to charge. It isn't a big deal. Say you have a 2500mah cell and you drained it down to 0%. And you put it on a charger that charges at 1A, that is 2.5 hours. At 2A, it's half that. At 500ma, it is double that. And say you drained the cell only to 3.70v, that is close to 40-50%. So at 1A, that only takes 1.25 hours. See how that works?
You are right, if we ever discharged our batteries to 0%, but we dont. When our mod says 0% that is based on where the mod is set to stop according to voltage, not where the battery is truly at or how much mah is left. Some mods will stop at 3.2v, some can be higher or lower. On a DNA chip, you can set this value yourself.
Also, 3.7v is not 40-50% discharged. 50% would be closer to 3.3v-3.35v, as I already said above.
Doesn’t the Xtar Master VC2 Plus do that? Only 2 slots, however.
li-ion battery charger, Ni-MH battery charger, rechargeable battery charger, two slot charger,
Personally, I prefer the info on the regular VC2/4 displays.
Strange, I never seen any cell like that here. As 3.3-3.35v is at 0% on most of my mods including DNA ones. Although DNA ones uses mah used and not voltage to interpret capacity percentage (you have to tell the DNA how much watt hours the cells are for it to be correct). And yes you can set the cutoff on DNA mods too, which is different than the battery percentage.
Wow that is a new one. Yes it seems it does. And yes I do like my two VC4 chargers.
That is because they cut off when the voltage is too weak to keep the mod running as it should. The cells we use are rated to drop to 2.5v max. At 2.5v we would get the full about of mah a battery can offer (if you have a 3000mah battery, at 2.5v that would be when you ran out of those 3000mah).
But there isn't a lot of mah difference between 2.5 to 3.3v. At best maybe about 10% and that is it (probably 5% or less). Like my Aspire 26650 4300mah cells. Draining them to 3.26v and charging to full puts back in 4000mah. So draining lower you are only going to get an extra 300mah and that is basically nothing.
Gee, I am fully aware of the "theory" and math to manually calculate the TOTAL time (although that isn't really going to be accurate since it doesn't take into account that chargers use a trickle toward the end) but knowing the total time isn't helpful at all in my case. The problem is, when I am wanting to know how much time is remaining, it is when the batteries currently on the charger were put there by SOMEONE ELSE. Therefore, even though I can figure a rough estimate of how how long it WOULD have taken from when they were put on, since I have NO CLUE when they started, knowing the total time to charge is completely useless.
Yes there are even other formulas that could be used based on the current voltage readings that could be used to calculate and get some rough estimate. of course, this isn't even possible with my current I2's since they don't display any info at all. Then again, I wasn't asking how can I manually calculate this. I was asking if any chargers had this included in the display. Apparently the answer is they don't.
Although it would be possible for them to display an estimated remaining time without knowing the mAh of the battery. Since some of them have the ability to display a %, they could use the time it takes to move from one % level to the next and multiply by the remaining % points to reach 100%. It won't be 100% accurate since as I mentioned before, most of them trickle charge the last bit. Maybe the charger could even factor in the trickle charge at the end.
I didn't know about that charger that is what i am looking for, except in a 4 port version which they don't seem to make.
Charging my LG HG2's (3000mah rating) that are drained to 3.2v gives me a 2775 MAH value when the cells reach full charge. So, I agree that most of the power curve must be exhausted by the time 2.8v is reached and there's a rapid decline in power from 3.2v.
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Yes, I answered in my post just below the one you quoted. I guess we cross posted or something. I really need a 4 port charger. I currently have a Nitecore I2 that I am having to share with the wife (we both use dual battery mods), which is both the reason I need a 4 port charger and why I was asking about the time remaining feature.
Although going with a 4 port charger would help with some of that. The other time it would be really useful is when it's 2am and I am trying to go to bed but I am having to wait on her batteries to finish charging so I can pull them out (since you aren't supposed to leave them on the charger over night). Knowing the remaining time would help in the decision to wait, or pull them out before they finished.
Oh and waking her up at 2am to ask what time she put them on is NOT an option. There would only be about a 15% chance of getting an accurate answer and even then only after she slapped the
out of me.
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