Li-Ion Batteries - THE TRUTH

[Wings]

Thanks for the good info! I just purchased an ScrewDriver and the mkII battery has been charging for over 6 hours and still isn't done charging. Can anyone tell me if something is wrong with it?

Thanks in advance,
Brett

Ditto what Quick1 said. But since I have the same model as you I can add that my charger charges 1 of the batteries in 2-3 hours and the other one in 4-5 hours. And 1 battery can run my Screwdriver for 2 days and the other one for somewhere around a day and a half.

If you haven't already done so, I'd take that battery off the charger and use it for a day, then see how it behaves in the charger. Also I would unplug the charger from the wall and plug it back in again to see if that restores its senses.

How long does it take to charge the 2nd battery?

 

[Keef]

Hi there dont worry the Nano Charger trickle charges the battery and can take up to 8 hours depending on how much or little of a charge the battery has left in it

You can use the battery before the light turns green 4-5 hours should give you a 90% charge.

While TotallyWicked deals with all MK11 Sales and replacements....... Informational support on maintenence can be had on the ScrewDriver Forum run by Trog.
ECigScrewdriver - Powered by vBulletin

 

[V4P3_V1CT1M]

I would like to thank those who tried helping me and my MKII issue. Here's the deal...The battery continued charging for additional 10 hours and still wasn't charged!

Either I didn't get a user manual with my kit, or I somehow misplaced it. On the first few pages, it mentions that the charger should be plugged in before adding a battery. This blows my mind since I have many different chargers similar to this that do not require actions performed in specific arrangement.

The supplied charger will only charge batteries if the light "greens" or "readies" first. I have honestly never seen anything quite like it.(out of many Lithium Ion chargers of similar design) My batteries charged fine in a couple of hours and everything went smooth.

Thanks for all the helpful info though! As for my SD, I love it. It was a pleasant switch from the super-weak battery life of a stock 510.

Thanks all,

V_V

 

[Quick1]

Yikes! I've never heard of that before. You have to "boot" the charger before you put a battery in it? At the very least it should have been designed so if you didn't "boot" it, it simply did nothing. They probably saved 15 cents leaving out that hardware. ...haha, or they pirated the firmware and it has a bug.

I'd toss the charger and get a real one.

 

[bassnut]

Uh...call me stupid.
Has it been said here that leaving the battery in the charger longer that necessary is OK because of safety shut-off circuitry built into the battery or that its a bad idea because of reduced life-span due to over-charging. I'm getting a mixed message here.
I can't always monitor battery charging time. Maybe a smarter (smarter than me) charger is needed that shuts off automatically.

 

[Quick1]

Uh...call me stupid.
Has it been said here that leaving the battery in the charger longer that necessary is OK because of safety shut-off circuitry built into the battery or that its a bad idea because of reduced life-span due to over-charging. I'm getting a mixed message here.
I can't always monitor battery charging time. Maybe a smarter (smarter than me) charger is needed that shuts off automatically.

Depends...
If it's a protected Li-Ion battery and the protection circuit protects against overcharge then the battery will disconnect when it's fully charged and it won't matter what the charger does (shut off, trickle charge, keep full charging).
If it's a proper charger for single Li-Ion cells it should provide a 4.2v charging current (at an appropriate rate?) and it should shut off when the battery reaches 4.2v. If it doesn't then you're relying on the battery to control things. If the battery doesn't have the proper protection circuit then bad things could happen, the least of which is ruining your battery or greatly decreasing it's life.

If you're using a protected battery you should be ok and you could leave your batteries in the charger.
If you're using a protected battery in a proper charger then even better and you could just leave your batteries in the charger.
If you're using an unprotected battery in a proper charger then you should be ok and you could leave your batteries in the charger.
If you're using an unprotected battery in a lousy or wrong charger then you're living on borrowed time.

 

[bassnut]

Thank you.
This I understand but what are these 510 bats and chargers I've got? Are they not designed for each other? Isn't the circuity in 510 bats protective? Aren't their chargers designed to be compatible and protective?

I've got an iGo charger which isn't kind to regular 510 bats, I understand, but slow charging the eGo bats in the 510 charger, although slow, might be safer?

 

[Quick1]

Well... I don't know for sure about those batteries or chargers but I'll go out on a limb here and guess there is an extremely high probability that the charger is designed for those batteries and those batteries have all the proper protection circuitry built in. You should be able to do most anything with them and be fine as long as you're using the charger intended for the battery you're putting in it.

You mentioned 510, iGo, and eGo. I don't know about iGo and eGo.

 

[bassnut]

You mentioned 510, iGo, and eGo. I don't know about iGo and eGo.

iGo here and eGos there.

Sorry. It was a typo. I was talking about Joye eGo bats.

 

[Xanax]

Omg I'm so glad I've got lithium ion and not the old kind. I had about had it with the old ones, I think it would be right for me to buy all new ones with all new chargers. Personal prefrence maybe but I mean does anyone here like the old ones??

 

[THE]

So let me see if I have this.. No one is sure of what the chargers are really doing when the light goes green, but we're reasonably sure that almost all lithium ion batteries have protection circuits so they won't get too low or over-charge. The maximum they'll go to is 4.2V, and keeping a lion battery fully charged for extended periods of time will shorten the life. It's much better for them to be at 90%+- charge. Topping up charges are better than allowing them to go all the way down to cutoff, even though they probably won't allow themselves to get low enough to die.

I'm just stating what I think I've learned in reading all 13 pages of this.. If I have any of this wrong, PLEASE explain it to me

I notice on my KR808D-1, it takes 2-3hrs for a full charge in the USB charger.. then it turns green. But if I take it out and immediately put it back in, it'll stay red again for 2-5 minutes. Nothing I've read here really explains that. I'd expect a ni-cad to behave that way, but a lion???

Thanks for all of the information!! You're beautiful!!
Whenever I'm ahead on money, I think the BEST thing to do would be to make my own charger. Get a connector like our chargers have and use one of those intelligent chargers. Someone mentioned old style RC cars.. My brother in law has the newer ones which use LiPo batteries (very picky about how they're charged!) and the charger he uses allows you to dial in the battery type, charge rate, max voltage and everything else. It's exactly what we need, I think.

 

[THE]

Sorry for the double post... the strangest thing happened, pg 14 was redirecting me to pg 13 and I couldn't see my post, at all.. seems to be working now!!

 

[chrislee]

"4.Over-discharge of the cell is far more damaging but protected against by the equipment, in our case the e-cig when it cuts out."
LOL! I have no idea about that. Thank you!

 

[CtryBoy]

Uh...call me stupid.
Has it been said here that leaving the battery in the charger longer that necessary is OK because of safety shut-off circuitry built into the battery or that its a bad idea because of reduced life-span due to over-charging. I'm getting a mixed message here.
I can't always monitor battery charging time. Maybe a smarter (smarter than me) charger is needed that shuts off automatically.

The only catch would be the charger KEEPING the battery at the higher voltage for extended periods could shorten total life span. Since they prefer to SIT at a lower voltage. Certainly wouldnt store them in the charger for extended periods protection or not. But as long as you trust your batt/charger and arent leaving it on the charger for 24+hrs at a time, doubt you'll notice much difference. But the instructions in every charger you get will say you must sit there and watch the charger the entire time so they can CYA in case of failure.

But then again if the charger stopped short of 4.2V, although that might give better long term performance, it could taint vaping performance.

 

[Big_Nige]

No one is sure of what the chargers are really doing when the light goes green...

I'm fairly sure that the chargers continue to give an output when the LED goes green, they certainly do when there is no load connected.

I'm running a test now ...

... and I can confirm that the charger maintains the output voltage when the LED goes green. However, the batteries may not continue to charge, as they do have a microcomputer inside.

[LATER] after further testing, it seems that the batteries start their charge drawing around 200mA, which reduces as they charge. By the time the LED is green, they are down to around 1mA, so this is unlikely to do any damage if left on charge.

 

[Scarlet Fire]

My brother in law has the newer ones which use LiPo batteries (very picky about how they're charged!) and the charger he uses allows you to dial in the battery type, charge rate, max voltage and everything else. It's exactly what we need, I think.

Will the universal chargers work on the LifePo batteries, or does it have to be a specific charger? I bought some Tenergy LifePo4 RCR123A batteries and then noticed after the fact that the product description says to use the Tenergy charger for LifePo batteries. I charged them on my universal charger before I saw that and didn't have any problem, but now I'm wondering if I need to get the Tenergy charger. I kind of hope not, because the Tenergy charger for the RDR123 is only specific to that particular battery.

 

[THE]

Will the universal chargers work on the LifePo batteries, or does it have to be a specific charger? I bought some Tenergy LifePo4 RCR123A batteries and then noticed after the fact that the product description says to use the Tenergy charger for LifePo batteries. I charged them on my universal charger before I saw that and didn't have any problem, but now I'm wondering if I need to get the Tenergy charger. I kind of hope not, because the Tenergy charger for the RDR123 is only specific to that particular battery.

I wouldn't know.. but I think that charger he had for his RC cars can charge pretty much any battery. I know that it does NIMH and NICAD and LIPO for sure.

I'm not familiar with LifePo batteries. . .

I do know that LiPo batteries can explode fairly violently...... so be careful
And I'm sure that someone with more knowledge of this will be along with a better answer

 

[quasimod]

What happened to the links in the OP?

 

[kawirich]

I have been using Li-ion ( lithium ion), Li-po (lithium polymer), and Li-fe (lithium ferrite) batteries for some time now. I use a great deal of them in my R/C Hobby. Truth be told Li-ion is the older of the new generation of rechargable batteries. When charging these batteries when the light goes from red or amber to green the battery is ready to use. When you get a new battery it comes with approximately 75% charge, you MOST DEFINATLEY CAN USE IT RIGHT AWAY. There is no need for maintanace charges or clycling charges, the batteries used for E-Cigs are not smart batteries they are just protected batteries. And they do indeed have a limited life span. And that is due to the chemical make-up of the battery. Example you can only pour vinegar on baking soda so many times before nothing happens.

 

[stevenejb]

I'm trying to clear up some confusion I have. Since 14500 3.7v 900mah batteries drain over usage, I'm assuming the voltage does as well which impacts the quality of vape. I currently have UltraFire Protected 14500 3.7v 900mAH batteries. Is there a battery that will run at a constant or steady voltage until it needs recharged, like the AW IMR 14500 3.7v 600mAH?
I'm trying to find a way to maintain quality vaping at 3.7v without the battery voltage falling drastically over usage. Hopefully this makes sense.