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Breaktru Forum  |  eCigarette Forum  |  Modding  |  Topic: Cheap battery charger
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Author Topic: Cheap battery charger  (Read 9165 times)

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Offline BigHoffy

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Cheap battery charger
« on: June 03, 2014, 10:42:05 AM »
Hello resourcefull modders and tech junkies. I've got another question. this is kind of pointed to craigHB he told me about a cheap 1a charger available for a few bucks (1a usb style). I wanted to try to find it and grab one for my aunt. we got these ones from china which are 450ma which I swear charge more like 150ma. it takes more than 24hrs to charge a 2600mah battery. I have a hobby charger so I'm fine, but she is royally screwed. I just made a cavemanish battery cradle last night with some junk laying around my grandpas garage. Ill post a pic later I'm sure it will get a laugh. its the shittiest thing I've built since I was like 6 years old. But it works great I connected the wires caveman style and wrapped them in blue painters tape. hit a battery with a 2a charge took 90mins on a 2600mah. much better than the 36hr Chinese chargers. anyway ya I'm looking for a cheap 1-2amp charger for my aunt any help would be greatly appreciated. I found some for like 10 bucks or so on ebay but I want to get it under 5 if I can. I'm a cheap bastard except when it comes to the stuff that counts.

Offline CraigHB

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Re: Cheap battery charger
« Reply #1 on: June 03, 2014, 08:34:03 PM »
I don't like to skimp on chargers myself.  A big part of battery safety is in the charger since Li-Ion batteries are more likely to fail catastrophically during charging than any other time.

People use those cheap Chinese 1A USB chargers without issue, but still it gets into that area of sacrificing safety for cost.  I won't do it myself. 

In terms of round cell chargers, I can tell you the ones to avoid are the ones from Ultrafire or Trustfire.  I happen to get a hold of one and did a teardown on it just to see.  It was so poorly constructed I didn't bother to reassemble it, went straight into the circular file.

I would recommend the Xtar brand.  The quality seems to be held in fairly high standard with them.  Prices are good.  Here's their charger lineup, my favorite is the VP2, but it's the most expensive;

http://www.xtarlight.com/05-chanpin/p-001.asp?styleid=42&cp_id=1

Offline BigHoffy

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Re: Cheap battery charger
« Reply #2 on: June 04, 2014, 11:59:36 PM »
Man I tried to post to this and it messed up on me. I had talked about how cavemanish this battery box is and how its just temporary. but also how pleased I am that I can now externally charge a batt in 90 minutes or so instead of 30+ hours with the last pic of the cheeseball Chinese charger. I explained the charger unit itself its 1-6s/cell, does balance charging and all kinds of other stuff, 0.1-5amp. it was like 20 bucks, I didn't buy it for charging vape batteries for those of you who are goin man that a clunky setup. I got the charger for doing my multi rotor uav copter. and the 12v 20a power supply I got for it and for experimenting with electrolysis of water using it a pwm and a pulse/frequency generator. I haven't been able to do the electrolysis yet as I need more stuff for making the HHO cell but I do look foreward to it. by the way ive seen stuff where you can get 25% more power and fuel economy from your standard car engine using HHO setups which are available for purchase/installation. I believe you can get them purchased and installed for about 1800 bucks but now im way off topic. I tend to do that a lot lol. anyway were talking chargers, so ya I made these caveman chargers in like 20 minutes each using crud laying around the garage. there only for temporary use, please don't take it as the limit of my skills. everything about them is sub standard IMO, I do not recommend replicating this in this manor. if you do want to use a hobby charger please buy battery cradles. the cradle with 2 springs is for the camera I used to snap the photos. the shitty canon camera wont charge via usb and I couldn't find the charger so I made one. also if you do make a charger setup like this don't use alligator clips use some kind of connector, like a xt60 connector or something. I could have done a much better job but I wanted to get this done with what I had in front of me at the time.

Offline BigHoffy

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Re: Cheap battery charger
« Reply #3 on: June 05, 2014, 12:07:25 AM »
wow I just went 7 hours without a vape.  :rockin smiley: kickin the nicotine I like it. I think its time to step down to 6mg

Offline Jasen

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Re: Cheap battery charger
« Reply #4 on: June 05, 2014, 01:31:54 AM »
I gotta give a guy credit for building something from nothing. Just put my battery on the charger 7 mins ago for the night.

Offline CraigHB

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Re: Cheap battery charger
« Reply #5 on: June 05, 2014, 05:03:20 PM »
Yep, all the fuel you would ever need is right there in a tank of water.  Problem is it takes more energy to separate the hydrogen then you get out of it when burned so as far as running a car on water, you wouldn't be able to break out the hydrogen without additional electrical power.  Just run the car on that.

The fuel production you need for a hydrogen powered car can be done in a home station with utility power and water.  Though the ideal car for me would be an electric one that has a battery bank and a hydrogen fuel cell.  Fill a tank of hydrogen from your home station to run the fuel cell and recharge the battery on the fly.  You'd probably be able to go quite a distance on a fully charged battery and a tank of hydrogen.

That's an ugly hack for a battery cradle, but looks it does the job.  You can use pretty much any ol' 18650 cradle and wire it up to the charger.  With the lower currents of charging, connector quality for the cradle is not a big concern.

You can get a much higher rate out of a LiPo charger than you can with a typical round cell charger.  Round cell chargers usually don't go over an Amp where the LiPo chargers can typically put out as much as 5A.  Though you need to pay attention to rate limits.  The high drain cells can charge up to 2C but the standard ones can't go above 1C.  Even so, you get more wear on a cell when you charge at its maximal rate.


« Last Edit: June 05, 2014, 05:11:46 PM by CraigHB »

Offline BigHoffy

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Re: Cheap battery charger
« Reply #6 on: June 05, 2014, 05:35:37 PM »
ya the HHO stuff for cars run on the extra power output from the alternator. and is input similar to a nos fogger system.

as far as the battery charging I try not to go over 1/2c or 1c for the IMR dudes.

here is my next set of questions. I want to make a DIY style charger similar to the xtar style stuff above. mostly because I don't want to spend the money, I would rather spend the time. and gain some knowledge on the way. I want to be able to charge @ 1amp at least 2a preferably but not required. and have a USB output for charging other devices. I am an outdoorsy type of guy and want to be able to charge stuff on the go, like a GPS while backpacking or a camera battery in the same manor.

wondering if this would work with a USB female connected to the output to charge off the battery, and if not directly what chip I might need to do so. also wondering if there is something someone has found with more power, and more outputs for charging multiple batteries like the xtar stuff.

here is what I found.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/5V-Micro-USB-1A-18650-Lithium-Battery-Charging-Board-Charger-Module-Protect-wbr-ion-/400665520672?&_trksid=p2056016.l4276

here is what I want to replicate.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CW535B2?psc=1

here is the more powerfull kind of deal I am trying to make if I can.
http://www.xtarlight.com/05-chanpin/p-001-1.asp?styleid=308&style=Charger Series

on this last link I don't need the multiple voltage/amperage functions, just 1a per channel seperatly chargeable (different mah, or placed in at different times) and a 3.7v charge would be fine.

any help with links to some stuff would be cool. I want to try and keep the price under 5-10 bucks for the chip. which should be doable as that white charger is like 11 bucks including a battery and case. I really like how that white one is completely covered and definatly want to replicate something like that. I love hiking and backpacking, action sports and whatnot so ill be bumping and bouncing all over lol.

also any ideas on something like this, for solar connectivity.
http://www.adafruit.com/product/390

that thing is way to expensive. I hate adafruit. great stuff but its not made on the moon, so I don't want moon prices.

Offline BigHoffy

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Re: Cheap battery charger
« Reply #7 on: June 05, 2014, 05:45:59 PM »
hey this is cool too kinda out of the ballpark on what im talking about, unless maybe you built it into every device you had. would be pretty james bond in a vape though. again its adafruit, so im sure its 4x more than you can find them for.

http://www.adafruit.com/products/1407

Offline Jasen

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Re: Cheap battery charger
« Reply #8 on: June 05, 2014, 08:29:42 PM »
Wait, how did we get on HHO boosters, did I fall asleep again.

I followed Craigs advice and picked up a 2S-3S lipo charger, figured if need be I could mod a series batt sled to plug in to the charger.

Offline BigHoffy

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Re: Cheap battery charger
« Reply #9 on: June 05, 2014, 10:33:41 PM »
ya I get off topic a lot lol. I had posted a chat that didn't send and in it was going from my hobby charger to that. started with how the power supply for my charger I was using to experiment w electrolysis using a PWM and frequency generator. I do like the versatility of these hobby chargers, there just a little clunky so now im on to trying to make my own standalone charger/powerbank. I just want to make sure I can replicate the charge rate of this hobby charger to a degree. I know I wont be able to come super close, but I want at least 1a charge. also I want to figure out a solar set up too, as I go camping a lot and don't want to run out of joo joo in the mountains. or I may become a smoker again, which im sure none of us want. dam stinky ass addictive cancer producing chimney stacks. its funny how I used to smell smoke wafting in the air and go ahhh time for a cigarette, now I smell it and go ewwww someone's smoking a stinky.

Offline BigHoffy

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Re: Cheap battery charger
« Reply #10 on: June 05, 2014, 11:32:38 PM »
ohh sorry craig I kinda gleamed your thing on HHO I do like hydrogen, I just realized I can go for days on this kinda stuff. I just deleted two long ass paragraphs on energy because its way too far off topic. do you know any forums about energy or energy production and future tech stuff? I would love to chat my ass off there. electromagnetism is one of my passions. I would say my most passionate passion. have you read or looked up much on scalar waves? very interesting. anyway I'm going to stop before having to delete a bunch more stuff. battery chargers, think battery chargers lol.

Offline CraigHB

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Re: Cheap battery charger
« Reply #11 on: June 06, 2014, 02:50:06 PM »
Well, you can build anything you want by putting the right parts together. 

If you want a portable USB power supply, the parts are available.  You need a USB charger and a 5V booster.  That's all that's in those things so it's easy to make one yourself.  I've even seen bare enclosures specifically for those available at Fasttech.

If you want an unusually high charging rate or power output then you're getting into stuff that's more custom and may require you to design your own PCBs. 

Wireless charging is probabably not going to be suitable for charging rates higher then a few hundred mA.  It works well for low rates, but higher ones require coils too large to be practical.

Breaktru Forum  |  eCigarette Forum  |  Modding  |  Topic: Cheap battery charger
 

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