"Bad" NiMH cells in Liitokala Lii-500

I've seen some interesting behaviour in my fairly new Liitokala Lii-500 with older (non-Eneloop) LSD NiMH cells.
With new and high quality AA and AAA NiMHs, the charger reliably terminates at 1.48V, and HKJ's review points to a voltage termination rather than -delta V.
With some older AA and AAA NiMHs, I see a mixture of behaviour:
1) Cells never reach 1.48V (some don't even go above around 1.42V) and keep on charging (and increasing in heat) far beyond their rated capacity. I should note that these cells also fail to terminate on my Panasonic BQ-CC17 charger.
2) Cells terminate charge at a lower voltage than expected (e.g. I had one cell terminate at 1.43V). This surprised me as I though a voltage termination was used.

Has anyone else seen this behaviour with NiMHs? If the Lii-500s use voltage termination, how come a cell can terminate at lower than usual voltages?

stephenk said:

Has anyone else seen this behaviour with NiMHs? If the Lii-500s use voltage termination, how come a cell can terminate at lower than usual voltages?

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It might have both, but my test will only show what terminates at the voltages my test cells works at.

Are you charging at 1amp as with 500ma the cell might not heat up enough for -delta V drop to show.

Also these chargers are cheap as chips, maybe you got a faulty one, I have two but i don't really use them.

John.

TinderBox (UK) said:

Are you charging at 1amp as with 500ma the cell might not heat up enough for -delta V drop to show.

Also these chargers are cheap as chips, maybe you got a faulty one, I have two but i don't really use them.

John.

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I've been charging at 300mA and 700mA for the AAA and AA respectively.
Given that the charger is 100% consistent at terminating with newer FDK Eneloop and Ikea Ladda cells, I think it is functioning fine, just the older cells that have tortured by my wife (Varta and Coles*) are unable to reach maximum voltage.
As HKJ alluded to, it may well be the Lii-500 can terminate by -delta V, but in his tests the voltage termination occurred first.

*Coles is an Australian supermarket.

Have you tested those older cells out on any other analyzing charger? I have been wanting to pull the trigger and pick up the Liitokala Lii500 as well, but still tossing up between that and the Opus.

I don't know if I'd rate the Coles batteries though. Or the Woolworths/Big W "Chevron" branded ones that I've found out are equally crap. My older duracells andVartas from Bunnings seems to over charge on my Xtar VC4 as well. It sounds like they would also do the same in the Liitokala.

keithy said:

Have you tested those older cells out on any other analyzing charger? I have been wanting to pull the trigger and pick up the Liitokala Lii500 as well, but still tossing up between that and the Opus.

I don't know if I'd rate the Coles batteries though. Or the Woolworths/Big W "Chevron" branded ones that I've found out are equally crap. My older duracells andVartas from Bunnings seems to over charge on my Xtar VC4 as well. It sounds like they would also do the same in the Liitokala.

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This is my only analysing charger and I'm very happy with it. I think I can safely assume the Coles rechargeable NiMH are rubbish, and the Vartas arn't much better either. I think I'll stick to FDK manufactured cells for future purchases as they seem to be in a league above!

"Bad" NiMH cells in Liitokala Lii-500

The lii500 on charge mode seems to charge up to 1.47v for me.. On the Nor test mode, results may vary from 1.3Xv

Can't remember the end voltage for opus, but it was all above 1.4v

Nitecore only charges to 1.41v

All cells are 1st Gen loopys, between 8-9 years old.. Max capacity after running test 2 times at 1700-1900, with 19XX for perhaps 1 or 2 cells

I have 2 units of Lii500 & Opus 3100, one unit D4 & Opus 100 and some xtars 2 bays

Re: "Bad" NiMH cells in Liitokala Lii-500

i just bought Liitokala Lii 202 and as the first post says, it behave differently and very confused.
old NiCD batteries charging terminate very quickly, they work fine, but problem is with NiMH batteries. most of the time charging wont terminate even if cells reach full voltages. and cells heat up but the charging wont terminate. sometimes the charging terminates but if I reconnect the batteries again they start charging again and wont terminate, only heat up the cells. This seems like NiCD batteries charge fine, but charger has issue recognizing full charge state with only NiMH batteries..

should I trust the charger and leave niMH batteries even if they heat up. or should I assume the charging is full when the cells get hot?

Thanks.

Re: "Bad" NiMH cells in Liitokala Lii-500

Hello Asimzb,

Welcome to CPF.

I am not sure if the problem lies with your charger or your cells.

Keep in mind that heat degrades NiMh chemistry. Warm is tolerable but hot will reduce their performance.

You may want to pick up some different NiMh cells and see how they work.

Tom

Re: "Bad" NiMH cells in Liitokala Lii-500

I recently went though 2 packs of supposedly new nimh AA's and they failed to rise above 1.4v. And that was tried in ALL my chargers - including almost smoking my treasured Maha MH-C9000. Pretty alarmed so I tried them in all my other smart chargers - they fooled them too. I've never seen this weirdness before.

So I pulled them when they just fooled the charger cranking amps into them and doing nothing but heating up. Let em cool and measured a 20 hour discharge on the Maha, and they met discharge capacity specs! But something was majorly wrong with them. I recycled them, but was thinking along the lines of industrial espionage, like the capacitor fiasco years back or something like that.

What got me thinking I got counterfeits or bad qc cells was their ability to trick all my chargers - that is the voltage never rose enough to kick off a voltage trip. They got amazingly hot, but not hot enough to set off the temp sensors. Of course no delta-v either.

Thing is, this problem would never show up on a typical consumer level dumb 16 hour trickle charger.

But yes - I've seen cells never go above say 1.42v and just act stupid no matter what charger you put them into. Either recycle or get a refund if you bought them new. Something happened out there in nimh land...