Search results

Gather App
Candle Power Forums

Help Support Candle Power:

  1. D

    Test/review of Vapcell S4+ fast charger

    Most probably not, these 1.5V lithiums have their own charge controller either built in or external.
  2. D

    Circuit to distribute LED driver current

    LED's are best driven trough PWM. Current limiting can be done with PWM but also using other methods. Overall that driver is not designed to be cascaded with something else, as its PWM output will may confuse other regulators below or after it. So better use separate regulators IMHO.
  3. D

    How often do you top off your batteries?

    I am also one who charges when ... I remember about that. Sometimes years. (Don't blame me, some of them are in toys which are "stored" out of sight). The cells which did not fall out of normal voltage range have not been afected in any way. Some cells which were outside safe voltages were...
  4. D

    recharge a laptop with a 20V tool battery?

    Some laptop power supplies have active circuits which identify the power supply so they will refuse to charge without identification. But strictly from an electrical perspective should work. Remember to respect polarity and try, worst case will be not charging.
  5. D

    guide me on a battery tester

    Almost all battery testers I encountered are measuring voltage while a resistor is in parallel with the load. Nothing fancy, a good old resistor and the reading is calibrated for that resistor value. We can simulate this on a poor man version by measuring with the voltmeter in a multimeter while...
  6. D

    Battery Protection Circuit Gone Bad?

    It's very difficult to pinpoint if the cell itself self-discharges or there is something in the protection causing the self-discharge. The only way I think it could be done is to separate the protection circuit from the cell, which is ... destructive.
  7. D

    Battery Protection Circuit Gone Bad?

    Check voltage just to be sure that is indeed charged. Ideally before and after.
  8. D

    How Long Should Deep Cycle Batteries Typically Last?

    Their lifetime depends on how they are used and maintained. It depends on how much they are used during sessions in numbers of discharge cycles and how deep those were. Two seasons seems too little but again, check above, number of cycles is important too during those two seasons.
  9. D

    Old LiIon Battery voltage settling/drop after full charge

    @Dave_H would be interesting to see how the ones with high discarge rates behave when you discharge them with a high (enough) current and recharge. Not full discarcharge, just a few pulses. I am curious about what happens and I have no such cell yet.
  10. D

    Service life - XTAR Dragon VP4 Plus

    While I tend to agree about bad statistical luck I should also point that double the warranty life sounds good statistically. It was not an early failure at all,
  11. D

    Service life - XTAR Dragon VP4 Plus

    Yes, indeed, we see quite reliable devices, but now comes into play planned obsolescence which was not tought of back then. If I put some more thinking on it, we have other kind of problems: lead free solder cracks under thermall stress and that is worse with miniaturization of high heat...
  12. D

    Service life - XTAR Dragon VP4 Plus

    Keep in mind that the manufacturer (of capacitors mostly) is presenting a MTBF, mean time between failures which is just statistics based on an accelerated aging process under laboratory conditions. This is trying to mimic real life, but still it's not real life. So a capacitor may fail 1h into...
  13. D

    Old LiIon Battery voltage settling/drop after full charge

    At 35-40mOhms is still usable if current demands are not that high. I use ones in the 80's in low current requirements.
  14. D

    Old LiIon Battery voltage settling/drop after full charge

    Cheap multimeters can be specified as 3% plus last digit, which can usually be more than 0.0x volts you are looking to measure with precision. If you want to go that deep prepare to spend some money on calibrated meters. E.g. ANENG AN8008 which is a popular cheap one has specs of 0.5%+3 digits...
  15. D

    Service life - XTAR Dragon VP4 Plus

    Usually capacitors are the weak components. Average capacitors are specified as having 1000 working hours usefull life. Altough it may seem as a short time, electrolytic capacitors have a wide tolerance and many of them continue to work even as their capacity decreases and ESR increases. The...
  16. D

    Question regarding the new type of batteries.

    Their own charging circuit will take care if you charge them via the USB port.
  17. D

    Question regarding the new type of batteries.

    You don't know the state of charge unfortunatelly. Mines just stop working.
  18. D

    Question regarding the new type of batteries.

    I have not seen ones with type B because it's quite big. Maybe microUSB. But anyway, they have an internal converter from 3.7v to 1.5v, that one does not work both ways. That is why they charge from USB port.
  19. D

    Old LiIon Battery voltage settling/drop after full charge

    Just take into account that not-so-expensive chargers do measure with a degree of accuracy and it better be an error showing a higher voltage on charger than it is at the cell terminals. If you want very high precision and play with numbers, try a lab power supply with enough resolution, or even...
  20. D

    guide me on a battery tester

    I completely agree. batteries are wasted sometimes. Where I live we have a bin for recycling. If I take a quick look in that bin I find even new batteries or rechargables thrown out because they think are primaries, even 18650 which there is no way to look like a primary. But in very simple...

Latest posts

Back
Top