Unlike the very shady 120/230V units, this one is pretty good. Nicely made and logical circuitry that has an element of hackability to it for fine tuning to your requirements.
The current setting resistor could be changed to tweak the charge current, noting that higher current will potentially result in thermal self regulation of the charge chip. Use of higher current will also make the charger less suitable for smaller cells. Conversely, you could lower the current to 200mA for softer charging of any size of cell.
The LED resistor could be changed to something in the region of 470 ohm to make the LEDs more visible.
Unlike some other charger which fire springs in random directions and require Rubik's-cube grade reassembly skills, this one is easy to take apart and reassemble.
Here's a generic eBay search link:-
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=14500+usb+charger&_sacat=0&_sop=15
Target cost around $4 shipped.
If you enjoy these videos you can help support the channel with a dollar for coffee, cookies and random gadgets for disassembly at:-
http://www.bigclive.com/coffee.htm
This also keeps the channel independent of YouTube's advertising algorithms allowing it to be a bit more dangerous and naughty.
The current setting resistor could be changed to tweak the charge current, noting that higher current will potentially result in thermal self regulation of the charge chip. Use of higher current will also make the charger less suitable for smaller cells. Conversely, you could lower the current to 200mA for softer charging of any size of cell.
The LED resistor could be changed to something in the region of 470 ohm to make the LEDs more visible.
Unlike some other charger which fire springs in random directions and require Rubik's-cube grade reassembly skills, this one is easy to take apart and reassemble.
Here's a generic eBay search link:-
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=14500+usb+charger&_sacat=0&_sop=15
Target cost around $4 shipped.
If you enjoy these videos you can help support the channel with a dollar for coffee, cookies and random gadgets for disassembly at:-
http://www.bigclive.com/coffee.htm
This also keeps the channel independent of YouTube's advertising algorithms allowing it to be a bit more dangerous and naughty.
Keep it simple! 😉
What more do you expect to get for production costs of approx. 5 ct.? 🤭
Remember when we used to just plug a thing into the wall? Now we gotta plug a thing into the thing we need to plug into the other thing we plug into the wall.
I wonder if the LED resister is sized to protect the chip from over current.
Nice. I recently bought a 4 cell USB powered charger. Each battery charged independently. Springed contacts so will do 18650 & smaller.
You should have changed the resistor to make the led's brighter.
Do you know the 3 most used English words in the world?
Tearing down electronics is so much surpriseing in it
I bought a couple of similar chargers and I had to take them apart and bypass the spring with a wire. Otherwise the spring has too much resistance and results in the charging cut off at less than 4.1v. After the bypass the happily charges up to 4.17v and I've been using them for a couple of months without issue.
I just got one via Amazon to review that's nearly identical in appearance, altho it has a permanent USB A cable attached, and it says 5V 2A/5V 1A input and 0.8A output…
Great, I got the exact same in a package with a torch and 8 LiPo 18650 Batteries with 3Ah plus USB-C Cable for 20€
I'll bet that chip in quantity costs less than $0.10US. It's easy to see, how they could put out a decent quality cylindrical cell charger for that little money, especially since they don't have to include the 5V source. (I hate to say it, but…..Don't expect 20 AH of capacity from that "Homefire" 18650 cell)
Ah, this is quite receptive, able to accept a wide variety of lengths and diameters. Beauty is in the mind of the beholder! Tee hee;)
The PCB seems to be a cheap one, look the track shapes, they are not straight and the PCB border seems to be done manually.
The electronics here are not the weak point… It's that terribly cheap spring. I have one that the case must be welded somehow. Short of a hammer I don't see it coming apart for repair.
From the thumbnail I though we would get some burning excitement. ☹️
It's unfathomably ironic that fake Chinese batteries always has "fire" in the name.