Matador
100 kW
- Joined
- Jun 29, 2016
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I got that Foxonovo Digital Charger 4S that I really like (about 35 USD, 50 CAD). It does many kinds of lithium cells formats (eg 18650, 10440, 14500, 16340, 17500, 17650, 17670, 18490, 18500, 22650, 26650) and can also charge NiCads and NiMH. It have reverse polarity protection. There's this other brand (Gpower) that is the exact same thing. I bought both from amazon :
https://www.amazon.ca/Foxnovo-4-Slots-Battery-Capacity-Intelligent/dp/B00OCCNBOE
https://www.amazon.ca/4-Slots-Battery-Capacity-Testing-Intelligent/dp/B011QWO11E/ref=pd_rhf_se_p_img_7?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=AFDPKRW873JTSSXYZ4C7
It charges cells and tells you the injected mAh during charging (two settings in CHG mode : either 0.5A or 1.0A /cell charge current).
It's also possible to do discharge tests (CAP function) to see how much mAh are extracted from each cell (two settings in CAP mode : the "0.5A" actually only discharges at 0.25A/cell while the "1.0A" actually discharges at 0.5A/cell).
Here's some pics of it in action (I testing used VTC4 from makita packs) :



The cool thing with these Makita cells is they are already spot-welded to tabs that I will later solder on copper bus bars to put in parrallele... And the tabs are NOT Nickel... they are Copper (plated with nickel). 0.15 mm copper thickness !!!
My personal stash of VTC4 is growing... Here are some charged ones :

Anyways, the Foxnovo is great, but it is notorious for making annoying buzzing sounds at every phase (detected, charged, discharged, recharged), 2 times 3 beeps for each cells, reapeted at each of the 4 steps... I sounds like an alarm clock and is annoying during the night...
[youtube]Vh0OKa5TSX8[/youtube] (see youtube : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjkkPjNJ2R8)
So I just though i'd post my pictures of how I modded it, to put a muting switch... and not be awakening dure nights because of it.
There are 5 screws to remove in the back... 4 of them are behind the adhesive rubber cushiun,and the 5th on is behind the specification sticker... Unscrew them and open the charger :

Then, before pulling the circuit board, remove a 6th screw :

The circuit board has resistors to discharge cells as seen here :


So in order to be able to turn off that notorious annoying beep, I unsoldered the positive lead of the microphone from the PCB and installed a switch : the switch is placed between the microphone's positive lead and the location on the board where that positive lead was soldered before I unsolderd it. For the switch, I drilled a hole on the side of the charge (taking care not to drill any important electronic component at the same time
)...


So there you have it. Thought I could share it with you guys.

PS : It is not recommended to charge Lithium-ion cells that are below 2.5V... Potention fire/explosion hazard. Do not copy what was seen in the youtube video.
Matador
https://www.amazon.ca/Foxnovo-4-Slots-Battery-Capacity-Intelligent/dp/B00OCCNBOE
https://www.amazon.ca/4-Slots-Battery-Capacity-Testing-Intelligent/dp/B011QWO11E/ref=pd_rhf_se_p_img_7?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=AFDPKRW873JTSSXYZ4C7
It charges cells and tells you the injected mAh during charging (two settings in CHG mode : either 0.5A or 1.0A /cell charge current).
It's also possible to do discharge tests (CAP function) to see how much mAh are extracted from each cell (two settings in CAP mode : the "0.5A" actually only discharges at 0.25A/cell while the "1.0A" actually discharges at 0.5A/cell).
Here's some pics of it in action (I testing used VTC4 from makita packs) :



The cool thing with these Makita cells is they are already spot-welded to tabs that I will later solder on copper bus bars to put in parrallele... And the tabs are NOT Nickel... they are Copper (plated with nickel). 0.15 mm copper thickness !!!
My personal stash of VTC4 is growing... Here are some charged ones :

Anyways, the Foxnovo is great, but it is notorious for making annoying buzzing sounds at every phase (detected, charged, discharged, recharged), 2 times 3 beeps for each cells, reapeted at each of the 4 steps... I sounds like an alarm clock and is annoying during the night...
[youtube]Vh0OKa5TSX8[/youtube] (see youtube : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjkkPjNJ2R8)
So I just though i'd post my pictures of how I modded it, to put a muting switch... and not be awakening dure nights because of it.
There are 5 screws to remove in the back... 4 of them are behind the adhesive rubber cushiun,and the 5th on is behind the specification sticker... Unscrew them and open the charger :

Then, before pulling the circuit board, remove a 6th screw :

The circuit board has resistors to discharge cells as seen here :


So in order to be able to turn off that notorious annoying beep, I unsoldered the positive lead of the microphone from the PCB and installed a switch : the switch is placed between the microphone's positive lead and the location on the board where that positive lead was soldered before I unsolderd it. For the switch, I drilled a hole on the side of the charge (taking care not to drill any important electronic component at the same time



So there you have it. Thought I could share it with you guys.

PS : It is not recommended to charge Lithium-ion cells that are below 2.5V... Potention fire/explosion hazard. Do not copy what was seen in the youtube video.
Matador