Exploding Charger

[blakey]

The Lavatube has its own protection against these things so what I would do if it were me is use the battery till it had drained and required charging before I put it in the tr001. It won't then have enough power to damage the charger. I used a tr001 & then a tr003 for months without any issues and found them to be quite good. I now however, the same as others use the xtar from daz at safercigs.

[alvoram]

Thanks for that, I'll start vaping again

I just opened up the charger, I expected bad, but what I found was nightmarish, A PCB bent under the stress of being forced into a compartment clearly not big enough to accommodate the board and it's components, through leaded components with their leads touching other components, components with physical damage, actually found an IC, with most of the bottom half of it's shell missing, through leaded components with leads left too long. The soldering isn't too bad, but that's because it's clearly been through a flow. The 2 components that are hand soldered aren't that bad, a little too much solder but not too bad at all. Even after all that, the cause seems to have been a blown resistor ???

[vereybowring]

That is bad but it could have gone worse.

Yeah the battery seems fine but check it after the next time you charge it just to be extra safe.

I'm sure we can all sympathise with your wait for equipment.

[Chrissie]

Where did you actually buy the charger from Alvo?

[alvoram]

Ebay I won't give out the sellers name, because I haven't even contacted them, and I don't think it's fair, they could be unaware of how dodgy these things are.

Although that's no excuse for selling dangerous goods.

[Karma]

I think you should contact them Alvo, perhaps it's a dodgy batch? Someone could get injured

[alvoram]

Oh don't worry, I will be contacting them, with a description of what happened, what I found inside, and the (pretty poor quality) pictures that I took.

[maccafan]

Sorry to hear about your charger Alvo..

Hope LF have you sorted out quickly.

[dave]

I've got a TR-001 that I used for months and it worked OK, although I think it is worth getting something better eventually. What I did have to do though was change the figure of 8 lead that came with it since it had fake BS markings on it and clearly did not meet the standards - worth checking!

[hissie]

I have a trustfire multicharger & so far so good. Although I never leave it charging when I'm out or in bed & I only charge one battery at a time. Defeats the object of having 2 charging compartments, but I think it takes the strain off the charger.

[maccafan]

Whenever I charge batteries I make sure that I am not around..

[alvoram]

Thanks Hissie, I was actually going to ask something along those lines, to save any more mishaps... the 001 has 2 compartments, do they work independently, as in can I charge 2 different batteries, 2 different mah's, or is it best to only charge pairs when using both compartments...

Or like Hissie said, shall I just stick to charging one at a time?

Also, does the charger completely stop charging when the cell is full? Or does it carry on? Maybe it trickle charges? I will always be around when charging, but it would be good to know how closely I have to monitor it for completion of charging, if you understand what I mean?

Almost forgot, Dave, I decided last night, that it wasn't worth the risk, and as soon as I could afford it, I am going to buy a really good charger. With kids in the house, I want the best I can buy, so last night I searched for loads of reviews, and the Pila IBC charger seemed to come out on top of all the chargers out there, by quite some way, even in comparative tests along side 2 different xtar chargers (inc WP2.) My question is, is it worth the money? Anybody got any experience of it? The main thing I'm looking for is build quality and safety, rather than performance, which is what most reviews focus on... Would this be higher quality and safer than the tr-001 and xtar? If not I'm just going to get the xtar.

anyway the charger is available here: LINKY

[blakey]

Mar 30, 2012 7:43:30 GMT alvoram said:

Thanks Hissie, I was actually going to ask something along those lines, to save any more mishaps... the 001 has 2 compartments, do they work independently, as in can I charge 2 different batteries, 2 different mah's, or is it best to only charge pairs when using both compartments...

Or like Hissie said, shall I just stick to charging one at a time?

Also, does the charger completely stop charging when the cell is full? Or does it carry on? Maybe it trickle charges? I will always be around when charging, but it would be good to know how closely I have to monitor it for completion of charging, if you understand what I mean?

The tr001 will charge two batteries independently at the the same time. It wil also be fine with an 18350 in one bay and an 18650 in the other. When the battery is fully charged the tr001 will not completely cut power it but will provide a very low power trickle charge. I would recommend that when the green fully charged light appears that you remove the battery ASAP. I got round that problem by using a timer, I timed how long my batteries took to charge and set the timer accordingly so that power was cut.

Edit to address your edit

I have the xtar 6 channel charger and it is an excellent unit, And when the battery if full at 4.2v it WILL cut power to it

[steve386]

Mar 30, 2012 7:43:30 GMT alvoram said:

Thanks Hissie, I was actually going to ask something along those lines, to save any more mishaps... the 001 has 2 compartments, do they work independently, as in can I charge 2 different batteries, 2 different mah's, or is it best to only charge pairs when using both compartments...

Or like Hissie said, shall I just stick to charging one at a time?

Also, does the charger completely stop charging when the cell is full? Or does it carry on? Maybe it trickle charges? I will always be around when charging, but it would be good to know how closely I have to monitor it for completion of charging, if you understand what I mean?

I charge different batteries at the same time in my 001. Got an AW 18650 and an AW 18430 in there charging at the moment.

I never leave it charging at night when I'm asleep though, just in case.

[alvoram]

Thanks for the advice Blakey and Steve, wanted to check, as before vaping, my only experince with charging batteries (aside from laptops, cameras, phone etc) was Nimh nicad etc, and obviously most of the chargers available for them require you to charge similar cells at the same time.

Sorry about that blakey, didn't want to double post :/

Wish there was a charger that was not made in china...