Author Topic: Chinese battery capacity tester and batteries  (Read 29116 times)

iloveelectronics

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Re: Chinese battery capacity tester and batteries
« Reply #15 on: March 03, 2014, 10:54:40 PM »
Thanks, dinoboy, for the very detailed test data! I'm sure it will all come in very handy for people looking to buy rechargeable batteries.
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dinoboy

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Re: Chinese battery capacity tester and batteries
« Reply #16 on: March 04, 2014, 04:31:31 AM »
Hi Frank, thanks for thanking  ;D

I am by far not done with any of my posts, i am still in the process of collecting data for those batteries and updating the posts, today i am doing test4.39…4.41. Haven't gotten yet to testing Eneloop AA, and i also ordered brand-new round liion cells (14500 sanyo, 18650 samsung, panasonic). but so far it is already clear to me that this device is surprisingly very accurate and consistent and therefore it makes sense to continue to collect data.

Your little discharger, the EBD-Mini, isn't listed anymore on the manufacturer's website. Maybe they are revising the device.

*FMI* i have 3 shipments pending (= 2*UX +1*HKE)

iloveelectronics

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Re: Chinese battery capacity tester and batteries
« Reply #17 on: March 04, 2014, 09:11:25 PM »
Your little discharger, the EBD-Mini, isn't listed anymore on the manufacturer's website. Maybe they are revising the device.

I just asked them. They are just temporarily out of stock.

I really need to get my act together and list it for sale before they really discontinue the product...LOL!
My eBay store: http://www.99centHobbies.com
Email: franky @ 99centHobbies . com

dinoboy

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Re: Chinese battery capacity tester and batteries
« Reply #18 on: March 05, 2014, 02:05:59 PM »
Sure enough i don't know how the performance (or accuracy) of EBD-Mini compares to my (rather biggish) device, the EBC-A. My device is bigger than iCharger or Imax B6. Considerably bigger. Today i swapped the plug of the PC link USB cable.  This is the original wire-to-board plug, yeah cut off harhah!!



It sat way too loose in the socket of the PCB. And that socket is not a standard Molex product —yet very very similar—, which made it harder to find a better fitting plug. Well I finally found something better in a local electronics shop and now i am satisfied with the cable connection:

« Last Edit: May 06, 2014, 12:34:52 PM by dinoboy »
*FMI* i have 3 shipments pending (= 2*UX +1*HKE)

dinoboy

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Re: Chinese battery capacity tester and batteries
« Reply #19 on: March 30, 2014, 07:30:14 AM »
test6.x-series: This post is about discharge tests with my Eagletac CR123A's



Here i am testing the Eagletac CR123A, a "3V 1500mAh" lithium cell, brand new, in my EBC-A device. Room temperature was close enough to 25°C, it was a sunny day outside. Problem: there is no PDF datasheet available, the official parameters are unknown which are to lead to the 1500mAh claim. What's the discharge rate (0.2C?), what's the cutoff voltage (can't be 2.50V because it's a lithium, not li-ion cell! did they use 1.50V or 0.80V as cutoff or anything else??), what's the temperature (prolly 25°C not 20°C)? Next question, is C to be taken as the rated/minimum capacity or the typical/nominal capacity?

No official or public answers/info is available, so i had to take my own sensible decisions.

I chose the following discharge parameters:
C = nominal capacity (since the min. capacity is unknown!) = 1500
standard discharge = 0.2C = 0.2*1500 = |-300mA|
cutoff voltage = 0.8V (that's the lowest possible on my device!)
Temperature = ~25°C

and i got the following result:
cutoff voltage@1.50V: 1400mAh
cutoff voltage@0.80V: 1511mAh

Once the cell hit the 0.80V, i let it rest for some time and re-run the -300mA load to see if i could squeeze a few more mAh's from the "recovered" cell:

Interestingly, a CR123A cell doesn't auto-recover capacity like Alkaline cells do. Once it is fully discharged, it is dead and stays dead. The offline voltage apparently slowly recovers to say 2.60V but that's just "empty calories" so to speak.

The accumulated capacities are:
1511mAh
1537mAh (after 1st rerun)
1546mAh (after 2nd rerun)
1553mAh (after 3rd rerun)

My point is, with measured 1511mAh i did hit the nominal capacity of "1500mAh". However, i had to discharge the cell down to inhumane 0.80V cutoff voltage. If i had stopped the test run at 1.50V cutoff voltage, i would have measured 1400mAh only! I am not familiar with CR123A primary cells, so i don't know what a reasonable or common choice for cutoff would be. 1.50V sounds like a good choice imo for various reasons, so next time I'll test in a similar way 0.5C discharge rate (=-750mA) when it's sunny and hot again in the test room :P

Stay tuned.  8)
« Last Edit: March 30, 2014, 08:08:40 AM by dinoboy »
*FMI* i have 3 shipments pending (= 2*UX +1*HKE)

dinoboy

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Re: Chinese battery capacity tester and batteries
« Reply #20 on: March 30, 2014, 09:41:53 AM »
test7.x-series: This post is about discharge tests with my protected Nietcore RCR123's



I got these from Fasttech.

Not much is known about the cell, no PDF datasheet is available. All we know is that the max. discharge current is 4.0A and that the max. charge rate is 1C, i.e. 0.650A; recommended charge current is 300mA. Yes, nominal capacity be 650mAh with unknown parameters for the standard discharge yikes.

I've got 2 brand new cells. But i will be testing 1 cell only (cell#1). Repeated tests (with cell#1 and or cell#2) are not necessary on the part of EBC-A as you know by now. As you will see in test7.1, the protection circuit trips at 2.49V, so for all further tests i set the cutoff voltage to 2.50V. The same cell model was tested before by Megalodon ~1.5years ago but both his table and graph are unclear about the discharge parameters and results, thus one cannot compare his results directly to mine. However, for the 0.2C standard discharge our posted numbers coincide very well.

• my EBC-A results :
test7.xwhat stuffDISCH parametersmAh at 2,80Vfinal resultmini notes (if any)
test7.1NL166 cell#1 at 23°C-130mA/2.50V672mAh680mAh 2532mWh> nom. 650mAh
test7.2NL166 cell#1 at 23°C-340mA/2.50V637mAh645mAh 2355mWh< nom. 650mAh
test7.3NL166 cell#1 at 23°C-330mA/2.50V639mAh647mAh 2362mWhconsistent!



« Last Edit: March 30, 2014, 12:51:03 PM by dinoboy »
*FMI* i have 3 shipments pending (= 2*UX +1*HKE)

dinoboy

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Re: Chinese battery capacity tester and batteries
« Reply #21 on: March 30, 2014, 11:39:36 AM »
test8.x-series: This post is about discharge tests with my unprotected Samsung ICR18650-32A's

These are special li-ion cells because they can be charged up to 4.35V.



I got my 2 pairs of brand new cells from Fasttech (SKU:1628903). Thanks god, the specs for the standard discharge of this cell model are crystal, see the PDF datasheet, they are:

C = the nominal capacity (not the min. capacity as Panasonic does!) = 3200mAh,
discharge rate = 640mA (= 0.2C),
cutoff voltage = 2.75V,
Temperature = 25°C.

The same cell model was tested before by light-wolff ~2 months ago at high discharge rates.

• my EBC-A results :
test8.xwhat stuffDISCH parametersmAh at 3,00Vfinal resultmini notes (if any)
test8.1ICR18650-32A cell#1 at 23°C-640mA/2.75V3187mAh3216mAh 12.23Wh> nom. 3200mAh
test8.2ICR18650-32A cell#1 at 23°C-3000mA/2.80V3045mAh3095mAh 11.14Wh
test8.3ICR18650-32A cell#2 at 23°C-5000mA/2.80V3011mAh3116mAh N/A Whmy bad hh
test8.4ICR18650-32A cell#3 at 22°C-640mA/2.75V3146mAh3177mAh 12.05Wh< nom. 3200mAh
test8.5ICR18650-32A cell#4 at 23°C-640mA/2.75V3216mAh3246mAh 12.32Wh> nom. 3200mAh
test8.6ICR18650-32A cell#2 at 22°C-640mA/2.75V3177mAh3208mAh 12.17Wh> nom. 3200mAh



« Last Edit: May 26, 2014, 05:33:02 AM by dinoboy »
*FMI* i have 3 shipments pending (= 2*UX +1*HKE)

dinoboy

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Re: Chinese battery capacity tester and batteries
« Reply #22 on: March 31, 2014, 09:03:25 AM »
test9.x-series: This post is about discharge tests with my protected Eagletac ET2500 (blue label)'s



My 4 cells are old and abused and the results cannot be compared to Megalodon's confusing test. I just wanna know what their capacities are for future reference. Parameters for the standard discharge are a bit unclear, for example the cutoff voltage. We'll see how it goes!

Quote
standard discharge, tentative parameters:
C = nominal capacity = 2500mAh
standard discharge rate = 0.2C = |-500mA|
temperature = 23…25°C
cutoff voltage = 2.50V

• my EBC-A results :
test9.xwhat stuffDISCH parametersmAh at 2,80Vfinal resultmini notes (if any)
test9.1old ET2500 cell#1 at 23°C-500mA/2.50V2435mAh2456mAh 9188mWh
test9.2old ET2500 cell#2 at 23°C-500mA/2.50V2446mAh2476mAh 9107mWh
test9.3old ET2500 cell#3 at 22°C-500mA/2.50V2417mAh2449mAh 9122mWh
test9.4old ET2500 cell#4 at 23°C-500mA/2.50V2414mAh2445mAh 8906mWh
test9.5test9.4 repeated at 22°C-500mA/2.50V2406mAh2442mAh 8886mWh
« Last Edit: May 10, 2014, 05:18:34 AM by dinoboy »
*FMI* i have 3 shipments pending (= 2*UX +1*HKE)

dinoboy

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Re: Chinese battery capacity tester and batteries
« Reply #23 on: May 06, 2014, 05:56:22 PM »
4th gen Eneloop AAA purchased from NKON:


click to enlarge!

• my continued C9000 & EBC-A tests:
test#.#   Eneloop AAA        cell#5        cell#6        cell#7        cell#8        comment
test10.1Break_In1C1: 799C2: 801C3: 800C4: 803beautiful numbers; cell#8 > #6 > #7 > #5
test10.2Disch1 -200mAC1: n/aEBC: 802C3: 768C4: 767capacity loss after 24hrs; discrepancy between devices
test10.3Cycle1 (3×)
C1: 793
C1: 791
C1: 789
C2: 801
C2: 796
C2: 793
C3: 798
C3: 793
C3: 792
C4: 798
C4: 796
C4: 794
cell#6 > #8 > #7 > #5
test10.4Cycle2 (4×)
C4: 786
C4: 787
C4: 787
C4: 785
C3: 788
C3: 789
C3: 791
C3: 789
C2: 796
C2: 797
C2: 799
C2: 797
C1: 795
C1: 796
C1: 796
C1: 794
cell#7 > #8 > #6 > #5
test10.5Cycle3 (3×)
C3: 785
C3: 784
C3: 783
C4: 788
C4: 787
C4: 788
C1: 793
C1: 792
C1: 793
C2: 798
C2: 797
C2: 795
cell#8 > #7 > #6 > #5
test10.6Cycle4 (3×)
C2: 790
C2: 787
C2: 785
C1: 790
C1: 789
C1: 788
C4: 791
C4: 790
C4: 789
C3: 793
C3: 790
C3: 788
cell#8 > #7 > #6 > #5
test10.7Cycle5 (3×)
C1: 784
C1: 784
C1: 785
C2: 791
C2: 791
C2: 792
C3: 789
C3: 788
C3: 790
C4: 790
C4: 789
C4: 792
cell#6 > #8 > #7 > #5
test10.8Cycle6 (3×)
C4: 783
C4: 784
C4: 783
C3: 785
C3: 785
C3: 785
C2: 792
C2: 793
C2: 794
C1: 793
C1: 792
C1: 791
cell#7 > #8 > #6 > #5
test10.9Cycle7 (4×)
C2: 793
C2: 791
C2: 789
C2: 786
C1: 794
C1: 790
C1: 790
C1: 788
C4: 797
C4: 792
C4: 791
C4: 789
C3: 797
C3: 793
C3: 791
C3: 788
cell#8 ≥ #7 > #6 > #5; warmer weather outside!
test10.10Cycle8 (3×)
C3: 784
C3: 785
C3: 782
C4: 789
C4: 788
C4: 787
C1: 794
C1: 792
C1: 794
C2: 798
C2: 797
C2: 796
cell#8 > #7 > #6 > #5
test10.11Cycle9 (3×)
C2: 804
C2: 792
C2: 789
C1: 803
C1: 792
C1: 789
C4: 808
C4: 793
C4: 791
C3: 808
C3: 794
C3: 791
cell#8 ≥ #7 > #5 ≥ #6
test10.12Cycle10 (4×)
C4: 782
C4: 785
C4: 786
C4: 784
C3: 783
C3: 787
C3: 789
C3: 786
C2: 793
C2: 797
C2: 797
C2: 796
C1: 793
C1: 794
C1: 795
C1: 794
cell#7 > #8 > #6 > #5
test10.13Cycle11 (4×)
C1: 787
C1: 786
C1: 787
C1: 785
C2: 793
C2: 793
C2: 793
C2: 791
C3: 791
C3: 792
C3: 793
C3: 791
C4: 793
C4: 794
C4: 795
C4: 792
cell#8 > #6 > #7 > #5
test10.14Cycle12 (4×)
C3: 782
C3: 784
C3: 782
C3: 780
C4: 786
C4: 787
C4: 787
C4: 785
C1: 793
C1: 793
C1: 793
C1: 791
C2: 796
C2: 796
C2: 795
C2: 792
cell#8 > #7 > #6 > #5
test10.15Break_In2, 22°CC1: 789C2: 791C3: 790C4: 794cell#8 > #6 > #7 > #5
test10.16Break_In3C1: 792C2: 793C3: 792C4: 797cell#8 > #6 > #7 = #5
test10.17Break_In4, 25°CC1: 794C2: 797C3: 794C4: 798cell#8 > #6 > #7 = #5
test10.18Break_In5C1: 793C2: 793C3: 792C4: 797cell#8 > #6 = #5 > #7
test10.19Cycle13 (3×)
M1: 711
M1: 704
M1: 705
M2: 708
M2: 704
M2: 701
M3: 717
M3: 712
M3: 709
M4: 735
M4: 728
M4: 729
temperature dependence
test10.20Cycle14 (3×)
M4: 728
M4: 727
M4: 728
M3: 711
M3: 712
M3: 712
M2: 702
M2: 703
M2: 703
M1: 711
M1: 712
M1: 712
temperature dependence
test10.21Cycle15 (3×)
M2: 696
M2: 695
M2: 695
M1: 715
M1: 715
M1: 716
M4: 724
M4: 724
M4: 725
M3: 721
M3: 719
M3: 720
temperature dependence
test10.22Cycle16 (3×)
M3: 711
M3: 711
M3: 710
M4: 727
M4: 727
M4: 727
M1: 709
M1: 709
M1: 710
M2: 712
M2: 713
M2: 711
temperature dependence
test10.23Cycle17 (3×)
M1: 706
M1: 706
M1: 706
M2: 701
M2: 703
M2: 703
M3: 718
M3: 717
M3: 716
M4: 731
M4: 732
M4: 731
temperature dependence
test10.24Cycle18 (3×)
M4: 730
M4: 730
M4: 730
M3: 714
M3: 714
M3: 714
M2: 704
M2: 705
M2: 704
M1: 713
M1: 713
M1: 712
temperature dependence
test10.25Break_In6C1: xxxC2: xxxC3: xxxC4: xxx!!!waiting for hot day!!!
test10.26Cycle13, 25°C
C3: xxx
C3: yyy
C3: zzz
C4: xxx
C4: yyy
C4: zzz
C1: xxx
C1: yyy
C1: zzz
C2: xxx
C2: yyy
C2: zzz
!!!waiting for hot day!!!
« Last Edit: July 03, 2014, 05:19:12 AM by dinoboy »
*FMI* i have 3 shipments pending (= 2*UX +1*HKE)