Liitokala Lii-500 Getting Hot, Cells Sitting at 4.2V

OhmGrown

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Sep 13, 2018
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I got two of these units to add to my collection and has anyone else noticed that sometimes cells will sit at 4.2V for many many hours? I've had 4 Panasonics in one now for 8 hours in the first charging phase and all 4 have been sitting at max V for the last 3 hours. They also were getting very hot (hotter than any other testers I've used) so I've had to cool them down with a fan which seems to keep them at a good temp. But the other two Panasonic cells in the pack that I harvested these from went into a zanflare tester without any issues and cycled all the way thru a normal test without breaking 120F. It seems like just the Li500 has temp issues (zanflare doesn't have a built in fan either but much more space between slots) and also issues switching between test phases. I know that nearing max V the tester will drop to like 50mA but I've never seen any other tester take THIS long just sitting at 4.2V and kicking over to the discharge phase.

Also, another flaw with this tester is that I can't just change the mode to a discharge test and get the capacity since their fast test counts mAh on the charge cycle of fast test. I'm really starting to regret buying these instead of just getting two more zanflares (which of all the ones I've tried, seem to be the best bang for the buck to me).
 
Well, when batteries never reach END state and heat up, they definitely have an issue. I drop them in a bin. It is too much risk, having them in a pack and causing issues in an operational pack. Imho this is not really a charger issue, the charger shows, that your battery has an issue...

I always do nor test...

Best
Karl
 
Those hot ones I have had really good luck with letting them rest for a while. Like a month. then go back and continue the charge then discharge. I have found cells that have sat for a long time need some break in to get working again properly.

This has been for heaters... red sanyo's as well as NCR's that came from medical packs.

But these I do watch like a hawk as some that continue to heat aft their rest get binned.


Also if you get any cell that is weirdly low for it's rated capacity. let it rest for a while then redo the testing. you might find they perk back up. I have had some that stayed cool during charge and normally warm during discharge only have around 500-900mAh then a month later I test them again and poof they are 2800's but this has only been about 10% of the low cap cells. but I just shelve those ones for testing later when I run out of cells to test.
 
Charly144 said:
Well, when batteries never reach END state and heat up, they definitely have an issue. I drop them in a bin. It is too much risk, having them in a pack and causing issues in an operational pack. Imho this is not really a charger issue, the charger shows, that your battery has an issue...

I always do nor test...

Best
Karl

Thanks.And yeah that's sorta what I figured as well but what's weird is I popped one of those cells into an opus and one into a zanflare and they seem to be cycling thru the phases without a problem now. Also the temperature isn't getting above 120F just like the other two cells from that pack. It's really weird and this has happened a few times with this exact charger (the other liitokala I have doesn't seem to have a problem and WILL discharge both cells that have an issue in the first tester). I'll probably still keep those cells separate for more testing and not integrate them into a pack but of all the three testers I have, I definitely much prefer opus or zanflare models.

Not sure why so many content creators on YouTube all suggest going with the li-500. To me, it doesn't seem worth the savings (well maybe compared to the opus but that one is just so cost prohibitive to begin with). I think I'll stick with zanflares moving forward, even if they do slightly over estimate capacity.
 
I do have 10 liitokalas without any issues...
 
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