Oddities of NiCd/NiMH chargers, surprising waveforms (unedited)

One horrible unedited video about dumb and intelligent NiCd and NiMH battery chargers. The waveforms of the charging current are weird and unexpected for some!
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[@hugoegon8148]

This old chargers are good to recover batteries from deep discharge. Newer ones deny to charge and show "Error" only. 🙄

[@timhartherz5652]

I had a charger just like that, without the phillips branding and in "timeless" beige. Not very fast but reliable.

[@shawnbottom4769]

I’ve tried multiple “recovery” operations with different methods and different battery chemistry and different initial states. None of the results have ever been what I would call decent or reliable. I think there’s a lot of internet mythology floating around on this subject.

[@TechGorilla1987]

Sir, your long, unedited videos are quite often WAY more interesting than the 8 minute polished turds that KZbin tries to feed us. Please keep doing what you're doing. I onjoy ziss...

[@robson6285]

Of course i totally agree, basicly.

[@kotekxd99]

@Luiz Gonçalves xD

[@henrikjensen3278]

All NiMH chargers are pulsing the current, probably to avoid switcher noise while measuring voltage. With chargers that switches the charge circuit between slots there is a small pause each time it switches. I have tested lots of chargers: lygte-info.dk/info/indexBatteriesAndChargers%20UK.html

[@MrJinXiao]

Are you one man? You have *so much* content on that website

[@henrikjensen3278]

Yes, one man, but I have been working on that website for a long time.

[@grumpybollox7949]

cool website !

[@robson6285]

Bloody hell, i like all of your video's,.. Basicly.

[@andymouse]

Bloody hell, me two.........Basically.

[@user-nl3sl2to2m]

r u kiddin' me guys

[@robson6285]

@@user-nl3sl2to2m only the most respectfull kiddin. So much to learn from you and all the schematics of pc powersupplies so i found the one i needed, ow i cannot think of another way than most respectfull for you! (Ow and that teslacoilseries, unnamable great learningvids!)

[@pyromen321]

I completely forgot how long NiCd batteries took to charge. When I was a kid, I had a remote control car that I could basically only use for 15 minutes per day.

[@krass76]

that may be pulse charging: dump current, generate high concentration, turn off, let it diffuse. It's a bit faster than constant current.

[@vaclavtrpisovsky]

3:31 Instructions unclear, eyeball fell on the ground and got eaten by my cat.

[@jkobain]

Your cat? I thought it was a qualified ocular specialist!

[@mk23432343]

interesting video, can You test IKEA Ni-mh VINNINGE charger? its very cheap and it is powered from USB. I have dissasembled it and it has very complicated circuit in it, can be interesting for the video. Thank you!

[@TechGorilla1987]

My wife is unable to discern the flicker in PWM LED lights. I see the flicker in all PWM LED lights....even the newer cars with LED lighting.

[@DiodeGoneWild]

People probably can't see it unless they know what to look for, but once they see it, they can't stop seeing it. Especially if you develop the habit of automatically checking every light source by your moving eyeballs.

[@pyromen321]

I think some people know what to look for and also some people are just more sensitive. Some crappy mains LED bulbs have a 120Hz flicker, and it drives me crazy but my girlfriend seems to not notice it.

[@eDoc2020]

PWM LED taillights are the worst, as are 60Hz Christmas lights visible from the road. So distracting, not what you want when you're driving. As for me personally, my sensitivity seems to vary based on the particular type (and probably also placement) of light. I have a 15 watt inductive preheat ballast fluorescent light made for under-cabinet use and the flicker on that is annoying. Meanwhile I'm usually not bothered by our American (autotransformer-type) 2x40w rapid-start fluorescents. I'm sure I'd have an issue with European 100Hz tube lights due to the lower frequency. I don't know how anybody could ever live with 50Hz CRT TVs.

[@TechGorilla1987]

@@eDoc2020 I read somewhere or heard somewhere that the North American florescent lighting effectively switches at 60hx x 2 or 120hz, but I cannot confirm, nor deny that at the moment. Perhaps that's why it doesn't bother me or you so bad..

[@eDoc2020]

@@TechGorilla1987 It is indeed 120Hz. I'm guessing part of why the 4ft lights don't really bother me is because their ballasts are very different than what's common in the higher-voltage countries. 120v ballasts for 4ft tubes are a current-limited step-up transformer which also has taps to warm up the tube filaments. Whereas I believe almost all 240v 4ft lights (and many but not all 120v lights in lower wattages) just use a simple inductive choke. An interesting experiment would be seeing if there is a different amount of flicker between these two types.

[@ELECTROHAXZ]

Do not worry about long videos, your videos are great even if long, very interesting and entertaining too :)

[@sortofsmarter]

great video..would love to see the inside of the intelligent charger vs dumb charger??

[@eddy3314]

Great informative videos thanks, the sudden ending made me laugh "so thats it"

[@JamesBrown-ux9ds]

We missed you saying that you will open all of them in some future and provide us with the pictures, describe the electronic pieces used and some sketch of the circuit.

[@gordonwelcher9598]

Very nice drawing of Eyeball.

[@transkryption]

You have me wondering about Qualcomm's Quickcharge , USB PD , Samsung's AFC etc.... Voltage / current vs time.., even if the cell isnt divided they're putting a lot of current in the battery below 70%

[@dosgos]

I have a nice Panasonic 4 battery charger (AA or AAA) similar to the Sony one. It works globally. Instructions say to charge in pairs. LEDs also slightly flicker.

[@jkobain]

18:10 - Substruct? Niiiiice!

[@tw11tube]

500mAh was the standard capacity of AA NiCd cells in the mid to late 80s. You can guess the age of the 50/120mA charger from that. The "strange audible noise" is standard behaviour for pulse-frequency modulated flyback supplies: Every pulse they transfer has a minimum amount of energy (worst case: a fixed amount of energy). If the load is low, the dead time between the pulses goes up. If the load is low enough, the frequency drops into audible range.

[@atmel9077]

These "dumb" chargers suffer from a lack or regulation. Basically the higher the mains voltage, the higher the charge current. This raises quite an annoying problem : in my house mains voltage is 243 volts ( which is ok) and when a battery is fully charged, the voltage drop on the current limiting resistor is still too high and the LED stays on... Concerning the "smart" charger I woule guess it uses a flyback power supply ( possibly 3.3 or 5V) followed by a current mode buck regulator + microcontroller + 4 MOSFETs. When the charger is not charging (3/4 of the time if there's only 1 battery) the current draw is very low. The flyback power supply goes into discontinuous conduction mode and it the duty cycle reaches a very low value. The controller reduces the frequency to avoid having a very short Ton which would lead to a higher standby power and interference.

[@DiodeGoneWild]

The LED in the dumb chargers is NOT meant to turn off :).

[@dosgos]

A senior battery engineer told me that heat is the ultimate enemy to batteries. So slow, cool charging is fundamental. He said cylinder batteries optimal, principally for heat reasons. The rapid charging smartphone and HYBRID car batteries are great...for the device makers.

[@geraldh.8047]

Heat COMBINED with a full state of charge is the major problem. If heated only during charging it’s not so bad. But it then also should not stay at 100%. This is why all serious car makers allow you to limit charge to something like 80 or 90%. Something unfortunately only possible on very few laptops, though there are some!

[@mysock351C]

The heat is a problem once the full state of charge has been reached as it will cause gas build-up in NiCad/NiMh batteries, which causes them to vent their electrolyte, and ultimately fail. Lead acid can be quickly charged, provided the charge is tapered towards the end to prevent hydrogen build-up, which again causes a loss of electrolyte, and again ultimately fail. Li-Ion is a bit different in that it needs a fairly specific charge profile to avoid things like plating out the lithium metal and possible damage to the separator (and possibly flames or a shorted cell). Many cells are capable of being charged at several times their rated capacity or more without issue. Its all down to the construction of the cell.

[@AngryPacman111]

Very interesting content about chargers. Thank You! For my NiMH batteries I use smart charger from Panasonic. It allows to charge 1-4 AA or AAA cells, and automatically turns off by delta voltage. I think they use some cheap microcontroller. My batteries are very cheap, and I use them in wireless mouse.

[@elena6516]

Where can I get one of those miniature oscilliscopes?

[@AgentOffice]

AliExpress

[@deepblueskyshine]

Danek, you can pot all of the inductors' windings in liquid epoxy, or in case layers are not separatd with adheasive insulation tape you can spray them with acrylic lacquer that may not even be special electronics one if it is a transparant one and not only the sound should disappear but they will last longer.

[@nagarajanr8272]

Sir, I enjoy watching your informative videos. I have a query. I have Nikon MH-73 charger for 4 AA or 2 AAA Ni-MH batteries. Problem is the batteries and charger become super hot while charging and the single led indicator cuts-off very early. The OCV before placing the batteries is 4.8 v. Is it correct? Is there any problem with feedback circuit. Some suggestion is welcome. I am from India. Thank you.

[@teddysoft]

I just learn something new from this video, how to read out the division on a oscilloscope (totaly newbe with using a oscilloscope) 🤘 PS. I got a Philips PM3232 analog oscilloscope

[@videolabguy]

Ted - Welcome noob! Check out some of my recent videos if you would be interested in more advanced uses of your scope. I made a couple of videos recently about examining video signals. Its a next step up from simple signals. Not that you would immediately have a use for those techniques in particular. But, exposes you to some of the scope functions you may not have realized exist. Have a great day!

[@teddysoft]

@@videolabguy Well thank you Sir! I will put a sub to your channel for future videos, did see alot of interesting subjects scrolling 👌

[@hoggif]

It's been a while since I saw a NiCd battery anywhere. Capasity of NimH's is so much better. But they don't get to high current output of NiCd.

[@electronic7979]

Helpful video

[@jkobain]

20 minutes? Too short for a quick unedited video!

[@RicoElectrico]

As you said, the weird pulses of Sony charger may have something to do with increasing precision of voltage measurements for -∆V termination. I remember reading at lygte-info.dk that it can help reduce noise - considering that the lower -∆V, the longer battery life. E.g. 5 mV is the best.

[@pyromen321]

I love that guy’s website! He has some of the most thorough multimeter reviews out there.

[@-Crash-Nebula--]

SMONTALO!! SMONTALO!! SMONTALO!!!

[@N0G0MAIL]

Very nice video. As for the Tronic batteries, the green ones (ready to use) are better, do not lose power and charge well all the time. I didn't get along well with the red ones, because I use fast charging and they don't keep the current very well.

[@DiodeGoneWild]

Today I've bought one package of the green AAA ones :). I will compare them to the red ones. The green ones were more expensive despite the lower capacity.

[@N0G0MAIL]

@@DiodeGoneWild Nice. I'm glad you found greens too. Ready to use ones are better. Although they have a smaller capacity, they are more stable over time. The red ones, after a month, at most 3 months are almost exhausted and cannot be used. I found it at Lidl, sometimes red, sometimes green, at the same price. After seeing that the red ones didn't hold, I only bought the green ones. I charge them at a current of 500mA and I use La Crosse BC700 charger and LiitoKala Lii-500 charger.

[@Shmbler]

lol that "nice german charger" was the very first one I had when I was a kid. A whopping 120mA quick charge! For some reason, I also remember that it released a very distinct electronics odor after some usage. I can almost smell it again when I look at yours ;-)

[@tactileslut]

Olfactory memory is like time travel -- so vivid. Grandpa's playroom, the high school wood shop, the insides of drawers of different furniture collections.

[@andreasu.3546]

This charger reminds me of that christmas in the early 80s, when my parents finally got me that RC car, I had been begging for for so long. I got it with that exact charger (or one very similar to that) and NiCd batteries, which came unchargerd. Those were the longest 14 hours in my life, waiting for the batteries to finish charging.

[@tactileslut]

@@andreasu.3546 No such wait with an Air Jammer Road Rammer, but better things come to those who wait.

[@andreasu.3546]

@@tactileslut Had to google "Air Jammer Road Rammer", looks like it was a fun toy.

[@rilosvideos877]

Pulsed current often is better and more efficient for older batteries! There are special battery recovery chargers for lead acid batteries that work with even higher pulses. Also the pulses come probably naturally by even the cheap dumb chargers cause they are based on switch mode power supllies. They "naturally" generate pulses (which can be smoothened of course by capacitors e.g.). Hmm if the pulsing frequency is 50Hz it comes from the mains 50Hz - maybe its only a little transformer with a diode :-) - no SMPS.

[@edgeeffect]

In the 1990s, I remember electronics hobbyists talking about asymmetrical pulses AC as a way to charge Zinc/Carbon or alkaline batteries... do you know anything about that? If I want to detect LED flicker, I shake my head like I'm having a seizure. It works really well.

[@jovangrbic97]

Those gray/red batterries with the 'Tronic' brand are from Lidl. They sold for like 1.87EUR per 4xAA 2500mAh. Capacity measurement came out to about that. The crazy thing is, that the Lidl website for a long time was selling two types of 'Tronic' NiMH rechargables at the same time, with exactly the same specs, these gray/red ones, and green/black ones, which they still sell for 3.87EUR per 4x AA. I can't understand the logic/logistics of that, and the cheaper ones were not old stock as the manufacturing date was less than 4 months old... I certainly stocked up on a bunch, I imagine you did too! ;)

[@1marcelfilms]

I will only use good charger for nimh like my fake nitecore d4

[@williama29]

I have three circuit controlled chargers I have one fast charger that charges batteries 1-4 and two slow chargers that charge batteries 2-4

[@DB-47]

I still keep two dumb chargers (one is Czech EMOS similar to Philips showed in video and GP powerbank governed only by timer). While newer smart chargers tend to reject deeply discharged cells, those dumb ones basically charge anything ;)

[@mohammedal-ghanim5375]

Please help me, I accidentally plugged my 110v nespresso coffee machine into 220v🥺, I don’t know what went wrong. Do you think it still can repairable ? The company said we don’t fix it since it came from US🥺help

[@Teknopottu]

Try opening it if there is a fuse inside that burned.

[@mernok2001]

I tried recharging non rechargeable zinc/carbon and alkaline batteries.They hold the charge for a few days,it cab be an emergency solution.

[@ACOnetwork]

Huh tbose chargers, I had one just like Sony one loooong time ago 😁

[@lifeai1889]

u finaly got a propper probe lol

[@DnaX]

I have the almost same Sony charger: BCG-34HVE and I discovered this cycle between batteries. It also checking the battery healthy

[@amberselectronics]

Good to know, I have this exact charger.

[@tushar673353]

i have sony look like charger 100ma but all batteries are in paraller and current for each is 25ma

[@creeprovec718]

Calculate the time. Hmm is it overnight good for 500 mAh? That is my calculating method.

[@DonaldSleightholme]

i read on Wikipedia that a radio broadcasts ac, if you had a 50hz ac radio signal and a radio receiver you could maybe amplify the radio signal to recharge the battery keeping the device powered wirelessly 🤔📻🔋🤷‍♂️

[@karlfoley]

If you are measuring AC, isn't that just ripple?

[@piconano]

16:00 First disappointing SONY product I've ever seen. If it charges each cell 0.5 sec every 2 seconds, no time is wasted if all 4 cells are being charged! It's a dumb system to not change if less than 4 cells are being charged.

[@totalchips6547]

Teardown!!!

[@patopato111]

do you have adress for donation?

[@rjones8508]

In the interest of science, is there any safe way to see "what happens" when a battery charger is used to try and recharge a non rechargeable battery? I vaguely remember doing this bad thing with no ill effect decades ago. I can't remember if the battery actually recharged. Maybe a little.

[@atmel9077]

Alkaline batteries can actually be recharged. The problem are : 1) It will not fully recharge and its capacity will decrease quickly 2) HUGH problem : the charging current must be very low otherwise the batteries will inevitably leak... not good.

[@good_deeds_always_get_punished]

Thank you very much for your informative video. I have the exact Sony 'Cycle Energy' charger. Decent but a slow charger. Much better than the crappy Chinese chargers & batteries (brand name Envie) that we get in India under the so called 'Made in India'. My Sony is almost 8-10 years old & still going strong. I recently purchased the Panasonic BQ-CC55 which is supposed to be better. Hope it lasts that long.

[@Killerspieler0815]

ah a vintage early 1990s charger from/for Germany .... edit: the small one in German only is probably from 1980s

[@kotekxd99]

ryly nice job

[@FIXDIY]

Nice

[@MuhammadDaudkhanTV100]

Amazing

[@hamzamalik7305]

I Need Original 2000mah Capacity 4v cell for my Power bank Project Because Cheap 18650 cells doesn't Last Long Nor They Have Much Capacity

[@DrHouse-zs9eb]

Interesting!

[@andymouse]

you should go to "learnelectronics" videos...he says that a lot.

[@rabindrasharma]

Dude the circuit is not galvanically isolated but how the heck are you able to touch it with bare hand , once I touched such a dodgy charger from a chinese flashlight charger and was shocked to hell..... I want an explanation....

[@samuelecaldini4400]

These chargers are galvanically isolated, the dumb chargers contain a classic iron core transformer, and the Sony one probably contain an SMPS

[@eDoc2020]

There chargers which aren't isolated from mains, but they all fall into one of two (actually three) categories: 1) Designed so it's impossible to touch the battery contacts when it's plugged in, or, 2) Designed without regard for safety standards, probably grey market imports. Dodge Chinese products may fall into this category. Or also 3) where the isolation has failed.

[@rabindrasharma]

​@@eDoc2020 Apprently you are correct with the points you just suggested, furthermore I have more faith in your second point,(i.e they are made without any regards for safety).Well I want to make a Li-ion battery powered flashlight but I don't want to use any dedicated IC for that as it would make a project a costly and also occupy a lot of time , I came across Many circuits but they either cannot be powered by a 3.7 v source or they are not a constant current source one....Awaiting Replay

[@SuperMineMatteo]

Hey I am looking for an oscilloscope, the one you used in the video is good or bad?

[@JPAG0806]

Interesting osciloscope? Where to buy??

[@SuperMineMatteo]

@@JPAG0806 I found it on amazon but it may vary based on the coutry you live in

[@Zebra_Paw]

You have to check for it to have a timebase and voltage range setting! It's also good if it has two inputs to compare! The problem is that if it is grounded putting it into the primary of switching power supplies blows them up, because ground acts as neutral! It also good to have a hold button that holds about 1 second, so that you can see 1 second of the waveform frozen in time, and then zoom it! Of course you need a zoom function!

[@nirodper]

@@JPAG0806 aliexpress/banggood

[@dnorby6990]

nice video.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@ZA26]

Tesco Value Battery Charger

[@Electronic_For_You]

💥💥💥💨💨💨 ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

[@cristiansantos5742]

Muito bom !

[@prayogi5396]

Old technology with memory effect

[@oniruddhoalam2039]

NiCd batteries

[@krnlg]

So? :)

[@rkan2]

I saw many cuts in this video! not unedited!! ;D

[@DiodeGoneWild]

It's unedited. I just pause the camera.

[@valtersouzaribeiroribeiro9534]

Nice