Hi there,

I recently bought a flashlight that has an 217000 USB-C LiIon battery.




Can this battery be charged on a "conventional" battery charger too or must this battery be charged ONLY with its USB-C connector?

Thanks for any info.

br

Roger

 

Welcome to AAC.

Whether you can charge the cell from the terminals will depend on how the manufacturer chose to implement the on-board charging port, so the answer is “maybe”. Because of the technicalities of constructing a practical cell (or battery, which what you call combining two.or more cells) the answer can be provisionally promoted to “probably”.

Now, you can take that “probably“ and get yes or no if you are willing to take the small but real risk that the manufacturer cut corners or used an incompetent design and simply try. Even in the case where something about the cell’s configuration prevents charging, there should be no ill effects from putting it in a charger. Should being the operative word.

The best route is to ask the manufacturer. They might say ”no” ever when that’s not true but I doubt they’d say “yes” if it’s going to cause damage, fire, explosion—or a warranty return.

 

Based on the USB-C specification (https://www.usb.org/sites/default/files/USB Type-C Spec R2.0 - August 2019.pdf) and the photo, there is a charger inside the battery case - this charger is important to assure that the battery charges properly and safely (does not turn into an armed firebomb).

The charger expects between 5.25 volts and 4.5 volts at its input. I would not mess around with adapters so it works from other power sources - USB phone chargers are common, most are safe, and easy to use.

 

Thanks for the info

 

I agree that you should use only a USB-C connection, as that battery has a built-in charge circuit.
Anything else would likely damage the battery and/or cause a fire.

 

I agree that you should use only a USB-C connection, as that battery has a built-in charge circuit.
Anything else would likely damage the battery and/or cause a fire.

Actually, though there is no doubt concerning the built in charge controller, that doesn’t preclude the viability of charging via the cell’s terminals. What I would expect is a protection board in series with the + or - terminal that handle over-voltage, under-voltage, and over-current; and a charge controller in parallel with the cell separately, effectively a “bolt-on” to the normal cell.

The charge controller necessary must be able to handle the 4.2V maximum charging voltage appliefed to its output since a charged battery does that—a charger design for the terminals will never apply more that that. So, unless the manufacturer did something very odd, it would work. But, as I said above, it is not a zero risk situation.