Battery Charging

[Blade]

Ok so here is the thing. I currently have a 7.4v 2600mA 18650 Li-ion battery and a Huazhou Electronic ZAT-103 AC Adapter Battery Charger 7.2V 250mA. Can I use this to charge my battery pack.. It is a smart charger with an indicator that shuts off when the battery has finished its charge. Normally used to charge a 9.6v NiCo Battery pack.

[Whi-ja]

Actually, I'd like a solid answer from the electronics whizzes here. My understanding is as follows:

YES, you can use the charger: all that is really required is more voltage from the charger than the battery outputs. That being said, while you may use the charger to charge the battery pack, it is not recommended, as the smart charge circuit will not recognize that the 7.4V battery is fully charged: the charger will "try" to get a 9.6V reading back, and the 7.4V battery will not trigger the same level of resistance and signal shutoff. If you do use the charger, time the charges carefully (number of mAh desired to charge / 250mA = # hours to charge the battery).

Hopefully, someone can correct or confirm this for me. But you should be fine.

[Jay-gon Jinn]

If that battery charger is designed for ni-cad or nimh, you shouldn't use it for li-ions. The charging styles are different (It has to do with fhe frequency of the charge pulse) and using that on you li-ion pack could damage the pack. Only use a dedicated li-ion charger for li-ion cells.