LiitoKala Lii-500S teardown - Not so great
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 เม.ย. 2021
- Compared to the XTAR VP4+ it is a steaming turd. It does cost about half as much, but that extra cost is sooo worth it! The 500S is a very cheap cell tester! I'll sending it back and getting another VP4+!!!
12v @ 3A = 36W = up to 9A at 4v ;) but other than that brain fart, I love the video
The power supply seems fine, 12V/3A is more than enough to supply 4.5V/4A or whatever is needed to charge 4 cells with 1A. I can see those 4x THT electrolytic footprints unpopulated (C11, C25, C17, C5) so I guess they're saving on capacitors, but have you checked EMI to get an idea how bad it is? Don't think it affects battery charging performance in any way.
Feel free to buy all the LiitoKala products there are and save the rest of us from these steaming turds.
Yes, you are correct. 12v 3a is 36 watts, plenty to power that charger if it only uses 5w x 4 channel for charging. I can only assume he was thinking 5v 3a (15 watts) which would not support the charger.
There's no way to tell they are 1% or 5% SMD resistors, because they looks like the same.
yep, and in his video he said there was a 12V to 5V buck converter, so 12V3A is plenty power to driver the charger. It’s not a 5V regulator!
This is true, but it could have supported 4 channels at 2A each, and after charging losses, 12V/3A is not enough for that, and even if it barely were, I'd still like a lot more margin for good life, like around a 5A charger. The thing is, AC/DC wall warts are a commodity item where the cost goes up quite a bit just for a 5A charger. They are typically not even available in the wall outlet plug pack format unless very crude/minimalized designs, so ultimately the more cost effective thing would have been to just integrate the 5A supply into the charger itself, but even this raises cost on what was one of the most cost effective chargers out there for the feature set, setting aside its predecessor the Lii-500 (non-S) model.
The power supply can handle the current no problem being it is 12v can do 3 amps at 4v can do around 9 amps. As far as IR even my SkyRC does a poor job on that as all two wire/contacts based measurement type of chargers do. You also have to consider heat and also contact of batteries will affect measurements greatly. I use a 4 wire bench meter for that and when batteries are fully charged. On the lii600 they added the capacitors for better noise filtering. I have a few of them and did modify them and run them off high current bench supply. I had a couple fail as well as two dragons vp4 plus fail as even a SkyRC fail so they all break pretty much after harsh usage as built e-Bike battery packs.
I do agree the Dragon vp4 plus chargers are definitely better as far as being beefed up but also double the price pretty much and at that price spend the extra and get a SkyRC MC3000 for not much more? Just get the later revision SkyRC as early ones plastic post fail and you have to take apart and put spring though PCB and glue in place.
Spring clips for Ir testing is terrible and unreliable and 2 wire...all the wrong ways to do Ir measuring! VP4+ is a 4 wire Ir meter. MC3000 is decent hardware with a terrible implementation that makes it unusable and 2 wire Ir. Stick with the VP4+. IMHO, for now at least, it's the best of all options I know of. I recently discovered the Epoch X4 Touch. I haven't tried one, so I can't say if it's any good or not, but it appears to be 4 wire Ir.
@@de-bodgery
I was almost going to buy the Epoch touch x4. Only reason didn’t was the 500ma discharge as like to discharge at 1 amp. 500ma will be fine, less heat, less modifications to cool them and quieter, so long it good quality? The VP4+ beside bench meter is only decent way to get a IR measurement. That one thing hate about the SkyRC and other two wire spring contact based chargers. The SkyRC makes up for it in other ways.
I might still buy the Epoch X4 as very curious and no detail testing, or tear down on it? I planning on doing battery build videos to teach others how to test cells and build pack’s for E-Bike and power walls. So may do a tear down and test of one. As been eyeing that charger for over a year. It is a EBL charger as the original manufacturer and 18650 Battery Store rebadged it for themselves as a house brand. It is a EBL TC-X Pro. People stay they are not the same, it is just one use USB for IR test leads while other has PC link. Same manufacturer.
@@de-bodgery
I just bought both the EBL on eBay as seller had 4 of them now 3 of them and ordered the epoch x4 touch charger off 18650 Battery store. I want to see what changes they made and revisions? Also overall build quality and components used. Hoping it isn’t crap? One uses the USB port for IR test leads while the EBL for PC link?
@@de-bodgery Do you throw away cells if your ir is inaccurate? I keep using them as long as they get the job done, so don't really care how accurate that measurement is. Frankly I don't have the time to bother with such trivia, but do (every now and then) let chargers do a capacity test. Plus do you recognize that many of the higher capacity cells, by default have higher ir?
@@stinkycheese804There is a BIG difference between an incorrect Ir reading and a cell with high Ir. One is a failure of the test equipment and the other is a failing cell! Cell Ir goes up as the cell ages and it's chemistry is no longer as reactive. Ir can also increase as lithium builds up on the anode and cathode with repeated use. Cell capacity also drops with cell aging. I tend to keep cells around that are better than 70% of original capacity. The cells lesser than that get recycled. Those old cells still work for flash lights and other low use devices. For EV's, they are no longer useful as the discharge and capacity demands are too high for those old cells. What you call "trivia", I call important facts that tell me a lot about cell health! Cell Ir does vary from one cell model to another. Big cells tend to have lower Ir than small cells if they are all new, but not always. There's a lot of details that weigh into why one cell has more internal resistance than another.
Made me think! Have that one and am now thinking of getting a different one
XTAR VP4+...the rest are junk.
Thanks for the heads up!
@@de-bodgery VP4+ is junk compared to MC3000.
@@SulevI'd agreee with you on build quality and features. The MC3000 is pretty nice in those regards. What it lacks is actual functionality that can be used. Mine has been a headache and useless since the day I got it. I love all the stuff it can supposedly do, but it never finishes a single test run on cells! So despite all those cool features and good build, it's actually worse than the VP4+ which does actually deliver on functionality and the MC3000 does not.
@@de-bodgery My MC3000 has finished every test program it started without a problem. Either you are doing something wrong, you have defective unit or you are bsing. VP4+ isn't suitable for industrial grade cell matching measurements since voltage and current is not calibratable and custom programs cannot be created. Therefore MC3000 accuracy and capability is superior over VP4+.
Hey there, el caps are just for filtering?? It can be replaced w >uF ?
Agreed
@@de-bodgery Mamma mia santa luchia , this was a Q. Any way soldered 2 x10uF Cer caps , +1 at CPU (16-100 replaced w 25-100 from board backside ) got a little better result at charge "infinite banks" (w a shty mOM parr) ps i have 500lii not 500s
Have 50+ lii 500’s in our battery testing lab have not had any failures in any of the chargers in over 3 years fortunately..
Really? How old are they? My single Lii-500S was purchased in 2021. It is no longer usable for accurate capacity testing. It's essentially just a charger now. I also have 8 Lii-600 testers and 3 of those have done the exact same thing as my Lii-500S. They are no longer accurate for capacity testing. They were all purchased 2021. Perhaps IF your Liito Kala cell testers are old...like before the chip shortages...maybe they are much better made with a better grade of components? Maybe Liito changed the design and you have a more expensive/more reliable older design and they hacked out whatever amount of quality was in them just to increase their profit margins. Perhaps you don't know that your cell testers are working correctly? Perhaps you use them for charging only and not for actual capacity testing by charging, discharging and charging again in the TEST mode?
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Lots of unknowns about your Lii-500S cell testers. I can tell you becasue I've compared cell capacity results across multiple cell testers that my Lii-500S is way off with capacity results. I would not call bad capacity results a "failure" persay. It still does test mode, just not with accurate results.
R150 = 0.15Ohm = 150mOhm.
What size caps would you put in those locations?
Highest capacity that you can fit.
@@polluxcastor1143 More like high temperature rated, very low ESR rated, and a couple hundred uF would be fine. No need to go overboard and absolutely do not try to put in the highest capacity you can fit which just causes an unnecessarily high inrush current. Batteries do not need 0.0% ripple during charging. Frankly the charger doesn't even need those caps, or else they would have had their positions populated. It is common to engineer in space for caps then through testing, if it is determined that they aren't needed, then they aren't used.
If you are really itching to mod yours, may I suggest adding some vent holes and a small, low speed fan on the bottom? This would help the most during discharge phase of capacity testing but they get a little warm during 1A charging as well, but so do many chargers w/o fans. It's not as though I'm trying to single out the Lii-500S in this regard.
i have lii500 - there are those current sensing 0.3 ohm R300 resistors, one resistor is burned, now i don't know wattage of those, should i order 1W 2W or 3W .... plz reply if you know
The solder pads are larger than the resistors on them. Go with the highest wattage that will fit on the solder pads. IF the new ones are like 4w and the ones there now are like 2W, you'll double the heat tolerance of the part, but not effect it's resistance. In current sensing in this application the resistance is what matters the most and the wattage just needs to be high enough to handle the current load without burning out. As you can see Liito Kala went for too low of a wattage and you cooked yours probably doing really ordinary things. One more reason why I say these are cheap cell testers and not very good.
@@de-bodgery thank you so much. Now I know higher wattage Resistor won’t mess with readings. I will order 3W - thank you
@@JawadAhmadsahibzada In electronics components wattage is about heat tolerance usually. In a resistor, and that is all this is, more wattage means more heat tolerance. The resistance value does not change.
@@de-bodgery thank you so much
i own a vp+ and it's a failure, it failed 2x in a row in a time window of 2 3 months, it got it fixed on warraty once and 2nd time i didn't bother sending it, so i'm pretty sure i would't recomand that garbage. And first time cought fire charging at 1A(and yes, it was plugged in a UPS that knows AVR), both times all ports failed, they charge thin air.
Now i use a miboxer c4-12 and that cheapy works like a champ for few years, but still, i miss the discharge future
The Lii-500S cell tester is pretty cheaply made. I can't really recommend them.
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I have 2 VP4+ if that is what a "vp+" is and they are great. I've had no issues with either of them. If you are referring to the VP4+, perhaps you had an early one and they had some kind of design flaw that is now fixed? Maybe there was a quality control issue at the factory that has now been remedied? My oldest one is from January 2021 and the other from April 2021. Both have been running non stop since I got them. I've been capacity testing 18650's and 21700's without issues. You might want to give a new one a shot. I'd say they are the best cell tester I've ever seen.
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Another option that IMHO is not quite as good as the VP4+ is the Opus BT - C3100. It's only capable of testing 18650's or smaller cells. It's slower despite claiming the same current capabilities as the VP4+. The general design is more cheaply made. Still...it's a pretty close second place winner to the VP4+ which I really like. Try out one of them possibly. Inside the bottom cover is a small slider switch for changing the cell chemistry from LION to LIFE. This is kind of a cool feature, but its odd that they buried the switch where you have to take apart the charger to get to it. I have a bunch of A123 LIFE cells and intend to put them through my Opus to see their capacities once I run out of LION cells to test. This is something the VP4+ can't do!
@@de-bodgery @De-bodgery @De-bodgery the vp4+ i've got was like 5y back, perhaps was an early version, i don't know, but for sure i've expect from a 100$ charger to not get in flames with 2 new vtc6 batterys charging at 1A, thank god i was around and saw it, otherwise could be a mess, both devices had same problem, they were charging thin air(they were charging with no batterys inserted. After the warranty return it worked for like a month or so and same issue, since then it's sitting somewhere around, i've ordered the miboxer and pretty pleased with it(i use the charger only to charge my 18650s for my vape) but i kinda miss the discharge function as i could test my batterys from the diverse projects i make.
Indeed the Lii 500s looks cheaped out and it's expensive
@@kyme32
They have gone down in price...$75 now on Amazon or Ebay.
5 years ago...a lot can change in that much time! I bet you got a very early version and XTAR has since fixed the issues with them. My circuit board has a date code of 20200317 on it. That's much newer than yours!
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Just my opinion maybe, but I have used, tested and purchased a LOT of chargers over the years and the one I like best is the VP4+ for testing cells. It's easy to use and all you need to do is put in another set of cells and it goes right to work testing them. Other cell testers need to be set up again for every set of cells. The current VP4+ just works and capacity results are pretty reliable. I would not judge the current product by much older versions!
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The VP4+ has room for improvement:
1. I'd really like the LCD to display cell voltages.
2. There's lots of display space. I'd like to see all 4 cells status on screen at the same time.
3. I'd like the plug in probes used for testing Ir and cell voltage to be included in each cells status info. ISDT, iCharger and others can do this. Why can't XTAR include this for each channel too?
4. I'd like to see an 8 and 16 channel cell tester based on the VP4+.
5. I'd like to see the VP4+ support rechargeable 9v batteries in their various forms and chemistries.
Well rats. I’ve been scouring yt for videos to help me decide on a decent 18650 battery charger and had it narrowed down to the xtar dragon vp4 plus and the EBL tc-x pro. I was kinda choking on the price, then stumbled across a review of the Lii600. It was $25 cheaper than the xtar and $55 cheaper than the EBL so I ordered the Lii600.
Wish I’d seen this video before I ordered it. I’ll bet the components are similar to the Lii500s that you tore down here. Debating about returning the Lii600 and paying the difference for the xtar. Couldn’t find much of any info on that EBL charger which looked really nice. As it should for $130 before any discounts.
I don't know anything about the Lii600. But for $75....maybe return it and get an XTAR VP4+ since they are the same price. I can tell you the VP4+ is pretty solid. I have 2 of them...that should say something! The VP4+ does more stuff than the Lii600. Charging at 3 amps is somewhat compelling and the VP4+ can only do 2 amps on the outer 2 cells. I'd love to see a tear down of the Lii600. Hopefully it's not a steaming turd like the Lii500 is! The DC input is 2.5 amps. I suspect that the Lii600 won't EVER charge more than one cell at 3 amps. I might have to get one just so I can evaluate it.
@@de-bodgery
The discharge current seems tied into the charge current and varies from 250/500/750 ma. Not sure how many batteries can be charged at 3A. I like the battery temp and IR data. Have to wonder how the IR numbers compare to using the test leads on the xtar. For $50, it seemed a reasonable buy. But not if the components are crap.
@@speedlever Lots of chargers work this way...set all 4 channels to 1 amp and you have a 2.5amp limit from the PSU. Of course you are not going to charge at a total of 4 amps. The Lii600 will be no different. The VP4+ is not an exception either. So for Liitto Kala to brag that you can charge at 3 amps...well they are NOT being truthful! They are avoiding the fact that the PSU is limited to 2.5 amps and therefore no channel can charge at 3 amps! 2.5 amps for 1 channel...well sure, but the other 3 channels won't be charging at all in that case. I think I'll get one...see how it goes...
@@de-bodgery
How accurate is the internal resistance measurement of the Lii500s compared to the Dragon? Are the probes on the Dragon more accurate? Or have you noticed any difference?
@@de-bodgery
Here’s an English review that compares the 500, 500s, and the 600.
th-cam.com/video/dwSFxFNCS4M/w-d-xo.html
keep watching or at least reading my video list. you'll see.
nice to see a teardown
Z tvojho prejavu musí byť každý nervózny. Prečo to stále chytáš do rúk a pohaduješ s tým? Tiež by si sa mohol skľudniť.
Google translate: "Everyone must be nervous about your speech. Why are you still holding it in your hands and arguing with it? You could also calm down."
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Interesting perspective. Who's upset and needs to calm down? Who is arguing with the charger board? The nervous people should be LiitoKala for making such a low quality charger! It does work...so there is that, but it's pretty looooooooow quality!
I have a much cheaper Lii-s4 and just died and cannot charge the batteries 😭 I only used that once or twice a month for my Fujitsu pros (similar to eneloop pros) and just a couple of lions as well. but it suddenly malfunctioning and stopped charged them. What a waste of money 💰 i stay away from liitoshit from now on 👎 At first I thought that because its the cheap one from them but i found out that even their high end models are not great and reliable too 👎 and they are looks like the knock offs of nitcore because the similarities of yellow boxes and overall looks.
I tear it apart too and it just contain a small board with a retention springs soldered. Thats it! And just one small electrolytic cap sitting just next the usb port. I suspected that cap is the causing the failure but I dont have a replacement and do not bother at all. I am looking forward for some legit nitcores or step up on opus or even some imax b6 just for capacity test.
Liito Kala products of all kinds are not very good or reliable. This Lii-500S is no longer usable for capacity testing. It still charges, but that's all it is good for now. I have 8 Lii-600 cell testers. They were all purchased in August 2021. 3 of them no longer do capacity testing and 5 are still working OK. Fingers crossed they last a year! Liito Kala makes garbage! When I made this video, I was looking at the circuit board and already saying it was junk.
@@de-bodgery Oh and you bought 8 of them good luck 😅Anyway do you have the opus c3100 before? I do some research and many people said its a reliable charger with a accurate measurements. I am looking forward to own one of those or just straight to the imax b6 for future projects. btw i am not a battery geek but I found out some interesting things to try since computer parts nowadays are too much expensive and hard to find 😁
@@ibringthelastwords1358 YUP! bought 8 before i knew just how shitty they are! I had an Opus C3100. I gave it away. I found the design to be quite old and clunky. You can't test but 2 21700's in it at a time and that was a show stopper for me. I bought one to evaluate so I could test 18650's and 21700's. At the time I had 900 21700's to test and I could only use the 2 outer bays on the C3100. Like I said it is quite dated. It worked OK, but I did not keep it long term. The user interface is clunky, low res, hard to read LCD and the design has not changed a lick since they first came out. Opus was the first company to make a real cell tester and frankly they never improved or tried again. Now days there is lots of competition in this market and Opus is still sitting on its ass and not making an updated cell tester. I used the one I bought for about a month and a friend needed a cell tester so I gave it to him. I tried getting a B6 and couldn't find them. By then I had 2 XTAR VP4+ testers and I had already seen them do everything I needed and do it reliably. I know they are somewhat expensive, but the best bang for the buck with the most features and solid reliability is the XTAR VP4+.
@@de-bodgery Thats nice to hear from an expert like you 😁I also considering the dragon but the price is too high for a 4 slots charger. Maybe it i can grab them for a much reasonable price then I definitely buy one.