Golisi i1





Golisi have got a simple one slot charger, but with a a better readout than usual.



It arrived in a black very stylish cardboard box, there is some specifications on the back.



The box included a bag for the charger.



The total contents of the box was the charger, the bag, a usb cable and a instruction sheet.



The charger is usb powered and can use up to 2A.



The user interface is a single button and a small display.
Fast presses on the button will change between Volt, mAh and time readout, it will also turn the display on when it is off.
A long press will enable current adjustment.



All segment on the display.



The 3 different readouts (I never got around to remove the protection foil on the display).



On the bottom of the charger there are specifications.



The slots uses the classical slider construction and it works fine.
The slots can work from 32 mm to 71.5mm. This nearly covers anything.







The charger can handle 70 mm long batteries including flat top cells.

All sized NiMH will fit in the charger, but the NiMH charge current is rather low!
As long as the D cell has a flat top it will just about fit.



Measurements

• Idle current is about 30mA from usb
• Discharge LiIon battery with 0.3mA when not connected to power.
• Discharge NiMH battery with 0.03mA when not connected to power.
• When power is connected with a full battery, it will charge with about 0.3mA.
• Below 0.3 volt the charger will report error
• Below 1.6V the charger will assume NiMH
• Between 1.6V and 2.2V the charger will not charge.
• Above 2.2V the charger will assume LiIon.
• Below about 0.7 volt the voltmeter is not very precise.
• Display turns off after 30 seconds.
• Voltmeter is within 0.01V
• Voltmeter stops updating when charging is stopped and will not show above 4.20V
• NiMH is always charged at 0.5A
• Charger will not restart when voltage drops.
• It will restart charging on reinsertion of the battery or power cycling.

Charging LiIon

Charge current is 0.5A, 1A and 2A, charger always starts at 0.5A



A nice CC/CV charge curve with termination around 120mA
Display shows: 3308mAh in 3:50



This older cell also charges fine, but has large voltage drop at the end.
Display shows: 2852mAh in 3:40



The 2600mAh cell is nicely charged.
Display shows: 2643mAh in 3:21



The old cell is also nicely charged
Display shows: 2206mAh in 4:00



At also this smaller cell at 0.5A.
Display shows: 754mAh in 1:44



The charge also handles this very old and worn down cell nicely.
Display shows: 177mAh in 0:42



Also 2A charging works fine.



Especially with a cell that is rated for high current charging.
Display shows: 3189mAh in 1:54



Adding a 0.5ohm resistor in series with the power simulated a weak usb supply or long usb cable, the charger works slower, but will charge the cell.
Display shows: 3276mAh in 4:26



M1: 37,3°C, M2: 39,5°C, HS1: 52,6°C



HS1: 53,7°C



The charger needs about 4 seconds to initialize. Notice the pulses during charge, it looks like this charger use some sort of simulated CC/CV, this do also fit with the final charge voltage that varies slightly.



The current can be changed at any time.



Charging NiMH

Charge current is always 0.5A with NiMH



The NiMH charger current is a bit low, but it terminates fine on with a nice -dv/dt (or maybe 0dv/dt) termination.
Display shows: 2079mAh in 4:19



Nice charging and termination.
Display shows: 2681mAh in 5:34



Again nice charging and termination.
Display shows: 3266mAh in 6:47



With the AAA cell is it a -dv/dt curve.
Display shows: 800mAh in 1:39



This type of termination is a bit slow to detect a full cell, there it takes nearly 20 minutes.
Display shows: 159mAh in 0:19



Simulating the weak power supply do not affect NiMH charging.
Display shows: 2008mAh in 4:10



M1: 29,3 , HS1: 37,9
At this low current there is not much heat.



NiMH also needs about 3 seconds to initialize.



As usual with NiMH chargers the charging is pulsed, here the voltage is checked each 10 seconds.




Conclusion

This is a nice "little" charger, I like it has capacity and voltage display, but the digits are rather small. The current selection also means a good and not too slow charge current for most LiIon cell, but the 0.5A for NiMH is too low.
I am not that happy about the display turning off, this requires a button press to see if the charger is done or just to check how far it is in charging.

I will call this charge a good one.



Notes

The charger was supplied by Golisi for review.

Here is an explanation on how I did the above charge curves: How do I test a charger