The post discusses a simple NiCd charger circuit with an automatic overcharge protection and a constant current charging.
When it comes to correctly charging a Nickel-Cadmium cell, it is strictly recommended that the charging process is halted or cut off as soon as it reaches the full charge level. Not following this may adversely affect the working life of the cell, reducing its backup efficiency significantly.
The simple Ni-Cad charger circuit presented below effectively tackles the overcharging criterion by including facilities like a constant current charging as well as cutting off the supply when the cell terminal reaches the full charge value.
Main Features and Advantages
- Automatic cut off at full charge level
- Constant current throughout the charging.
- LED indication for full charge cut off.
- Allows the user to add more stages for charging up to 10 NiCd cells simultaneously.
Circuit Diagram
How it Works
The simple configuration detailed here is designed to charge a single 500 mAh 'AA' cell with the recommended charge rate of close to 50 mA, nonetheless it could conveniently be customized cheaply to charge several cells together by repeating the area shown in dotted lines.
Supply voltage for the circuit is acquired from a transformer, bridge rectifier and 5 V IC regulator.
The cell is charged with a T1 transistor which is configured like a constant current source.
T1 on the other hand is controlled by a voltage comparator using a TTL Schmitt trigger N1. During the time the cell charges the terminal voltage of the cell is held at around 1.25 V.
This level appears to be lower than the positive trigger threshold of N1, which keeps the output of N1 high, and the output of N2 becomes low, enabling T1 to get the base bias voltage through the potential divider R4/R5.
As long as the Ni-Cd cell gets charged the LED D1 remains illuminated. As soon as the cell gets close to the full charge status its terminal voltage climbs to approximately 1.45 V. Due to this, the positive trigger threshold of N1 rises causing the output of N2 to go high.
This situation instantly turns off T1. The cell now stops charging and also the LED D1 is shut off.
Since the positive activation limit of N1 is approximately 1.7 V and it is controlled by a specific tolerance, R3 and P1 are incorporated to alter it to 1.45 V. The negative trigger limit of the Schmitt trigger is around 0.9 V, which happens to be lower than the terminal voltage of even a completely discharged cell.
This implies that connecting a discharged cell in circuit will never trigger the charging to initiate automatically. For this reason a start button S1 is included which, when pressed, takes the input of NI low.
To charge more number of cells the portion of the circuit revealed in the dotted box may be repeated separately, one for each battery.
This ensures that, regardless of the discharge levels of the cells, each one of them is individually charged to the correct level.
PCB Design and Component Overlay
In the PCB design below two stages are duplicated for enabling two Nicad cells to be charged simultaneously from a single board set up.
My wife has become a huge fan of the multi-LED string lights powered by a small solar panel charging a single AA NiCad. Several of these strings have failed due to faulty charging and more seem to require battery replacement more often. I am pretty handy with project boxes and a soldering iron. Do you have a circuit design that I could use and replaces the charging and control?
Thanks!
Mike
Hi, You can try the following simpler design, I’ll update the explanation sometime later.
The R1 selection table is given below:
Sir can u pls make a circuit for 7.5v with 500 mA output for my Ni-Cd cell .
Vikra, you can try implementing one of these concepts:
https://www.homemade-circuits.com/simple-voltage-regulator-circuits-using-transistor-and-zener-diode/
Hello good afternoon I am a faithful follower of the website. I want to know if you have a circuit to charge 1.5V and 9v alkaline batteries. Thank you.
Carlos of Buenos Aires Argentina.
Hello Carlos, sorry I do not have a circuit to charge dry batteries.
Dear Sir. Now I got a great teacher like you. Thank you very much. As I am a hobbyist and not a well trained person in electronics, I need assistance from you to understand the working and construction of the circuits. For the last few days I came to contact with you and regularly seeking help to make the circuits and you quickly solved my problems. Now I am a big fan of yours.
Your NI-CD charger is good I will certainly make it. But now a days cell 18650 is being widely used in solar based and circuits. Please publish a solar panel charger charging the cell 18650.
Please I tell that to charge a cell 18650 (2100mah) what should be parameters for solar panel
that is how much volt and amp/watt should be given by the solar panel to charge the cell 18650 and what is time required to charge the cell 18650. If you provide the information regarding solar panel, it will be very easy to purchase a suitable and correct solar panel.
One more suggestion and I am sure that your subscriber and hobbyist will be very much benefitted. There are large No of places which are not well connected with the electronics components markets and it is very difficult to get the desired components and and due to non availability of the components we could not make the circuit. If you can provide the components, on price, required for the circuits to the subscriber if they demand, it will be great
help to them. Thanks again.
Thank you Dear AK Goel,
I have an article published in this website regarding the mentioned cell, you can read it here:
https://www.homemade-circuits.com/18650-2600mah-battery-datasheet-and-working/
You can easily charge a 18650 cell from a solar panel through an LM317 regulator circuit by setting its output voltage to 4.1 V.
The solar panel should be rated 7 V/ 1 Amp minimum.
There are already many online stores from where the parts can be purchased cheaply. You can buy them from popular stores like amazon, aliexpress etc quite reasonably. I myself purchase the parts from these sellers, and so far there hasn’t been any issue with them.
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