What's inside IKEA Stenkol charger 

Always look forward to these, thank you :) I just graduated from electrical engineering and now starting work this week at a PCB manufacturing company. Your videos are the only thorough explanations of exploring practical circuits and understanding how their components work so its been very useful. Unfortunate that my school didnt have enough practical content like this! Stay safe and have a great day :)

Got to love the name, Stenkol. Someone at IKEA had a sense of humor.

Stenkol is Swedish for black (bituminous) coal, ie the kind of coal usually extracted from deep underground mines

And now I'm waiting teardown video of the new oscilloscope :D

The retail price for this charger in IKEA is a ridiculously low £4.50 GBP. I do wonder if it is been sold at cost to encourage battery sales. At twice the price it looks a good quality device.

Torx is so much better than pozi/philips! I'm always happy to find them, because there is a lower chance of stripping the screw heads. Even with a cheap chinesium set of bits, torx is easier to use.

Now I'm very impressed that the charger is so cheap, considering what's inside it.

3.19 best bit. The cat is the star of all your videos. :)

Thanks for that. I bought one recently and it seems good, unbelievable amount of circuitry in there for such a low price.

The problem with the "new" types of LEDs is that manufacturers just pass the same amount of current through them as they would for the old types - so they turn into flashlights instead of indicators. For the new ones, 160uA or so is more than enough as an indicator. Even as low as 5uA can be enough. But they use 10mA, which is insane.

Of course I’m always pleased to see your cat! And you were OK too! Its the Best day when you upload a new videos!

Whenever I see those 4 legged ICs I hear your voice in my head saying "optocooopler". Great video as always ;)

Hello, Diode! I love when you post new videos.

I am amused by your "new" oscilloscope, is that front port a floppy disk drive? Could you use it to capture some samples? I bet you'd have some working floppys laying around along with some drives

A hint on those old Tek scopes. Enable the 20MHz BW limiter for your 2 inputs. You do not need the full bandwidth for measuring switching supplies and the trace looks a lot cleaner. Also, I forgot the exact name of it, but if you change the sample size in the trigger menu from 10k points to 500 points, the waveform update/refresh rate is vastly increased looking a lot more like an analog scope, except the fine zoom-in resolution after you freeze a snapshot will not be as fine.

I think that the "noise problem" (15:16) on your oscilloscope is aliased noise because the oscilloscope is undersampling when in scrolling mode. Later(17:54) it works fine.

IKEA “brand” seems to care for a minimum of Quality and Performance. In this case here the Battery chargers seem quite GOOD. However, I have 1 concern: I did not research the influence of PULSED current where the instantaneous CURRENT is more than 4 TIMES the AVERAGE. Maybe it creates gassing, but depending on pulse duration, battery CHEMISTRY may recombine the gases (or not…). Just guessing, comments and replies for further discussions are appreciated, or maybe even another video. Thanks for sharing, @DiodeGoneWild!

This is a charger review video, was hoping to see the rare and elusive "Nice" verdict at the end of the video!

Excellent video as all ways, thank you!

It is reassuring to see what a properly built power supply (and charger) looks like as there are far too many "dodgy" devices in the supply chain!

That is such a sophisticated charger

Great Scope! You deserve a lot more donations, an Isolation Tester for example or a "FLIR" IR-Cam. 🙂 Love your channel! 👍

I only buy chargers that charge each battery separately any more. Great tip on heat sink compound to bring out lettering on ICs. Never thought about that.

thats a nice day Bcuz my favourite channel posted a nice video again 👍thank sir and thanks to engineer Cat for schematics 🐱

For a low cost manufacturing operation, torx can actually save everyone a lot of headache. Our company's current product formerly used all internal hex (allen) screws, and the internal hex drive is very easy to destroy if there is not a perfect match between the driver and the slot. Torx is much more forgiving when it comes to that. Phillips screws have basically been obsolete for quite a long time--they were designed for a time when pneumatic screwdrivers had just been invented, but no one had yet come up with a torque limiting device, so Phillips screws are designed to have inherent torque limiting. Nowadays there's no point to that. If I need to open something up, I would rather the screws be Torx, because I can easily apply a lot of torque to loosen the screw if it has gotten stuck. With Allen or Phillips I might be in for a tougher time--the Allen can easily just be mushed into a circle and lose its engagement, while with Phillips you have to apply downward pressure and then it also might round off. Another advantage of Torx over hex drive is you don't have two different sets of sizes to deal with.

It could be charging the batteries in pulses to better measure their voltages, NiMH batteries actually lower their voltage near 100% SoC. Ending the charging by this voltage drop is better than using the temperature method

15:40 i love the osciloscope with floppy drive

Sir, you are tank of knowledge.

Hi Diode very interesting video! I have one of those alkaline battery chargers that works and it would be a great idea to analyze one of those on one of your videos. Keep up the great work!

Thanks for the look inside of this IKEA Steenkool charger. I was thinking it can't be any good bc of the low price, but it turns out to be a very decent charger. Probably with -dV/dt cutoff. I'll buy one or more now that I know.

Great video. I love the new scope. If you don't mind me asking, where are you from? Your accent is very hypnotic. I mean that in a good way.

I've seen the red/white leds in a couple lights on bigclive's channel. Also looks like the LEDs are center positive, you could rotate them 180° so red is the normal colour and white is error, which would make it more pleasant at night unless there's an error :P

Nice oscilloscope. I like it!

@2:08 - I have a power band that is that way. Lights the entire room. I go around my room with shiny, metal tape to cover any and all flashing or glowing lights. Even the ones on power strips and wall warts get covered.

Very well explained

Thank you Dany ☺️ >> Please people support this man, you can also send something, he will take it apart and examine whether it is GOOD 👍 or DODGY 👎

Put a bit of painter's tape over the LEDs, kills their brightness right down and you can pick your color. Hot Glue is also good, but harder to remove and/or replace.

That charger is much smarter than I expected it to be.

Nice video when I see IKEA I thought you will find in the box the chargeur parts with the pcb and a cheap soldering iron .

can you do a test with the Panasonic BQ-CC55 ? It's now the best to buy AAA & AA charger

I was expecting to see unrolling of the transformer coils.... Other than that, excellent video as always.

A suggestion for a Special Video(s): Brand view, as IKEA = here was the Battery charger, in the past the 5V USB charger (3 port). Both seem well constructed, cost competitive and share some design similarities - at least in terms of electrical protection, design concept (channel independence, etc) and other design drivers - could raise some interesting discussions. Thanks!

Nice review video

just loved it , if the Item does not say "don't open", we should open

Can you make a video on liner power supply V&A controlled

I have come across an LED driver that runs on universal mains, output is about 45 watts, 3.8 A. Strange thing is I think it uses an IGBT as a regulator. I’d love to see a video on such a driver.

Funny I am a carpenter not an electrician or electronics specialist but I enjoy your videos and have learned so much from you and a couple others that I actually can take something apart now and sometimes diagnose what has gone wrong amazing and thanks for all your hard work and great videos.

In most digital oscilloscopes under 50mv you have noise. You need to short the prob ground but some times will help some times not to much.

What a Kafkaesque design :D It could be SOOOOO much simpler.

I had those two color leds 3 yrs ago red amd green in one

Добрый день! подскажите, в этом зарядном заряд идет для каждого аккумулятора отдельно или для пары, соединенной последовательно? В моем устройстве работают три аккумулятора и боюсь что оставшийся один заряженный, при следующей зарядке будет портить картину.

I was expecting a comment on the surface mounted spark gap visible at 22:01. This is mounted between the primary to secondary. Notice the absence of solder resist.

Like your videos like always (:

23:15 Can't wait for testing the new Lidl accus i see in this clip curious of the capacity ...

Nice new digital scope! You should be happy with it but the old analog scope is more fun

I use fine felt tip sharpie marker, to dab a bit of ink on the LEDs. I do this with all of my devices that have bright indicator lights. Its still clearly visible, But will be dimmer, so it doesn’t bother you when sleeping in a dark room. This is especially helpful for car chargers and things plugged into the cigarette lighter inside a vehicle. Because when driving at night, some of these modern bright indicator lights can blind you!

Excellent analysis. How does it regulate the current going into each/all batteries? Why does it charge one cell at 50% duty cycle?

Why did they shrink wrap the inrush resistor thermal fuse, and not the MOV? What are the chances of a resistor exploding? My guess is that the resistor will pop at 125ºC and they wanted to mark it on the piece? Usually MOVs are shrink tubed as they sometimes explode from lightening strikes.

11:48 finger near live terminal. Eagerly waiting for spark.

I wonder if theese pulsating charging destroyes the batteries quicker than charging with constant voltage.

Ikea always sells products with very complex but intelligently designed circuits. I buy USB chargers at Ikea, because they are well built and very safe compared to other brands.

Do these Stenkol chargers trickle charge after finishing charging?

Is this the package from Lithuania caught by customs? I am really curious what happened with it?

I have problems with this changer and IKEA LADDA 900 AAA batteries no. 23076. Almost all get blinking red ligth (error), while my old ikea charger works fine (Ikea Ladda YH-990BF). Seems this charger is more "strict" somehow? I do feel the IKEA LADDA 900 AAA batteries get a bit hot during charging in Ikea Ladda YH-990BF so maybe STENKOL incorrectly detect this as error. but just guessing. Edit: so also guessing, when detecting heat is should have reduced changing current\duty cycle instead of just going into error mode. A design error IMO. But where are these heat sensors?

wow well built design! Though I think there was alot of engineering that went into something that uses PWM charging to the batteries, I will stick with a nicer charger that uses buck regulators and constant current control.

You should activate the 20MHz limit bandwidth to lower the noise ? 300MHz bandwidth is kind of useless on this kind of circuitry.

Haha, I just saw this thing in IKEA a few hours ago and literally thinking what it would look inside

Please do similar for IKEA 1 amps (5 watt) usb charger. I use it for overnight mobile charging. Thanks for your help.

wonder if its a re-branded Panasonic charger since they sell re-branded Eneloops

I have a question regarding an old charger which I have which charges the batteries in about 15 mins. It's the lg v800c fast charger. Why do the new charger charge so slow in comparison to the old charger? Did they come to the conclusion that charging so fast damages the batteries? Is this why you can't purchase fast chargers anymore? Looking forward to your response.

The oscilloscope is nice. I bought a used hp 54603b, instead of one like this, becouse the ui seemed a bit clunky.

Is it time based charger or smart?Can it to check each battery, and if battery is 50% charged,to charge it only for the rest of 50%?

awesomely thorough look! IKEA says this uses 0dU/dt for termination. I'd be interested to see whether after termination there is residual "trickle charge" current as this can reduce life of LSD cells (eneloop/ladda).

How to charge NiMh cell. Can u make easy and simple charger.plz

14:20 is that an oscilloscope with a floppy drive?

Great video but hard to focus when I'm hearing Borat talking to me about ikea battery charger :P

How do i mail you something to do a video on?

Is this a Timer-based charger ?

The name Stenkol could be reminding us "Your environment-friendly electric device could actually be powered by coal"

I bought Kvarts charger few months ago, but now it's discontinued in the favor of Stenkol. Kvarts appears to be very finicky, discards some too worn batteries, and sometimes doesn't charge mildly worn red Lidl cells fully. I guess it's tuned for Ladda cells (and by extension Eneloops). Inside Kvarts looks very similar, with a microcontroller and a shitload of circuitry. But it cost 2 times as much.

So is it a good charger to use? Because many say that pulse charging damages the cells

I still have the “old” white Ladda IKEA charger and the outputs are rated a lot higher. I wonder if it’s just the way they spec 4x….. I feel the need to open mine now and compare it to this new one.

I'm picturing young DGW with a toy ray gun at Christmas: "2-2-2-2-2!"

As far i know, Stenkol means "coal" Maybe because the color and form of it they call it "coal" I brought one for only 39 danish kr. include 25% tax ( 6,2 dollar) and it works fine. Incredible what get for the money. I have done a little test with it, and it charges the batteries just as well as the more expensive charger. It a overnight charger.

To be fair in the light of safety most manufacturers recommend that we don't leave the charger unattended. This is because of a rare occasion cells can fail catastrophically and start a fire. Since sleeping is a state in which one is not aware of this reality either by dream state or deep sleep. So if it's possible for that much danger to exist in such an incident looking package then should we not err on the side of caution and simply not change while we sleep in the first place? That allows us to choose color for their aesthetic value instead of worrying about whether it's going to keep us awake.

how long does it take to charge?

Yes modern electronics are annoying with the led indicator lights. I use black electric tape to cover them up. Maybe just replace the LEDs since you're opening it anyway

Torx are very common, maybe most used finder in the europe.

Can you charge alkaline batteries with this? I had an old charger that ended up braking and I could charge any kind of batteries with it but now I got this one and it doesn't let me charge my alkalines

This is making me to want to open up my EBL charger which is powered by micro USB but I don't want to mess up the case.

Best chareger

Is it good or not? Someone tell be please

On mine the first row is broken now, just 2 month and a few charges after buying :(

Ikea electronics are mostly well built

Show more of the cat!

niiiiceeeeee!

How does it detect if a battery is not rechargable?

Any updates?

Stenkol is swedish for Bituminous coal / black coal

I love 0. 2 2 =D