Looking to use some 18650 batteries in a project and need to be able to charge them?

Here’s a quick guide to putting that together and getting it working.

Parts

  • Charge controller - This is a TP4056 board, you can buy from many shops and with different connectors, I went with the USB-C version.
  • Battery - 18650 battery
  • Battery holder
  • Wire - Any should do, just try get some in black and some in red so you can match the colours to the terminals.
  • Soldering iron - any should do
  • Solder wire - Again most solder should do
  • Any USB to USB-C cable
  • A USB power supply (I used an older samsung charger, oddly some newer chargers wouldn’t work)

Steps

  1. Find the negative (-) end on the battery holder, and solder some black wire to it
  2. Repeat for the positive (+) end, solder some red wire to it.
  3. Connect the other end of red wire to the positive (B+) terminal on the charge controller and solder it to it.
  4. Connect the other end of the black wire to the negative (B-) terminal on the charge controller and solder it to it.
  5. Insert your battery into the holder with the negative (-) and positive (+) facing the correct ends.
  6. Insert the usb-c end of the cable into the charge controller and plug the other end into your power supply.
  7. The red light will come on to indicate charging and switch to blue when complete, this can take a few hours.