Tag: 18650 battery charger

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Xtar VC4 Plus Review (VC4SL, USB-C, 3A)

It’s been a long while since I have had something from Xtar on the channel, so I was happy when they reached out to let me know that they had some new chargers and offered to send me the new VC4 Plus. It’s the new upgraded version of the VC4 I reviewed years ago. Xtar fans will rejoice to hear that you now have manual control over charging speed and a few other nice upgrades. One quick note before we get started, this version is known by 2 names, the VC4 Plus, and the VC4SL. The only difference I can find between them is the SL version doesn’t seem to come with the QC3 power adapter. Xtar didn’t give me the reason why it’s known as 2 different names. Let’s take a closer look.

 

The YouTube version of this review: 

https://youtu.be/p3ML7kYXQb4

 

This charger is known by 2 names the Xtar VC4 Plus and the Xtar VC4SL.
Xtar VC4 Plus: https://amzn.to/38YNwpI
Xtar VC4SL: https://amzn.to/391ACXG

 

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Packaging & Accessories

The packaging is a brown cardboard box with a line drawing of the charger on the outside, the sides give specs and battery sizes and chemistries that are supported. The back of the package gives a few more features.

What’s included is the charger itself, a thin nylon bag a leather texture and drawstring at the top, and Xtar 110/240v AC to QC3 USB adapter capable of 5V @ 3V, 9V @ 2A, 12V & 1.5A, and a USB-A  to C cable to make it all work together.

 

Construction & Design

The VC4 Plus physically shares a lot of the design and construction with other Xtar 4 bay chargers. The ABS plastic is fire resistant should there be a problem. There is venting on the sides and bottom. The differences here are mainly on the screen and in the power input which I will get to in a minute. The charger supports the most common sizes of the most common chemistry of batteries. I won’t go into all of them but put a photo of what Xtar says fits. In my measurements, I measured the minimum size of the bays at 77.7mm and the maximum at 31mm, so sorry 21800’s won’t fit here. I will insert a picture of all of the different battery sizes that can fit and are compatible. Basically, everything between 10440 to 32650 includes protected 21700’s and common NiMH sizes.

 

Power Input

The charger does have a USB-C connector as its power input. It can support a wide range of standards, Officially Xtar rates it as QC3.0 with the 5V, 3A, and 9V, 2A Profiles. QC3 was never a standard that caught on with me or my devices much so I ran it primarily off of USB-C PD which it did excellent under. 

4 Fully discharged 18650 batteries pull about 25 watts via USB-C PD. There is now powerbank function on this charger, not a deal-breaker for me for sure. While the charger can charge at 3A this only applies to one bay at a time, with 2 batteries the maximum is 2A, and with 3 or 4 the max is 1A each. 

 

Screen and UI

The screen is similar to what other Xtar VC chargers use, you have the 4 dials that display the voltage of each bay, that changes with what type of cell you have charging. On the lower right side, you have the charging speed that it’s currently charging at then at the bottom you have the counter of the energy that has gone into the cell during charging.

New on the VC4 Plus is the ability to change the charging rate. After inserting the cell, the charger measures the resistance and decides what it thinks is the best charging speed to use, however you can override this by clicking the current button. Available options are 250mA, 500mA, 1A, 2A, and 3A. This charge rate applies for all of the bays at the same time. 

Pressing the mode button while charging will also display the to Grading mode where the charger tests the capacity of the batteries that are installed by charging, discharging, and charging again, and then Storage mode which puts Li-ion batteries at an optimal voltage for storage, about 3.66v in my experience.

The charger also offers a couple of other useful features like 0V activation, reverse polarity protection, protection from short circuits, overcharge, and overheating. 

I had no issues with overcharging with the charger. Depending on the cell’s internal resistance you might see slightly under 4.2V at final charge.

Conclusion

I like the VC4 Plus, it’s a nice upgrade to bring the old VC4 into 2022 with the USB-C input which works with both USB-C PD and QC3. For me I ran here almost exclusively in USB-C PD because I really don’t have many QC3 chargers, it was a standard that never really caught on for me once USB-C became the norm. 

Xtar finally addressed the issue many people had with it’s chargers that you couldn’t manually overwrite the charge rate, gone are those problems and now it’s selectable from 3A, 2A, 1A, 500mA, and 250mA all of which are great to see. It also retains the other features to restore cells, grade them, measure internal resistance and finally charge them to a storage voltage. 

 

The two things I don’t love here are that all bays are linked together for the charging speed and that it’s not capable of charing each bay at up to 3A at the same time, or 2A on more than 2 bays at a time. This falls short of other charges I have looked at like the Vapcell S4 Plus that can chare all its bays at higher speed rates without an issue. 

 

The end result I think is a very well-rounded charger that’s affordable and without major issues. For many, I think this could be your one and only charger, or a nice upgrade from an older model you might already have and it should be pretty affordable. 

 

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Golisi Mothra Review (18650 Battery Charger, Wireless Qi Powerbank)

Golisi is a brand many flashlight users may not be familiar with, they are more well known in the Vape community for their batteries and battery chargers. It’s a brand that I have heard of but is new to me too. Today I will be looking at their brand new 18650 charger, that acts like a powerbank, and has a wireless Qi charging pad on it too. Thanks to them for sending this too me, I will link to their product page where you can find it where it’s available for preorder at the time of this review.

 

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Packaging & Accessories

Packaging is a nice high quality printed heavy cardboard box, with information on all sides. Inside the Mothra is protected with foam. The only accessory was a USB-A to C cable. Since mine was preproduction it did not include any paperwork but I was able to get the manual from Golisi’s website.

 

Construction

The Golisi Mothra is built from a high quality glossy plastic and a solid feel. It has an attractive black and white color scheme with gold lettering. There is no water rating given on the unit. On the top you have a translucent outline of an X that lights up blue when the QI wireless charger is active.

The front has the USB-A (Labeled output) and USB-C port (Labeled input) a small LCD screen and a single button. The LCD screen is inverted with a dark background and light colored letters, and is backlit in blue. The battery door in what I will call the back of the unit, has a slide mechanism with a detent to stay locked in place. When open I would caution you to be a bit careful of the hinge as it only opens up 90 degrees.

Cells are installed with the positive end facing the LCD screen. I used LG HG2’s unprotected flat top cells that I had for my tests, and these worked fine. I put a few different types in included protected and button top protected and had no problems with cells of different lengths.

 

Size and Weight

I measured the Mothra at 90mm x 90mm and 33mm tall. With 4 LG HG2 Batteries it comes in at 346.2g. I will put a few comparison photos of other multicell Powebank and chargers that I have reviewed in now. 

 

As a Battery Charger

The Golisis Mothra is designed to charge via USB-C. It supports Power Delivery as an input and officially supports 5V @ 3A, or9V @ 2A. I don’t have a charge graph with this one like I would normally. Despite suppring PD my meter would not come on when connected in any of the configurations I tried. My guess is something here with the handshake doesn’t meet the spec 100%. That said I successfully charged it via PD with my Xtar, Aukey, Anker, and Energie chargers that I know meet the PD spec. So I ended up timing how long it took to charge my 4 LG HG2 batteries. They took right at 3 hours to charge. Terminating voltage was 4.15V, so a little low but reasonable. 

 

As a Powerbank

As a powerbank you have a few options to charge your devices. The Mothra has USB-A out that can output 5V at up to 3A. You also have USB-C which can output the same 5V @ 3A, 9V @ 2A, or 12V @ 1.5A. The USB-C port supports PD delivery, and the A port supports the QC charging standard.

Your other option is the QI wireless charging pad on top of the Mothra. To activate this you have to press the button on the front for 4-5 seconds and a blue outline of an X across the top will light up to show it’s active. This is reported to charge at 10W and my Samsung smartphone reports it as fast wireless charging. 

I love the addition of the wireless charging pad, as that’s how I charge my phone most of the time, but the one here I found to be a little tricky to get the position just right. After some practice this got easier though.

When in powerbank mode the percentage of charge of the cells read individually. Golisi told me that it chooses the highest charged cell, then when everything random it picks cells at random to discharge. Kind of a unique way to do it. My experience is this varies, by up to 4% but in the end was fairly balanced. It will charge via wired or wireless with any combination of 1 to 4 batteries. The charger does support pass through charging. 

Golisi reports the charger as being about 70% efficient when used as a powerbank, and my capacity test was lower then that with 4x LG HG2 batteries only seeing 6228mAh. These batteries are older which I believe is part of the issue. 

 

Conclusion

The Mothra is currently available for pre-order from Golisi direct for around $66. At that price I feel like it’s a bit expensive. There are other products that have 2 of the 3 features and support less batteries but also cost quite a bit less.

I do think they did things right here in supporting the most common and up to date standards. Bi directional USB-C to C charge/discharge with PD support, as well as Qualcomm Quickcharge. While not the biggest thing I wish the display was more predictable, when discharging there seems to be a percentage sag vs when there is no load on the device. I have seen a roughly 10% swing on a loaded vs unloaded cell. It’s frustrating but not a deal breaker.

Overall a nice device, that seems to do everything it claims. I like the addition of the wireless charging pad a lot. I have a hard time fully recommending a device that can only charge 18650 batteries for flashlight users given there are smaller and larger sizes that are popular these days. That said this offers more features than just a charger on it’s on, so it’s definitely worth considering if you want a multifunction charger and powerbank combo and you’re solidly in the 18650 camp.

http://www.golisi.com/?dt_portfolio=mothra-3in1-wireless-charger