Tag: 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

 

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Xtar MC4S Review (USB-C Inexpensive 4 bay simple battery charger)

Xtar has updated version of the MC4 charger out with the new MC4s. It’s a basic 4 bay charger, utilizing USB-C for input power for charging various lithium ion and nickel metal hydride batteries. Thanks to Xtar for sending this out to take a look at. 

 

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Physically

The package it comes in is small retail style box with specs and battery sizes it supports listed on it. In the box is the charger itself, a simple manual, and a USB-A (Blue  to USB-C cable. 

 

The MC4S is a simple black flame retardant black plastic charger. It features 4 bays with spring loaded clips and a pad for the positive contact. This allows it to expand to fit most battery sizes. 10440-21700 (Non protected). For Ni-Mh and Ni-CD batteries it can do AAAA through C sized batteries. The outside 2 bays are designed for the larger diameter batteries like 26650’s and C sized cells. 

The MC4s features 4 LED’s on the front, one for each bay that tells you what’s going on. When you plug the charger in at first get a self check and each bay will show green for standby. They go when charging, and then turn green when charged. 

The back features a small vent for heat control, a large sticker showing input/Output power, as well as what all cells it supports. 

I measured the charger at 100mm x 97mm by 26mm. Empty weight is 95.2g.

 

Charging

This is a simple charger, and there isn’t anything to do or options to set. The LED status on each bay tells you what you need to know if the battery is charging (red) or if it’s charged (Green). I tested 4 LG HG2 batteries that started at 2.95V and put them into all 4 bays, and started charging. Terminal voltage was 4.125V and it did this is in 6.8 hours with the maximum charge rate combined at 1.8A or roughly 0.45A per bay. For smaller batteries like 10440 which this charger officially supports this may be a bit high of charge rate but for larger cells it’s just fine. It’s worth noting that slots 1 & 4 have faster charging rates of 1A each, if used by themselves, while inner 2 & 3 have slower rates at 0.5A if used by themselves.

I also tested some AA eneloop batteries across all 4 bays, starting at 1.12V and charging to completion at 1.46V. Charge rate here started off slow but gained in speed. This wan’t a constant current charge and seemed a little spiky on my equipment but ok overall. 

Lastly this charge will charge via USB-C to C cable and charger. I used my Aukey BA-B4 I recently reviewed and had no complaints. I have seen some people suggest this doesn’t have real PD triggering but it doesn’t really need it with these power level draws. 

 

Pro’s

  • Inexpensive with current prices being around $12
  • Basic, safe, get’s the job done.
  • USB-C to C support

 

Con’s

  • A bit agressive for the smaller sized cells it technically supports such as 10440, AAAA, etc. 
  • Not going to win any speed races for your larger cells.

 

Conclusion

What you see is what you get here, this is a dead simple battery charger that does what it says in a simple yet effective manner. If your new to the flashlight hobby and want a simple charger to get you going that will support the most common sizes of batteries you will see in most lights, for a low price, the MC4s does the job. 

 

This isn’t going to be the most appropriate charge for everyone but it’s a good place to get started for many. It’s nice to see USB-C here as the primary power input but in this case it’s all about the cable and connector of convenience if your life revolves around USB-C. It’s not taking advantage of the larger amount of power that could be delivered to speed charging times.

 

Overall the MC4s is a good basic, safe, and affordable charger. I can recommend it for your basic charging needs. 

 

Full Image Gallery https://imgur.com/a/toH1zXv

Pickup the Xtar MC4S 4 bay charger on Amazon at https://amzn.to/2RfdpFY 

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Xtar PB2C Review (18650 Battery Charger & Powerbank)

Xtar has an update for the original PB2 18650 charger and powerbank. As the name implices (PB2C) the new model adds USB-C but only for charging. The XTar PB2 lineup is a little confusing in naming. The Larger PBS can fit larger 21700 batteries, charge and discharge via USB-C and has a screen. The new PB2S is smaller in size, can only take 18650 batteries, and doesn’t have a screen. Thanks to Xtar for sending this to me to take a look at and review.

 

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Packaging & Accessories

The Xtar PB2C packaging is very simple, it’s a clear plastic shell with a cardboard back with most of the information on the rear of the package. There is a simple multi language manual included in the package. Inside you get the PB2C itself and a USB-A(3) to USB-C cable.

 

Construction

The Xtar PB2C is made from hard plastic with some texture. The body and color of mine happens to be a sky blue with black accents. It’s a great look in my opinion and feels well built. The lid is held on with magnets at the center that are reasonably strong. There are nail nicks to make removal easier. On the inside you have the input and output specs as well as the units model and serial numbers.  

Inside the cells are held in place with pretty robust springs on one end and tabs on the other. This allows all 18650’s from flat top unprotected cells to protected button tops to fit. There is a ribbon to make removal easier which is a nice. Polarity and charging rates are molded into the base too. 

The only indicators that’s available are a series of 4 small white LED at the top, that are used for charge/discharge status, on/off status, and any errors (All blinking). Four lights building one by one means it’s charging, if all 4 lights are on charging is done. 

 

Size and Weight

The PB2C is smaller then it’s larger more advanced PB2S brother because it only fits 18650 batteries and doesn’t have a display. I measured the length at 109mm, width at 50mm and depth at 24mm. Weight with 2 18650 batteries came in at 150g.

As a Powerbank

As a Powerbank the Xtar PB2C is a little disappointing because it only works via the USB-A slot. The USB-C connector is an input only. Then I remember the price here, about $12 and given that it comes with a USB-A to USB-C cable, I will give it a pass. As much as I love USB-C it’s still not as universal especially world wide as the Western World thinks it is. USB-A is the most compatible with the largest market yet.

 

I tested the PB2C with some 2600mAh Xtar batteries and was able to easily discharge at 2.25A for 1 hour 34 minutes. The voltage did sag some when running this hard, and wasn’t quite as stable as you see from most of my Anker and Aukey power banks but it was fine with an average voltage of 4.89V.. Capacity came in at a measured 3115mAh, which seems a little low but is roughly 80% efficiency assuming the labels on the batteries are correct. Higher capacity batteries will yield more capacity to recharge your devices. LVP on the cells kicked in at 3.23V and 3.40V. The powerbank function can be used while the charger is charging batteries, with it primarily powering the device off the USB input rather then discharging the batteries.

 

As a Charger

As a charger the Xtar PB2C combines all the features from Xtar that are proven and well respected such as zero volt activation, reverse polarity protection, safe charging rates, over discharge protection, etc. If one battery is inserted, into the 2 slot charger, charging speed will be 1A, if 2 batteries are installed it will be upto 2A. If the batteries inserted have different power levels, the lower voltage cell will charge first till they are equal and then it will charge both batteries. 

 

In my testing I charged 2 2600mAh cells to full in 3 hours and 7 minutes mostly at 1.9A of speed. Terminal voltage on both cells was 4.17V which is good. I had no trouble fitting protected, unprotected, and all manner of button top cells on the charger. Your luck may vary with custom cells from brands like Olight. 

 

Pro’s

  • Very Affordable
  • Can take protected or unprotected 18650’s
  • Blue and Orange Color Options

 

Con’s

  • USB-C is only used for charging here, it would be better if it was bidirectional.

 

Conclusion

This is a nice little battery charger and powerbank combination if all you need to charge are 18650 sized batteries. It has most cases for those covered. It’s a nice update to see USB-C included but I wish it was in and out instead of just used for input power only. That said the included USB-A to C cable does help with this, and for the price I can’t fault it much. Overall this is a good basic charger and powerbank combo from Xtar at a very affordable price. 

 

Full Image Gallery https://imgur.com/a/2ovOuC0

Find more on the Xtar PB2C at http://www.xtar.cc/product/XTAR-PB2C-Charger-131.html

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IDST C4 Smart Charger Review 3A charge, Color IPS Display

Battery chargers might not seem like the most exciting thing to read a review on but trust me this one is different and has a lot of neat features to geek out on. ISDT is an established brand in the Hobby charger market. They have historically been focused more in the RC market but the C4 I have in front of me today is targeted to more common battery sizes such as AAA, AA, and 18650s. This is my first formal charger review, so let me know in the comments what you would like to see in future charger reviews. Thanks to Banggood for sending this to me to take a look at it, this review has not been influenced by the manufacture or seller.

Full Image Gallery: https://imgur.com/a/QpI7Z
Video Review of the ISDT C4:

Construction
The body of this charger is constructed with a high density gloss white plastic, with the inner carrier where the cells go being a black semi gloss finish. ISDT claims this is a fire resistant plastic, which is nice but one thing I obviously didn’t test. On the rear you have the fan exhaust, power in, USB port for charging a phone or powerbank, and a MicroUSB in for firmware updates. The bottom has slots for cooling air to enter the charger. The front has a nice fairly large color LCD display thats 2.4” IPS display with a wide viewing angle. Itself isn’t touch screen but the touch panel is to the right and contains up and down arrows and a select.




The C4 doesn’t use the standard spring loaded contacts instead the contacts are hard mounted and have a bit of flex to them. Compared with most other battery charges I have (Nitecore, Xtar, etc) it’s a much less flexible in the size of cells that it will accept. I will go as far as saying it’s very picky.

18650 that are any longer then 650mm just will not fit. So most protected batteries are a no go. Unprotected Flat tops, or unprotected button tops seem to fit. Here are a selection of cells I tested fit with.

Sony VTC6 Flat Tops – Fit
LG HG2 Flat Tops – Fit
Samsung 30Q Button Tops – Fit
Sanyo NCR18650B Protected – Too Long
*Nitecore NL1894 *- Too Long
Xtar Protected 10440 – Too Long

I didn’t have any trouble with the KeepPower 14500’s, Eneloop AA, Ikea Ladda AA, Duracell Rechargeable AA. Amazonbasics AAA, and Duracell Rechargeables AAA seem to fit.

Limited Capacity
While this charger takes a decent number of sizes of cells (with some popular exceptions) it doesn’t always take very many of them at one time due to how it’s laid out.

Input power is via an included AC Wall adapter. The one in my package has a 2 prong European design and an adapter was included in the shipping package. Having to use the adapter means it’s not the most secure connection with the wall wart hanging off the plug. The charger itself is capable of a 12V or 24V input from an automotive source too and displays incoming voltage in the top right corner of the screen.



Modes and UI
In all modes when the charger is doing its thing you get lots of metrics on the display. You get the mAh that has been put in or discharged from the cell, The time it’s taken, The current voltage, and requested charge rate, the resistance, and temperature. Each bay has its own temperature probe and I believe they are at the positive end of the termal. So it might take a little time for heat to radiate to the sensor if the battery does get hot. It also plots a graph in real time as battery are going through their cycle. This graph scales in real time as time increases.

The C4 is compatible with a wide variety of battery chemistries including NiMH, NiCd, NiZn, Eneloop, Li-Ion, LiHv, LiFePO4.

The main modes of this charger are …

Charge – This is the default mode and probably what you use the most. It automatically detects the chemistry of the cell and for most the default charge rate is 1A.

Discharge – Does exactly what the name describes, it discharges the cell in the slot at the rate you choose. 1A seems to be the default speed. Depending on the chemistry the charger will discharge down to 0.9V for NiMH, 1.2V for NiZn, 3.1V for Li-Ion, 3.3V for LiHv, 2.9V for LiFePo4, and 0.9V for eneloop.

Store – This mode charges the battery to the optimal voltage for it’s type of chemistry. This is particularly useful for Lithium batteries who are happiest if they are not going to be used for a while to be stored at between 50-80%. I tested it on an 18650 and it stopped charging at 3.70V. Depending on the chemistry of your lithium battery it could be 3.8V or 3.2V. Storage mode will automatically charge or discharge the cell to get it to the optimal voltage. It’s only available for the Lithium based batteries.

Cycle – Will charge and discharge a battery a given number of times at your given speed. This could be useful on older NiHM or NiCad batteries. Default cycle here is 3 times but the charger will allow you to do this up to 99 times.

Analyze – Analyze will charge the cell up to 100% at the rate you choose, then do a full discharge at that rate, and then charge the cell up to full once again. During it’s run it tells you time, cell resistance and capacity in mAh.


Activate – This is used to activate a cell where the voltage has fallen below specs or on protected lithium batteries to reset a protection circuit. It uses a small amount of current to “wake” the battery up prior to charging. Caution should be used if using this mode.

UI(Video is best for this) is pretty clear and easy to understand. To the right of the screen there is a touch panel with an up, down and select button. They are pretty self explanatory, the up and down allow you to scroll and when you are on an option you want to change you touch the gear selector and then use the arrow keys to make a choice and then the selector to confirm. By default the charge goes to charge mode, in auto detection at 1A when you insert a cell. It gives you 3 seconds (Configurable) to make changes before charging begins. If you want to change modes of a slot while in use the only way to do this is to remove and reinsert the cell. It has a audible alarm and a very large flashing error message if you put a cell in reverse polarity.

The C4 also has the ability to charge another device via USB while charging the batteries in the bay. What’s a little strange is that it seems to prioritize this USB and it will limit current to the batteries instead of limiting the current to the USB port, just something to be aware of. ISDT lists it as 2.1A at 5V for USB charging.

I have some Thorfire 14500’s that this charger doesn’t seem to like. I can’t tell if it’s a bad battery or something else. I know they are not a great battery but they are also not terrible either. My other chargers like the Xtar VC4 charge it without a problem. This charger however will stop charging these at around 75% and act like there isn’t anything in the bay. If it was a bad cell I would expect an error message of some type.

My charger analyzer setup that enables me to graph charging curves isn’t friendly with this charger. The charger is too smart for it and the graphs that I have gotten are not accurate to what the charger itself is doing. I have some new parts shipping from overseas so hopefully that helps a bit for future chargers.

Firmware Update Process
This charge has a microUSB port on the rear that’s used for updating it’s firmware. When my unit arrived I checked the ISDT website and found there was a firmware update available. I was able to download the firmware which came with a windows only flashing program. I had to use AC to power up my charger then plugged it into my PC via USB and then started the program. It was recognized and I clicked the Start flash button in the application. The charger rebooted into a bootloader mode, transferred the file and rebooted. I do wish the log notes were more detailed about what changes between each firmware version. I didn’t notice a tone of difference but there are still a few bugs in the firmware it seems.
https://i.imgur.com/oHTm9nm.jpg

One firmware bug I have encountered is sometimes when I have a battery charging already and I go to insert another one the screen almost goes 100% white, It’s like the user interface locks up. I can’t make it happen regularly but it seems to only happen on the 2nd or 3rd battery insert. I also get some odd percentages as it guesses how charged the battery is at first. This seems to stabilize after about 10 minutes. This was new and I only noticed it after the firmware update I did. Hopefully a future firmware update will fix these issues.

In the Box
The box is nicely constructed and rigid with foam in the bottom and lid. The charger itself was housed in a plastic try with the Euro AC power adapter underneath. I like that they included a glass screen protector like you would put on a smartphone for the screen. It’s should keep the screen free from scratches.






Pro’s

  • Ton’s of advanced features and options that are all pretty easy to get to on the IPS display with the side touch interface.
  • It’s fast with a maximum of 25W of charging power and 10W discharge power.
  • Easily Upgradeable Firmware on a PC.
  • Well built plastic construction that’s fire retardant.
  • Super obvious reverse polarity alarm
  • Comes with a plastic screen protector you can apply.

Con’s

  • Limited to what cells can be charged by it’s design. No protected cells as the design doesn’t allow for anything longer then the standard 650mm in length. This also holds true for protected 14500 and 10440’s.
  • Small fan is loud and seems to come on based on the power level your charging at not the ambient temp.
  • Shipped with a European power adapter and requires a plug adapter to work in other countries (Included).
  • No manual listed online yet.

Conclusion
This is an advanced charger that has just about every option one would want, but it would be hard for me to recommend this to the flashlight community as someone’s only charger to do it all, because of inability to accept protected cells (Especially protected 18650). Protected batteries are popular on flashlights because they give an extra layer of safety. However for some reason ISDT choose a design that was less flexible on battery length which really compromises the offering in my opinion. I have had a few querkey issues too, mainly with the UI. These should be fixable in future firmware updates.

There are good things about this charger despite that though. It’s easy to use, with a relatively large, easy to read color display. The UI is easy to navigate. It has a wide variety of modes to handle your basic and advanced battery charging like charging, discharge, storage and activation needs. I like that the more batteries you put in it, it doesn’t slow the others down. It also has the ability to charge fast or slow if you want. The charger gives you a lot of data if if your the type of person who likes that thing, and I am.

For charging AA size NiMH batteries this is really a nice charger. It has the ability to cycle, charge, discharge, and analyze cells at pretty quick rates. It can fit 4X AA sized cells at once but only 2x AAAs at once.

For me this is my new AA and AAA charger. I will use it with 14500’s and flat top 18560’s that fit. It won’t completely replace my XTar VC4 as a do all charger but it will supplement it. I really like it’s storage mode for batteries that fit and wish protected cells fit too.

My hope for the short term is that ISDT continues to bring out more firmware fixes for the software bugs that I have noticed. It would be awesome if they had a email list you could join to be notified of new firmware. In the long term I hope that ISDT revises their design for the C4 and comes out with a model that can charge a wider selection of cells including protected batteries, and popular shorter batteries such as 18350, 16340, etc. It would also be nice to see a future model be able to charge 4X 18650 or 2× 26650 at a time. Since this model would most likely be physically larger I would prefer a larger, lower RPM fan to make it a quieter charger.

Thanks again to Banggood(link is external) for sending this to me to take a look at. They did provide a coupon (coupon Code “C48100”) that takes 8% off the price if you are interested in picking this up.