Xtar BC4 Battery Charger Review (1.5V Liion and NiHM Charger, USB-C)

Today I have a bit of a speciality charger from Xtar the BC4. It’s a charger that’s designed for use with 1.5V lithium ion batteries and NiHM rechargeable batteries. It fits both AA and AAA sizes, has 4 bays and features USB-C as an input. Thanks to Xtar for sending this too me to take a look at and review. 

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Packaging & Versions

Packaging here is a basic hanging retail package with clear front showing you everything you get. The standard unit comes with the charger, charger cover, and a USB-A to USB-C Cable. The manual is quite simple and available in several languages.

It’s worth noting there was an older model of charger that Xtar sold under their Allmaybe brand, that’s also called the BC4. That was a 4 Bay charger that charged 4.2V lithium batteries and isn’t at all like the charger we see here. It’s confusing and I wish Xtar would have chosen a different name for the charger we are looking at here today. 

 

Recharging

I tested the charging of this light with primarily large AA sized batteries although it will charge AAA sized batteries too. The charge will only charge NiMH and 1.5v Lithium Ion chemistries. 4.2V Lithium Batteries of either size are not supported. 

All the usual Xtar technologies are supported here, 0V activation, 3 Stage charging to maximize battery lifespan, Precise cut off when charged, Reverse polarity protection, short circuit, overheat etc. I started with charging the 1.5v Liion battery and as you can see from the graph here it took 2 hours and 16 minutes at a maximum of .3A. The batteries stopped charging at 1.54V.  

For my NiMH charge the total charge took 2 hours and 7 minutes, so slightly faster and you can see that it was a more pulsed charge with voltage remaining very consistent. 

 

For the last test I charged 2 nimh, and 2 liion batteries at the same time, and the total charge time was 2hrs 40 minutes. Here we saw a total charging rate peak at 1.5A spread across all 4 batteries. 

Uses for 1.5V Li Ion batteries

One thing I wanted to touch on is where and why you might choose a 1.5V lithium ion battery over a NiHM or standard alkaline. The very basics of how they work are, it’s using your standard 4.2V lithium ion cell and then has circuitry to step down the power to 1.5V. The ones here I tested Xtar provided, and since you use an external charger they have a larger capacity then  Lithium ion batteries have a better power density and lighter weight then their comparable alkaline cells, and you don’t have the one time use either. In terms of power these 1.5V batteries don’t suffer a voltage sag as they discharge like Alkaline and NiHM do, so your high drain devices like camera flashes won’t slow down during use. The bad side is the built in power meters in some devices won’t be accurate as they count on that voltage sag to estimate the amount of life left. There is also no memory effect when compared to NiHM.

 

I did run a quick runtime comparison with the Olight i5T CU with the Xtar 1.5v Lithium ion battery they rate at 3300mAh, and an Amazon Basics High Capacity NiMH (2400mAh) I previously had tested this light with. You can see here in the graph the outputs are identical except for the very end. The Liion cell has a very sharp drop off when the internal protection circuit kicks in on the battery and stops all current. The NiMH battery on the other hand has some gradual decline as voltage drops at the end of it’s lifecycle. Runtimes were within just a few minutes difference with the Nimh having the slight advantage on this light. Not sure how Xtar is calculating their cell rating on this one. 

 

Conclusion

This is a basic charger from a brand with a good track record. I am not sure it has a ton of applications in the current flashlight market for enthusiasts but it has applications elsewhere in the home. It’s a nice charger for photographers looking to recharge their eneloop batteries for flashes or those who switch over to 1.5V lithium cells which would work quite well, for anyone with kids to recharge batteries for the endless number of toys, and other household tasks. Yes there are flashlights still using AA sized batteries that use Nihm batteries where this and the 1.5V lithium batteries would work just fine, I just personally use 4.2V 14500’s in all my lights where I am able to due to more performance and good runtimes generally. 

 

I think this would be a little more useful charger if it also charged the more conventional 4.2V lithium ion batteries like 14500’s as then it would make a great travel charger to take care of 2 physical sizes, and 3 chemistries/voltages in a small package, and able to use USB-C to C natively. The onboard flashlight does light up but it’s a standard 5mm LED, nothing to write home about but better than nothing in an emergency. The charger also has a USB-A out that’s rated for 5V at 1A, so you could use it to charge your phone in a pinch. Overall this is a specialty charger for a niche market but it does a good basic job for what it’s designed for and I can recommend it if you fall into that niche. 

Find the the Xtar BC4 https://www.xtar.cc/product/BC4-135.html

Xtar AF1 Review (Portable Ozone Generator)

Xtar a company primarily known for it’s battery chargers and batteries along with a few other things such as flashlights, has a new product, and a new category for them. In front of me I have the Xtar AF1 Portable ozone generator. 

 

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Ozone Disclaimer

Ozone isn’t super safe and before you use an ozone generator you need to be aware of how to safely use it. It can cause eye and lung irritation as well as difficulty breathing in higher concentrations. You shouldn’t use an ozone generator in the same room or space as people or pets are in, and then make sure you thoroughly ventilate the space after the treatment is done to dissipate any remaining Ozone. Ozone is heavier then air so it tends to collect at the lowest point in the room. I would encourage you to do your own research if you do decide to buy any ozone generator. 

 

Tell a few Specs

The AF1 is a small portable Ozone generator that’s 2.74” in diameter, 1.4” thick and weighs 3.7oz. It has an internal lithium polymer battery so it can be run without AC power, or you can hook it up with the included USB-A to USB-C cable to a power source (It supports USB-C to C) for longer runtimes. It’s made of aluminum with a metal grill on top. If you look carefully you can see the small single plate ozone generator inside in the middle. 

 

On the bottom you have a nice set of specs that tell you charging current (4.2V @ 0.38A), and a rated power of 3W. The AF1 has 4 modes that each put out ozone to treat a certain size space. 

  • Mode 1 – 0.01m3
  • Mode 2 – 0.1m3
  • Mode 3 – 0.5m3
  • Mode 4 – 3m3

 

UI

I find the UI here frustrating, it’s simple but I just have trouble getting it to work reliably. You long press to turn it on and then it blinks the power level to you. The easiest thing to do is just to let it go and in about 3 seconds it turns on to the lowest mode, you then quick press the button to go up in modes. Long press to turn off. It works fine but is a little counter intuitive, when it’s blinking I want to press the button again to start the generation but it doesn’t work this way. 

Conclusion

This is a bit of a tricky one to make a conclusion for. The AF1 definitely generates ozone, but it’s not a ton, it will struggle with trying to improve odors in a room, or moderately sized car in my experience. I wish you could hook it up to a power source and it would run until the power source was depleted or if you had an AC adapter it was unplugged, however that’s not the case, so when I ran it in a car, with a large capacity battery or an AC adapter plugged into a wall outlet it ran for 2 and a half hours before shutting off via a timer. The internal battery is nice especially on lesser settings in small situations. The large Ozone generators you can buy online for about $75 produce orders of magnitude more ozone and these are more appropriate for larger spaces like rooms or entire cars with strong odors like smoking.

https://i.imgur.com/sBYOHvN.jpg

 

The better use for the AF1 I think are small applications, deodorizing a gym bag, putting it in a shoe box or plastic bag with smelly shoes etc. A large plastic tote filled with hunting gear you want to get rid of the human scent etc.  Here the AF1 can produce enough ozone in a small enclosed space to actually make a difference especially if your running it for a few cycles hooked up to a large battery.The EPA doesn’t recommend Ozone as a method to kill viruses currently, so I don’t recommend it for that. One application I plan to try is use in my refrigerator as that’s a popular use of ozone too at low rates. 

 

An low power ozone generator is probably something most people don’t need but something I think many would find useful.

Pick it up on Amazon at https://amzn.to/3dkyl6v