Got a new charger-Miboxer C4-12, 4 slot X 3A/slot, total 12A output

All praise goes to Mooch. This is his chart. He and HKJ are great resources for the battery community.

BTW, I have never heard of any 18650 being safe to charge at 8.2A. Are you sure about that? Maybe you are thinking of the output?

Sorry for the confusion JasonWW. Of course, I meant the output and not the charge rate. :wink:

Click

They are claimed to be a “NCR 18650ga” rewarp. 10A discharge.

Sharing the charging of the Lii-402 (charged a fully-discharged Sony VTC4, discharged to around or a bit below 3.0v) and then set 2A charge rate in Lii-402. Using EBD-USB+ meter to graph the charging:

Same graph (one shows charging time and the other shows mAh charged — it is measuring the Lii-402 charger, which may not exactly correspond to the charged capacity of the 18650 battery, but should correlate).

(Lii-402 appears to have a high charge terminating current (around 0.45A) when set to 2A charge rate. Although when I checked the battery voltage right after charging, I got a quite exact 4.20-4.21v.

Hmm, a bit odd Liitokala is rewrapping Panny GA’s. So if we assume it’s accurate we can look up the data sheet for that cell.

I found a more detailed data sheet here.

What is odd is that it doesn’t list a max safe charging rate like other brands. Other brands will list a low charge current rate for max battery life, a standard charge current and a max charge current.

For the Panasonic NCR19650GA it appears the highest they recommend is 1.67A. If we look at the Samsung 35E it shows a similar standard charge rate of 1.7A and a max of 2A. If we look at the LG MJ1 it shows a similar standard charge rate 1.7A, but a max of 3.4A. So it really does depend on the specific model and it’s chemistry.

You might be able to charge those GA’s at 2A and be fine, but 1.5A looks like the safest rate.

Also, I did a bit of digging and it is not known if the Liitokala lii-35A is actually a Panasonic GA. It may be a 35E or even an independent cell that has similar characteristics. Thread is here.

Have you ever discharged them to about 2.8v and then measured the capacity? We’re they close to about 3200-3300mah?

Sorry I have no way to do an accurate test of any sort.

But even if the cells are really Panasonic NCR19650GA the wrapping is wrong because it states 3500 instead of 3350.
And IF the cell is genuine charging at 3A with my MiBoxer isn’t a smart thing to do, because that’s almost double of what’s safest. While I don’t babysit cells all the time, I do sometimes. On a few occasions I touched them and they weren’t hot, not even warm. So that’s a little good news I think.

Anyway, when time is no issue I’ll charge at 1A. And I must say often time is no issue at all. Even less now because I bought 7 more cells. That vastly reduces the need for quick recharge during the day. But the babysitting them remains a problem.
Is it so that charging at 1A reduces the risk of fire? Or is it more an age related problem? I don’t remember which one but when looking for a charger one description stated the charger shuts down after X minutes no matter how far the battery is charged because of safety reasons.

You have the C4-12, right? It measures capacity.

The wrapper and rating of 3500mah for the GA is still “accurate” as they measured 3450mah in the labratory. In the real world they can vary a bit. HKJ measured 3350mah, but he started at 2.8v instead of 2.5v or so. I forget the details.

That’s why I said if you start at 2.8v and get 3200 to 3300 your doing pretty good regardless of the actual cell in the wrapper.

A fire is possible any time, any charge rate, any battery age, etc…

As a side note, unless you running your batteries down below 3.2v or so, your not really using all that capacity. I don’t usually run my cells that low so I use the Samsung 30Q. They do more amperage (15A continous), have less voltage sag under load and can be charged at up to 4A. :+1:

Has Miboxer C4-12 been upgraded with new flashware, fixing the C3 Error, restart problem, overcharging, inconsistent resistance measures and with upgraded sliders, etc.? Should I order at Banggood, Gearbest or Fasttech to get the most recent version minimising the risk for any of these issues?

I would like to know the same.

No answer?

:cry:

Only one person can answer and he might not be watching this thread anymore.

Maybe someone ordered recently and can say something from experience?

I still got no answer from them about my faulty charger :frowning:

Sorry, but the recent buyers are not going to be able to tell you anything other than they bought it and it works or doesn’t work. They can’t take it apart and see any internal changes or see software changes.

Maybe they can measure the height of the lowest bump on the outboard slider to see if it’s been raised slightly?

To get of those other questions answered you need to ask Leo-Miboxer and even he probably can’t tell you what store is selling the most recent version. He might can say who has bought a recent batch, but that store might still be selling an older version.

You are probably right. I guess I expect too much…

I’m just trying to lower your expectations. :smiley:

I don’t think they can fix all the things you mentioned since some seem to be very rare events, but maybe they have made upgrades in a few areas. I think the vast majority of buyers, like myself, have had zero issues. I bought mine in November.

Does Miboxer sell direct? Maybe you can get one of the latest versions from them?

Well you did :slight_smile:

I just wish to have upgraded sliders, on my unit I had to use magnets on negative side to be able to charge 26650 batteries and I don’t like that. All other problems are less important to me as I believe they happen only sometimes or not at all.
I bought C4-12 mainly for charging 26650’s and it was annoying to deal with magnets to make it work.

I still wait for some answer from them, will see if I ever get it.

I took a razor and trimmed the tubing of my 26650 cells that had an issue. That fixed that.

Another good charger for 26650 is the Xtar SV2 Rocket. Sometimes they are on sale for under $20 (Currently about $23 on Aliexpress). They are 2 x 2A. A lot simpler. 1A is default, click the button once and both slots go to 2A. Done.

I still use 2 of them as backups.

I will check SV2, thank you.

I have to order something, now I only have one Lii-500 and nothing else to charge cells.

On the most recent Miboxer C4-12 package, there is no 3 years warranty mark. I found two Youtube movies with that package. Seems like it has been on the market for at least 3 months. I’m not sure if it got new firmware or if sliders are modified, as it is difficult to see small changes of 1-2 mm in the movies.

I’m trying to figure out where to buy it for a reasonable price at maximum $40 incl. shipping, and not found where yet. Amazon will not ship it to my country. Has anyone here receive that charger without warranty mark, where did you buy it for a good price?

C4-12 New version Movie 1
C4-12 New version Movie 2

Can you see any difference? New (and 2:28) vs old C4-12 sliders

Chris review on Amazon also has some good pictures of the newest.

Have you checked with Freeme or M4DM4X? One of those two had a coupon code for it that was under $40.