The making of the BLF UC4 charger: the start of a new venture, INTEREST LIST, UPDATE 7 (Well, ramping stopped :/ )

Nowadays, a small 100W switched mode power supply can be bought on eBay for well under $20, even under $10 for some. A 60W USB-PD adapter is $25 on eBay. If that’s the case, how much would it cost the manufacturer to include a 60W power supply with this charger? I’d think it could be done pretty reasonably, since it would be selling along with the cell charger, not stand-alone. Whatever this charger needs for power, it should come with it. Other “features” can be cut to save cost, but how do you justify selling a “charger” that requires you to buy another “charger” to power it? :person_facepalming:

:person_facepalming:

A 60W USB PD power supply would be nice.

I’m going to be trying to include it.

Guys, I’ll also try working with XTAR if possible.

Talked to SkyRC in the past. Hope you have better luck as they seem just so not interested in doing any improvements to their MC3000 let alone a new charger that undercuts their price structure.

Good, thank you. Someday, I suppose everyone will already have a drawerful of USB-C PD adapters for their other devices, but we are not there yet.

Also good. The Dragon has shown that Xtar has some ambitions for an analyzing charger, and their quality seems (perhaps prejudicially on my part) higher than most of the other Chinese brands.

the $20 100w psu you are mentioning is unsafe and bulky, a $25 PD charger is usually safer and “friendlier”, you can also use it to charge your phone or laptop if yours supports.

but as i said, 60W PD charger is over kill, a 45W is more reasonable, you still can charger more than 10W per slot( or nearly 3A per slot), and it doesn’t cost much, i guess less than $10 if we buy many.

The 100w power supply I was thinking of is simply cheap. No comment from me on whether it is good or not. I’m sure the 60w PD charger I found is higher quality. But my point was that for a manufacturer, it should be even cheaper to include a PD charger with the battery charger, which you seem to agree with. Also, I don’t want a power source included that doesn’t power up every feature of the device it is supposed to be supplying power to. If the battery charger BlueSwordM creates is a 60w device, it should include at least a 60w power supply.

Yes, we understand you want the pimped version to be no additional cost. But it should also appeal to the kind of beginner that only needs to charge 1 battery at a time. If we force a 60w power supply into the price you may drive them away.

It cannot be everything to everyone. If someone just has one battery to charge, is this really the charger for them?? Just asking a serious question, not arguing. :+1:

I agree it can not be everything to everybody. But there are economies-of-scale to be gained by offering at least 2 feature sets. And both versions become cheaper than if there was only one version.

This looks like an excellent project. Definitely interested.

I agree, excellent project. It’s barely started and I want one :slight_smile:
It’s going to be a long road, a lot longer than a flashlight I think.

Take my MONEY!!

No, what I want is for it to be a good value and to make sense. If we can’t afford to include a 60w power supply, then we should NOT make it a 60w device. If we really need it to be a 60w device, then we should include a 60w power supply. To include a power supply that cannot power the device fully would be just asking for disgruntled users and high return rate, which would then sour the manufacturer on working with us again.

Yeah, that’s one of the reasons why I want to stick with either using a 5,5*2,5mm DC input jack.

If we go with USB-C PD, then it would be best to make a model with an included power supply that would be more expensive, and one without.

Ok… I thought you were suggesting having one set geared at the lowest common denominator, for the beginner.

The only problems I see with having a set that will not power the charger to full capacity is confusion, misunderstandings, & ultimate headaches for the seller.

’To me’ one set that powers the charger to the fullest is the way to go. If it is an 80w charger (<- used as example only) a power supply of at least 80w should be included.

If there were an option without power supply, that would be OK too.

I do not think running/frightening off beginners/new people because of price should factor into this decision. There are plenty of very decent chargers out there already that meet their needs.

ymmv

I was thinking along of the lines of:

Option 1: Pimped charger. Full featured with a 60 watt power supply and 100 watt CPU cooler included.
Option 2: Basic charger. Same PCB and software, but only includes a 10 watt power supply and no CPU cooler.

I’d change a bit more.

Option 1: The Ultimate BLF charger. Aluminium body with a 100mm fan inside, and 60W discharging compatibility. The dream, but will take a LOT OF TIME AND ENGINEERING.

Option 2: A Miboxer C4-12 BLF edition or an XTAR BLF edition charger.

To clarify, I was suggesting these would both be in production at the end of the project. It would be the same guts, just sold in different ways.

Ideally we could work with a manufacturer to evolve a charger they currently produce.