Test/review of Vapcell S4+ fast charger

Funny to hear what is on every cheap NiMh charger since deep into the last millennium to be called a “nice touch” :party:

I would prefer the screen stayed on while charging. A keypress could be used to turn if off if you do not want the light.

I think the dragon stays on, unless you press something from what I can remember when I had one.
also, I wonder if UC4 BLF stays on.

Would like to try out this charger. Looks promising, especially since very few charges can do discharge test @ 1A (SkyRC MC3000 can do it, the Opus BT-C3100 theoretically does it too, but by without modification, the Opus gets hot when discharging at 1A and will pause discharging, and then show incorrect too high ‘discharged’ capacity).

On the Lii-500S, the display screen backlight also switches off automatically pretty fast, even while charging, making it difficult to read the charging display information. However, there is an undocumented keypress not mentioned in the manual, which can make the screen can be forced to be Always-ON (will not automatically switch off). Does the Vapcell S4+ have something similar (force display to be Always-ON)?

Nice review as always, I was waiting for this one. Thanks for your work HKJ :+1:

Unlike the Opus that gives you the option of long-press for 5 seconds to permanently switch on the back-light, unfortunately the S4 has none.

A room for improvement on the v2 perhaps!

Pardon me, but I’ve read the manual of my BT-C3100 V2.1. And also I have pushed some buttons repeatedly.
But there is nothing that suggests my charger is agreeing to switch the back-light on permanently.
On is it maybe something introduced in the V2.2 model?

I just checked my 2.2’s manual and it states 3 seconds in fact…you are probably right, though I have had the 2.0, 2.1 and now the 2.2, most probably it only began in the 2.2 version.

Am I the only one who see the voltage stay above 4.2 plus?

The top of my charts are 4.25V, i.e. the maximum allowed charge voltage for LiIon, the charger do not reach that during charge.

I hear you. The @#$% auto turn off with electronics stuff of nowadays can be very annoying. As an example, try to use a modern multimeter like the Bside ZT102 or Aneng 8002 (Zotek ZT102 both) to monitor some voltage, for example. Every @#$% 14 - 15 minutes it wll make an alarm noise :facepalm: and then shut off. Not only it forces you to “reset” the @#$%ing thing by rotating the switch back and forth every few minutes, they had the brilliant idea of fright pestering you with a beeping alarm while you are doing something else. Now, if you could somehow disable such a power saving vendetta, I could be fine. But grrr with all these flexibility crippling “measures” trying to save on the parrot's chocolate. :-|

I usually find your always spectacular rands rather exaggerated Barkuti (but everyone has their personal style :party: ), but on this particular point I could not more agree with both the content and wording of your post, I hate auto-turnoff on almost everything, and particularly displays that decide to switch off on their own :confounded:

HKJ,

As always, thanks for your extensive and informative review!

I just got my Vapcell S4+ and my wife has banished it. :frowning: It’s power adapter is emitting a very audible and annoying 5700 Hz whine. Does yours do this? Is it because it’s an inferior power supply? Or is it possibly defective?

That is a pretty cool app… what is the name of it?

But its a cellphone so the accuracy is probably not the best.
Dont you have another power adapter that you could try?

It’s called Spectroid. It’s the first time I’ve ever used it. I can’t speak for it’s accuracy, but it does represent what I’m hearing.

I thought about that. I need to dig around and see if I can find a similar one lying around from LED strip installs or something. Sure, I can replace it but it feels like that shouldn’t be necessary on a brand new device :frowning:

That is fairly common on modern switch mode supplies. The actual switching is way above the audible range, but there often is a regulation running at a lower frequency, usually the sound will vary with the load on the supply and often only be audible at certain loads.
The solution is either to use another supply or place the supply out of hearing range (Wrapping it in sound isolating stuff is a bad idea, it need cooling).

Kinda figured, thanks for confirming! :+1:

So this sounds like a very good charger, for 18650 ,21700 and some envelopes. This or a skrc? I love my klarus single cell charger, miboxer c4 new two button has been replaced already so I don’t trust it. Charge , test, discharg.

I’ve been meaning to test out this Vapcell S4 Plus charger for a very long time, but was only able to order one at a reasonably good price lately, and coupled with worldwide lockdown situation, my order arrived 4 months after I purchased it (ordered Feb 2020, arrived June 2020).

I haven’t gotten to test all the functions yet, and am perusing the manual, but some details (eg. discharge current) doesn’t seem that clear to me.

I have some questions:

  • regarding “capacity test” mode: what is the discharge current used?
    (I understand that slot #1 & #4 max discharge current is 1A and slots #2 & #3 max is 0.5A)
    does discharge current depend on the selected charging current (when “manual” mode)?
    or is it automatically set to 1A or 500mA or is it it based on some other parameter (eg. IR)?

Can this charger charge 4 X 26650 and 4 X 21700? From the looks of it it does not look like it can do 4 X 26650