I had to order the UK version because US and EU were both out of stock and relisted as pre-sale. Since I have a dedicated 13.8v power supply for all my chargers I wonāt be using the included adapter.
I also ordered 2 small fans 4.2cm wide to install the on the back of the charger, pointing to the heatsink. I hope the stock output is 5V and provides enough current to power 2 additional fans. If not I will wire them to the USB output and use a mini relay if necessary. I suspect the heat generated with 1A discharge across all 4 bays will deteriorate the components inside the charger.
Just received this charger today, this thing is actually much larger than it looks, see how the tiny the opus is besides it.
Iāve been playing a bit in āSimpleā mode and so far it performs as expected. I have set my first mode to charge 4.2v cells at 1.5A with termination current of 10%, this is for all my 3,000-3,500mAh batteries. The Simple UI only takes a couple minutes to learn how to use even without the use of the manual. Iāll use it some more in this mode before jumping into advanced.
But one thing I canāt do is to select the same program for all 4 slots at the same time? Right now I have to select each slot individually and the program for it. (I donāt want to mix different cells in the same charger).
I also find it interesting that this charger will limit the current to 0.15A for all fully discharged cells until they hit 3.2V undear load, some kind of a āsoft chargeā, I guess this is to prolong the battery life. For healthy cell this did not take long, from 3.05V to 3.20V only 30mAh were induced to my Sanyo GAs.
I hope in a future FW upgrade the program can be selected for all slot together when all 4 are flashing with either arrow, because with the current 1.2 FW these buttons do nothing.
The Bluetooth function worked fine for me, I find it amusing that it doesnāt require searching and connecting the device to your phone, just turn on bluetooth, open the app and it will connect automatically.
Thanks for the detailed review HKJ. I hope to study the whole review soon.
It took me a while to figure out that āRAM cellsā must refer to rechargeable alkaline batteries. Is SkyRC or anyone else selling a RAM cell which would be interesting to us?
In regards to being able to āhideā chemistries: I agree, by itself this feature isnāt very useful. I think that I would like to see something similar though, or maybe itās already present. Iāll examine your review in detail soon, but what Iād like to see is a way to lock down the charger to a specific charge profile . Iād expect that the PC interface could be used to create the profile and lock down the charger. This would be good for those who like to sell a few custom flashlights as turn-key solutions and not worry when we fall asleep: āWill my customer burn their house down tonight?ā.
Iāve never heard great things about Rechargeable Alkaline. I have experience using them in graphing calculatorsā¦ they nothing special. What I used back then was certainly well eclipsed by LSD NiMH. If things change Iād like to know about it thoughā¦
MC3000 Firmware V1.02, Hardware V1.04:
App V2.5 is working here, since i have altered the language setting of my Samsung Galaxy S5 (Android 5.0) from German to English (UK) !
With german language settings fixed point values (e.g. 4.20V) are displayed as āfixed colon valuesā (e.g. 4,20V) in the app. And the app will crash saving such a setup.
Iāll have to test if the app is still ācongestingā after some hours. With german language settings i had to stop app, remove app in android task manager, clear cache in android settings, (cycle charger power off/on), restart app ā¦
Whats the right voltage setting for charging nimh? The stock setting is 1.65V and I think itās a bit too high, I set them to 1.55V instead and got ~2450mAh capacity from a pair of eneloop XX. Havenāt touched any of the other settings as Iām not very familiar with ni-mh chemistry. Iāve been using a maha 9000 in auto setting for the last 5 years and it seems to be doing ok.