Review: Trustfire TR003P4 Charger

Available from here and here

TrustFire Multi-Function Li-Ion Battery Charger - TR003P4 (110-240V/DC12V)

Its been a while since there has been a new charger from Trustfire , I wont dare mention who may have lit a fire under them.

So seeing the new charger a while ago , I decided to drop some coin on it rather than driving my car [ fair exchange ] , since I already had enough chargers I needed to be able to justify buying another , and after giving the charger some what of a shake down , I have to say its a fairly good charger for the money . Lets get on some details first :

With a 18650 @ 3.16v the 4 bays returned - 0.63A - 0.65A - 0.67A - 0.67A

18650 @ 3.52v the 4 bays returned - 0.55A - 0.53A - 0.53A - 0.56A

18650 @ 3.67v the charger varied from 200-360mA

18650 @ 3.93v the charger varied from 140-160mA

18650 @ 3.97v the charger varied from 120 - 150mA

18650 @ 4.07v the charger varied from 83-99mA and with another cell 97-112mA

18650 @ 4.12v the charger varied from 70-82mA

18650 @ 4.19v the charger varied from 25-75mA

Now with 2 batteries in place - I tested several combinations of bays ...

The charge rate went from 0.67 or so Amp to 0.51A there was little variation after that when you added more cells ..

Termination seems to be around the 4.19v range to 4.21v [ so far ]

The charger behaves much like the WF-139 or WF-188 , in the sense that it seems to check battery state about once every second [ what my MM can detect ] , it does appear to sort of terminate charging , and what I mean by that , it does not actually turn off the charging channel but rather goes into a monitoring / stand by state [ around 2 to 3mA ] and if another cell is charging it may check battery state kicking current up to 20 to 40mA as it does so , again very much dependent on my MM [ How accurate it is ] .

Now what I like about this charger = It will start charging from 4.19v . And so far has terminated from 4.19v to 4.21v , it has a decent starting charge rate [ current ] but looks to ease off in a almost linear fashion rather than at certain voltage levels , this makes the charger some what slow as the charge rate has eased of quite a bit before the battery even gets to 4 volts , but the upside of this is that the charger would be very gentle on the 18650 and quite possibly help in putting in as much charge as one possibly could [ Hmmm gives me an idea for an experiment ] , anyhow .

So by now your probably wondering what batteries the charger will handle ...

18700 fit with room to spare , should be no issues here ..

16340 , I put in the shortest ones I had , and again there should be no issues here ..

I have to say the charger looks to be well made , the lid looks to be well made , as well as being attached firmly .

The sliding tabs in each bay move with no binding , and also appear to be well made [ Ive had a tab bend and break before ] , should be no problems in this regard ..

Each charge channel does appear to be independent , I saw no evidence to show otherwise .

And this is the first charger with a open voltage of 0 volts , yeah even with a battery in one channel the others read 0 volts ...

Voltage input range is 110 to 240v and there is a 12v DC input [ 2A ] , if you have a 12v sig adapter .

I like this charger , and I will use it as much as possible to see if it does something strange , so far so good , and from the testing so far , I would recommend this charger [ based on my sample ] .

Good review....convinced me to hit the "Add to cart' button.

BTW what voltage did the cat terminate at?

The cat was not terminated : If anything she was standing over the TR003 as I was paying too much attention to it ...

Thanks Old! Im amazed that this actually seems to be a decent versatile charger... and at a true bargain price. Unless I missed it, have you tried swapping cells at various resting voltages from station to station to see if you could confuse it? Im sure you know the drill. I see that you tried this with 2 batteries to some degree but 4 would be much better. It would be interesting to see if a cell that reached charge completion in one bay continues charging when swapped into another. Or if after swapping 1 cell into another bay, adjacent cells suddenly terminate early or late. One method that gets most cheap chargers to hiccup is when one bay completes charging and an empty cell is swapped in its place while the other batteries remain charging in the other stations. Sometimes the remaining batteries suddenly terminate when they are not yet topped off.

I didnt realize that you had an assistant. Very cool looking cat displaying the proper illumination test pattern markings.

Nope , not with this one ...

I tried a few things to trip it and I failed to do so ..

Thanks for this review Old. I have to put one of these on my wishlist.

I see, you have got a nice feline assistant.

Thanks for the review!

Do you know or own the xtar wp2 at the same price?

Any idea which ones most suitable for xtar 18700 2600? i would suppose the xtar but could be wrong :)

Yes , her name is Tikki , she is almost 1 year old now , and for some reason , Im her favorite ..

Might have to do something with my brother dumping her on my chest [ I was lying down at the time ] and she simply refused to hang out with anyone else for the first 3 or 4 months of her life , then I had to go to school , and since then she has become more independent [ Thank goodness ]

She is a very good cat ! but for the first 6 months , she would no leave me alone , and that was a royal pain .

Hows the new charger working out? Have you found any flaws yet?

Im using it as much as possible , just charged a cell overnight with it , pulled it of the charger some 30 minutes ago [ 7.20AM ATM ] and it was 4.19v , and it was a unprotected cell [ 18650 ] , Im rather pleased with it , so far its terminating within the 4.19v to 4.21v range , which is good .

Thanks Old, that's great news that you can leave it charging for such an extended period of time without burning your house down! Im glad its still working out for you. In for 1... did you get yours from kai or mf?

I know the pains of having so many lico's and having to discharge them so you can recharge them all over again to test a charger.

As always, thank you for your huge efforts and attention to detail.

This one came from KD , and if mem serves Manafont advertised the carger about 3 days after I bought mine from KD ... So at the time of purchase , it was KD or Ebay ...

thanks for the review Old & Tikki

shes a nice lookin cat

This looks like the best multi-station cheapo charger out there (that Ive seen so far). Im so glad you tested it. Looking at the lame battery cover & design, it reminds me of some of the garbage Soshine chargers dx sells so i definitley wouldnt have ponied up for it. I have a bunch of Manafont points to burn up so I'll buy from them. I'll pull apart the charger to verify its the same as yours upon receipt and report back.

Old, I was about to order and just realized that manafont has a referral program:


"How to make someone become my Tier 1/2/3 Referral Customer?
There are 2 method you can make someone become your Tier 1 Referral Customers when they register with us.

1) You have an unique link that is available in your Mana Points account, you can simply get your friends to visit Manafont.com through the link. And they will automatically become your Tier 1 Referral Customer when they register an account. The link appears similar to this: https://www.manafont.com/index.php?rp=1234

2) Alternatively, you can ask your friend to enter your Manafont ID as a Referral code during the registration process. Your Manafont ID is your registered email address with us.

For more Tier 2 and 3 Referral customers, you basically do not need to do anything, because they will grow along with the referral by your Tier 1 customer. You can enjoy massive Reward as the "Tree of referral customer" grows geometrically"


You should post your manafont id in your BLF signature so we can start building a few points for you. After all, you've certainly earned it. Im holding off ordering till I get your mf id... so hurry and post it.

MF ID ....

Hmmm ,

Hmm, this isnt working. It seems referrals are for new accounts only. Ive emailed Jim to tell him that you referred me and asked how to proceed. Go ahead and edit your post and remove your email for now and I'll get back to you when I hear from him. Sorry, I probably should have PM'd you. Besides, I think the code is when you login to MF and click Mana Points account and the number is the rp= number at the end of the string. (post #14, item 1)

http://www.manafont.com/index.php?rp=08288

Link shows up now , didnt before

So when you click the link it shows your referral code as 08288. I updated the email to Jim. Now to wait a while for him to reply.

Sorry Old, manafont wouldnt insert your code for me. I went around twice with Jim via email and they wouldnt budge. I'll be buying this one from KD. MANAFONT LOSES AGAIN!