Hello everyone. I’m wondering if anyone knows of a source to order the cable only for an Xtar VC4 charger? I ordered the charger from Gearbest, along with some other items, a few months ago. The package arrived, unopened, and in the usual time frame. Sadly, the charger arrived intact, but missing the supposedly supplied power cable. I addressed this with their customer service, and after a ridiculous amount of back and forth, was promised that one had been sent out. I wait, and CNY goes passed. I figure it probably got held up with the holiday, and I’m a patient guy, so no big deal. Since nothing arrived, I contact Gearbest and I’m informed it was never sent out, and that they no longer have anything to send. Nikki claims it is the shipping company’s fault, but I don’t see how something missing from an unopened parcel is their issue. They offered a small refund or credit as compensation. I guess I’m stuck sourcing it myself if I want a usable charger. It is USB on one end, and some type of 5V barrel plug on the other. Any ideas would be very welcome. Thanks very much.
EDIT: after doing some reading, it appears it may be a 5.5mm x 2.5 mm barrel plug. (Center pin is + and outside barrel is - ) Can anyone confirm if this is correct? Looks like ebay might be the best way, although it likely means another long wait while it’s on the slow boat from China. I’m not sure I can easily find something locally.
that cable is the weak point with this charger, I had 2 so far and the third one is “kind of ” working.
1) contact xtar here on blf
2) build your own cable
3) potentially find it elsewhere (I wouldn’t know where, sorry). but it is on the xtar homepage.
xtar is also on ebay!
edit: this is a “standard” cable, not the most common one out there or in use but there is nothing special about it. It should be available in electronics stores, AE, ebay, (…)
As above, your not missing much, the supplied cable is such poor quality in my experience you will be replacing it after a few weeks use anyway! I like Xtar but they dropped a ball with this solution imo.
That sounds right in your edit but I would have to check when I’m near the charger. I cut up a decent Anker cable and use that now. Dead simple but still annoying.
thanks very much guys. I decided to forego the whole affair of waiting for another delivery from China…and DIY’d it. After opening up the charger, I cut the end off a mini usb cable I had laying around. Drilled a small hole in the case and fed the wire through. Soldered the + and - to the pads on the backside of the port and off we go. the cable is no longer removable but the charger never leaves the house so it’s not a big deal. Now I just plug it into a Samsung 2 amp plug in and everything is working properly. Thanks for nothing Gearbest.
you either got a returned item that got shipped out or it was somehow otherwise not QCd. Because I have bought a ton of XTAR chargers and they were all packaged correctly (nothing missing) by Xtar.
not sure how the item was missing as the packaging all seemed in order, (and unopened) and the charger is apparently working fine. At the very least, after their refund, I think I paid something like $8 for the charger… not a bad deal considering .
I did the same bypass of the barrel connector soon after I purchased mine. The barrel connector and weak supplied cable really hurt the reliability of an otherwise good charger.Mine now stays plugged to a USB hub and is used as my daily charger. Have had zero issues since the modification.
I took it down to an electronics recycle store, sorted through the appropriate voltage bin, and soon came up with a 5v-2.5A that fit for $1. It’s a not uncommon size.
Re: missing cable, if I remember right, (big if) when I bought my VC2 and my VC4 the cable and US plug were optional. I opted in for one and not the other since I had accumulated a number of cables. This was on ebay so YMMV but if they were shipped to the ebay guy w/o cables I expect that a few batches at least are out there.