I bought a Zanflare C4 charger from GearBest after reading a bunch of glowing reviews on this forum. Unfortunately, I’m having a little problem with the testing function. When I test high-capacity NiMH batteries such as Eneloop XX with the “NOR Test” feature, when the test is done I either get “- - - -” where the capacity display should be, or I get a nonsensically low number like 17 mAh or 400 mAh. For standard-capacity low-self-discharge NiMH cells, the test appears to work, but it sometimes reports capacities somewhat lower than what other chargers indicate, which is odd since the reviews I’d read seemed to indicate that its capacity readings were actually a bit on the high side.
Here’s an image showing what I’m seeing (battery on the left is an AmazonBasics 2400 mAh, the silver one is an Apple-branded 2000 mAh which I believe is a rebranded first-gen Eneloop, and the two on the right are Eneloop XX.
And here are the same batteries in an Opus BT-C3400:
Do I just have a bum unit, or has anyone else seen this behavior?
I do not know anything about your new Zanflare.So I am probably not much help!
I have the Opus BT-C3100 2.2V and that also works well for me…….usually within 3% of HKJ measured capacity and does not leave blank or inaccurate numbers like the Zanflare.
My guess is that it is defective,at least those 2 slots are.
Did you try and put the batteries that got a reading in the two slots that did not give a reading for your other batteries?
Yeah, I tried it in multiple slots. For some reason, this unit just doesn’t like the high-capacity batteries. Whenever I put something with around 2000 mAh in it, it works fine. I have no idea why.
This charger is popular on the forum, so I’m hoping that someone else can verify that this problem is not endemic to the model and it’s just my unit, in which case I can figure how to send this in and replace it with a new one.
The Opus does a good job of charging and testing, but that fan is too loud even when it’s working properly, and I can’t sleep. And then the fan on the unit I got doesn’t always work properly; if I put it through a sufficient amount of stress, it starts making noises that sound like an angry cat.
Here is your solution for your Opus[loud] fan!! Mine was not that loud. I just wanted a better fan to improve cooling which in turn gave more accurate readings.
My C4 does not exhibit that behavior. When brand new the left screen had a lot of white ‘dots’ which appeared to be dead pixels or something like that. It was annoying, but I could still read the output OK, and it wasn’t bad enough to deal with a return. Over a couple weeks of use most of the white went away. No idea why. That channel does not appear to work any different from the other ones in any way.
I just ordered up a new Delta fan for my Opus to try out. FWIW I already set mine on an 80mm PC fan so the on-board fan almost never comes on, but I do hear the 80mm fan. It’s not as much of a whine, more of a whir, but it’s much better cooling. I’ve made up cooling fans like that for most of my chargers. I do grease the on-board fan occasionally with a top end silicone grease so don’t seem to that the issues with it other users have.
