Thanks for the confirmation, that was my main concern. A charger which does everything but not fully charging is crap.
Are the current spikes really so bad? Doesn’t the load/battery smooth them out by themself?
How big are the spikes if you charge with 200mA?
My main reason for buying the charger was that I wanted to be able to easily test Li-Ion batteries, like I can test NiMH. With this charger, I can. I think the GB-thread made it rather obvious that there still was some problems with the charger.
I may use a bigger PSU, if I happen to stumble over one, and mod the fan solution, that will improve the performance of the charger even more. But I can use the charger as it is, just fine.
The charger will charge fully and the battery will smooth it out, remember the current pulses is 20 times each second, but I cannot answer how much the smoothing helps.
The spikes are always at full current, even at 200mA charge current, but full current will vary with the battery voltage and the internal resistance of the battery. Maximum is probably around 3.5A to 4A.
Ok so do I have this right ?
It does not show the capacity accurately when
charging at higher current. ??
Does it show correct capacity with a better power supply ?
Or when charging at lower current ?
Thanks.
When charging 4 batteries it will show wrong charge capacity, especially if the batteries are some of the new chemistries from Panasonic and other. Selected charge current is only a small part of this (200mA might work correctly).
Charging 1 battery will show correct capacity, it might also do that with 2 batteries.
A power supply that can supply 10A in short pulses will fix this.
I’m surprised to see so many people deciding not to buy, or upset they already did, due to the mentioned problems. Majority can be solved with a better power supply.
The charger is not even double the price of an i4, but has many more functions and a considerably higher charging current. The i4 peaks at 350mA with 4 batteries inserted, while the Opus can reach 1A.
I bought it to test and refresh my laptop pulls. For that purpose, it functions perfectly even without a new PSU.
My only rather small concern is how long that little fan will last. The fan heats up more than my batteries!
Anyways, those not buying can have fun waiting another few months until a similar charger is released by another company, then wait more for reviews, then hope for a good group buy that won’t be killed by the MAP police. Personally, I am happy with my purchase 
That is probably not a good idea, many laptop power supplies are 18 volt, not 12 volt!
Shoot, you’re right. I’ll edit my original post so as to not mislead anyone.
I seem to remember that other analysing chargers similar to the Opus (ie, not hobby chargers), were likely to be brought to market reasonably soon. In fact that is why I held off in buying the Opus. Now I can’t find where I read about them. :zipper_mouth_face:
Is anyone aware of similar chargers?
There is the LiitoKala: http://lygte-info.dk/review/Review%20Charger%20LiitoKala%20Lii-260%20UK.html
And I have heard rumours about one fancy analyzing LiIon charger more, but it is supposed to be rather expensive (What that exactly means I do not know).
From this 15 minute NiMH 4 bay charger.
I will test it on the Pana 3400 and see how it goes
Thanks HKJ - the battery length restriction on the LiitoKala rather rules it out. I think I’ll wait for news of the fancy one.
So the right supply will have “Switching mode” written on it? Is that the important part?
I think having ample amps is the key point. Switching mode is just a technique, and I think the preferred technique due to efficiency, of delivery varying levels of power. It switches on and off at insane numbers per second to regulate power, instead of burning the excess supply as heat (aka Waste). If full draw was required, I would assume it would not switch off much if it all, and if 10% was required then it would switch off 90% of the time per second. I think its like PWM on lights. That PSU is 5amps rated, so probably can burst to the higher levels momentarily better than the supplied one. At least, it might.
But Im a rank amateur, so Im just guessing.
It’s the 5A output that gives that PSU a chance.
Also I saw irony in the fact that I would use the power supply for one of the worse chargers ever to power one of the best.
I thought that the switching part was related to the ‘short pulses’ HKJ refers to. I have plenty of power supplies laying around that are rated at 12v 4a+ but I thought there was more to it than this? Because if that’s all it takes to sort out the incorrect charge figure then that’s easy.
Not really an accurate guess based on my understanding. ;) Lots of switching must happen even at 100% load remember that you are reducing the voltage after all! For the switching PSU to be able to reduce the voltage it must switch on and off a lot to keep the current changing across it’s inductor. As long as the current is changing across the inductor, the inductor “fights” the higher input voltage and brings the voltage down to the desired level.
Its like herding cats. 
Bottom line, switching - efficient, linear - less efficient?? But the difference is not relevant to the issues of the supplied PSU? Was that bit right? I knew when I was typing the rest, I should have stopped, but no, I didnt listen…
nah, I was curious to know if I had it right anyway, so thanks for the clarification. Not that i understand it.
Thanks for the review!
v3.0… third time lucky, perhaps? :zipper_mouth_face:
Yes, switching is efficient, linear is less efficient. Linear is sometimes used to generate exceptionally “clean” power.
You are correct - the difference is not relevant to fixing the problem with this charger. As HKJ mentioned, all that’s needed is a PSU that can withstand 10A pulses w/out much sag. If I followed what HJK said correctly, the PSU needs to be able to supply 10A on a 20% duty cycle.
What I wonder is whether the problem couldn’t be addressed with a battery reservoir. A 12v SLA battery is often used to smooth out larger setups. Maybe a 4s1p LiFe pack could be used to smooth out this setup. I guess that’s more expensive than just using a bigger PSU 