Just charged 4 30Qs new from LiionWholesale on my Zanflare C4 . Although I bought it long ago, it was my first use. IR was showing each cell in the hundreds of M ohms, even after charging the cells and cleaning the contacts. Same batteries in a Jionrun charger measure 40 M ohms. These IR measurements are all over the place . Don’t see much usefulness in them .
Which makes me further think there may be some significant variation in components. My particular C4 has the most consistent IR measurements of all the chargers I have that will do it. It’s one of the major reasons it’s one of my favorites.
I’ve seen a fair number of electronic products brought down by ‘success’. They work hard to get a decent unit to market > the market likes it because it works well and is a great deal > word spreads, purchases flood in > small company can’t keep up with the demand > they desperately start shopping for alternative component sources (often inferior but cheaper, or at least available) and slapping new units together as fast as they can to keep up, but they simply cannot > quality falls, failures accumulate > the market sours on them with the new rapid distribution of information.
On to the next ‘victim’. It’s a whole new world. It’s no longer dog eat dog, so much as rabid bear vs. enraged wolverine.
Anyone know if the C4 has been discontinued? I noticed the link to it on Amazon comes up with a page not found error and Zanflare’s merchant page no longer has any link at all to it, though it still shows a picture of the C4 on that merchant page.
Zanflare’s website still shows the product, with no mention of discontinued, but they have the same dead link to Amazon, page not found error.
Seems like Amazon would have been a primary US sales point for this so it is curious that the whole page was pulled. They still have the C2 (USB charger) and Sh54 solar charger.
The C4 also shows “Discontinue” (can’t add to cart) on Gearbest.
I sent Zanflare an email asking what’s up, will report back if they reply.
Edit: Heard back from Zanflare:
… and yet, those two don’t have stock, nor does Banggood or anywhere else I looked.
It’s back in stock on Amazon now, also discounted like it was 5 months ago, with a -$12 coupon code 3H3FEL8G discount bringing it down to $18, but I don’t know when this discount will end. Since it has been out of stock for a while it might sell out faster than usual.
Did someone try to charge 21700 battery with this charger, is it possible?
Yes it can charge 21700. My particular unit is wildy inaccurate though so if you don’t already own it, I’d look into other chargers.
Checking voltage with a DMM after charging has resulted in 4.15 to 4.25!
Yeah, it’s snug, but they do fit just fine. Slooooooow, though.
Hmm. I just got some 26650s, will have to try ’em and see. Good pernt.
On my 21700s, they all kicked off at the same voltage reading, but dunno how that’d correspond with actual measured voltage on a DMM, same meter across each of the 4 cells.
Don’t have any issues with 26650 with my C4.
Thanks for reply.
Yes i already have C4 charger, but no 21700 battery yet and if i buy C8F or FT02, will need to buy some.
Will check next time all four 30Q batteries before and after charging with a multimeter.
Yesterday I charged 4 fresh 30Q’s…2 at 1A and 2 at 500mA. After the first 2 finished I swithed the 2 500mA over to the 1A slots to finish up so I could test out my new BLF GT before going to bed. Charged another set of 4 on other chargers. I wanted to make sure they were all charged to 4.2. Checked the first 4 from the XTAR chargers and they were all 4.2. The 4 from the Zanflare were 4.17, 4.18, 4.24, 4.25. I didn’t note which ones were from the 1A charge and which were from the 500mA + 1A but either way 4.25 ain’t cool.
My guess from reading this thread is the that the 4.17 and 4.18 were the 1A and then discharged because I wasn’t hovering over them and they probably sat for awhile after they were done charging before I swapped the 500mA’s over.
I’m used to better quality chargers like my iCharger 106b I use for LiPos so I ordered an MC3000 and it can’t get here soon enough.
4.17 > 4.25 are all within spec.
The difference is …….trivial.
10 seconds in a light and the ‘over charge’ is gone. You almost can’t measure the capacity involved without significantly expensive professional equipment.
There are sure a lot of OCD people in this forum.
You are spending $$ on hundredths of a volt.
Think about it.
The MC3000 is still consumer grade. You are quibbling over 0.0x volts.
Why would you charge a Li-on, and then immediately charge it AGAIN? Then be upset if it was 0.05 volts over the usual/expected norm?
I guess I’m still kinda stuck in my RC days when we’d pull 150A+ out of a 4s setup and having unbalanced cells could cause bad things to happen when low voltage cutoff couldn’t keep up with voltage sag on a bad cell. Something about seeing 15’ flames shooting from a little car sorta sticks with you.
But yeah with these relatively low Amp applications not as big of a deal.
My C4 is getting LCD screen ‘rot’. The upper right corner top and right side are going from blue to white slowly. The white completely destroys the information.
Anything I can do about that? I would guess this applies to many LCD screen chargers.
Charger is way beyond warranty. Getting so it looks to be hard to find a replacement, or very expensive now, should it go too far and I want one.
Try gennnnnntly pressing on that corner, and see if it gets better or worse.
If better, some compression could fix it somewhat.
If worse, obviously don’t touch it.
Tried that. There’s a plastic protective plate over the actual LCD screen. Using a pencil erasure I put pretty decent pressure on it to no effect at all. Mmmm.
Hmm, sometimes, then, the glass seal breaks and the LC “ink” inside drains out.
Hey everyone my first post and sorry for reviving the thread. So measurements come out a bit higher than they’re supposed to? I’m in the process of creating an ebike battery and have about 107 of these cells that I need to accurately test (A guy on photonlexicon actually hooked me up with these batteries, really awesome guy!). Panasonic 18650 NCR18650 Battery Fast Shipping from Florida-USA lithium-ion
I like these chargers from what I’m seeing on youtube and other sites including this one but I’m just concerned about that accuracy. The OP is the only one who has actually delved into these chargers in GREAT detail. You can get two of these for about 60 bucks so I really hope I can trust them. What you guys think?
Compared to my Opus and almighty Miboxer, yeah, the Zanflare consistently reads about 10% high. Maybe it’s just optimistic.
Ok when I order mine I’ll do tests and post my results here. I think I’ll be ok with them. I’m also going to pick up one of those tec-06 testers and do a comparison. You guys ever see those? A guy on youtube did extensive testing on them and they proved reliable. We’ll see