Anyone experience this? My VC4 is a few years old and is acting up. I will put in a discharged battery, it’ll charge it for a few minutes - put in about 50-100mAh and stop telling me it’s full. Tested this with multiple batteries. Some times, I have to disconnect and reconnect power and it’ll charge, but it’s refusing to more often than not. It does this with both NiMH and Li Ion.
Thanks
Try cleaning the contacts and ends of the cells with a pencil eraser and isopropyl alcohol and see if that fixes it.
Do the cells read the same voltage on a multimeter as what the charger says? Power supply is steady source and outputting what it should, jack connection to the charger is good?
Contacts are clean, and my big 5 port 35watt Anker power brick works fine.
It freezes up time to time (will read 4.2v on the lcd, after I take the battery out) and I have to unplug and replug to get it to start charging
Well, I think I’d reach out directly to Xtar and see if they might have some input or perhaps a replacement even though it’s old (there’s always hope). If the basics for contacts/connections, supply and cabling, etc. check out good then it sounds like it’s the logic failing and for safety’s sake that makes it trash unless you can identify and replace a simple component on the board. Might bring it to their attention here in a PM or with a link to this thread on one of their various charger threads…may get a faster reply than trying to email directly as if often the case with overseas companies.
Thanks - if they don’t, at least it was cheap
I’m experiencing the exact same thing. VC4 that is approx 5 to 6 years old. Putting in batteries and it will go red for a second then back to green to say they are finished.
After taking them out and turning it on and off i can usually get it to work but it will occasionally stop after a couple hundred mah and I have to reset it again.
I was thinking it was almost time for a new charger.
Could it be related to the USB-to-DC cable? I’m not sure if a cable that has become “loose” might also cause the issue or not.
Xtar sells replacement USB-to-DC cable. Although probably verify with Xtar first if that could be a possible cause.
I think if a li-ion charger lasts more than 3 years, you are doing well. My XTAR VP4 Plus DRAGON lasted 4.5 years until it refused to charge anything. Once they start to play up, it is time to get a new one for safety reasons.
ditto for my dragon