Review: Charger Soshine SC-S7 UK

> will always restart charging when a battery is put into it or after a power loss
> and for NiMH it might charge a significant amount of current.

So putting in a nearly-charged NiMH risks cooking the cell? or having a power flicker cause a reset when one is almost charged?

NiMH is fairly tolerant with over charging, i.e. I do not know how much damage it does and how this behaviour compares to other chargers.

Thanks alot, HKJ, for another quality review ;)!
Im looking at this as a cheap and portable, no clutter Li battery capacity tester, I know hobby charger would be more versatile and with better accuracy and option, but it will cost more and take up much more space with all the wires and caddies, so Im not sure why would someone who needs only simple testing to make sure their batteries are within manufacturers specifications choose something more complicated and expensive.

Do not expect it to show if a battery is 2500 or 2600 mAh, the actual reading will depend on how much you discharged the battery.

But it will be good to check if the battery has lost a lot of capacity or you got a fake cell.

Thanks very much! Frontpage’d and Sticky’d.

Could you use this charger to tell whether a NiMH cell is weak or damaged?

As long as you always run the cell empty, before charging, the mAh display is a good indicator of problems with the cell.

Would the Xtar WP2 II be a better option than this? Is it true Xtar will be releasing a new version with a display very soon?

That is difficult to say:

  • They uses the same style of charging algorithm.
  • The SC-7 does charge after reporting ready, but only for a limited time.
  • The SC-7 shows mAh, this is useful to see how far a battery has been run down and to see if a battery is nearing end of life.
  • The SC-7 will also handle NiMH
  • The WP2 does two batteries at a time and terminated completely, but are missing the display.

Personally I would prefer the WP2, but I can always use some other charger to check the capacity of a battery.

I have seen some rumors on CPF about it. If these rumors are true I would very much like to test it.

How can I measure the charging rate for my chargers with a DMM?

I want to charge My Trustfire 10440 blacks when they arrive.

My charger are the Trustfire TP 001 and Ultrafire WF 139

How can I measure the charging rate for my chargers with a DMM?

I want to charge My Trustfire 10440 blacks when they arrive.

My charger are the Trustfire TP 001 and Ultrafire WF 139

How can I measure the charging rate for my chargers with a DMM?

I want to charge My Trustfire 10440 blacks when they arrive.

My charger are the Trustfire TP 001 and Ultrafire WF 139

This way:

Check my DMM guide for more explanation.

HKJ, I have a question for you…

I dont know if you have tried, but…

You said that it needs 1A no matter you use USB or 12v.

What happens if you connect the charger to a USB port or a USB power supply capable only of delivering 500mA??

It will not charge? It will charge, but at 500mA? It will give error message?

Thanks!

PS: veeery good review. Thanks for sharing

I have not tried it, but I would guess that the current is reduced when the usb voltage goes down, i.e. it will simply charge with a lower current.

that’s nice to know, I bought one thanks to your review to use it to charge NiHM cells with a 4 18650 box that gets power from a solar panel. Would be nice if I could hook it directly to my solar panel though, I’ll post back results when it arrives.

Do you have any way to test that? Because if it charges when conecting to a 500mA USB source, but at a lower rate than 1000mA, I will buy it on Sunday or Monday….

I will not recommend using any NiMH charger directly from a solar panel, this has to do with the charge termination.

With this charger, you might also get problems with the microprocessor.

I did a partial charge with 4.5 volt on the USB input (Most usb supplies will reduce the voltage when overloaded, not turn off).

The input current was reduced to 700mA, but the "smart" part of the charger did have some problems, it reported my battery as "poor" and there was a slight flashing in the display.

OK, thanks HKJ, now I will not buy it.

You have saved me 18$…

My purpose was to use it always at 5v USB and 500mA to charge batteries at 500 not at 1000.

Now, you said that it starts to do “estrange” things, such as reportin bad cell and some flashing in the screen….

Thanks a lot for your time and work, HKJ!!

I will continue searching for the perfect (or almost-perfect) USB charger

(I already have a sanyo AA/AAA USB charger for 9$ which is for me the best, but it charges only NiMh)

For LiIon the ML-102 is a good charger, but you do not get any fancy display.