Review of Charger Xtar XP1

Thanks for the review!

Sounds like a nice little charger considering the price and all..

I definitely can’t find a proper need to have this charger. Why only up to 18500? Why would I want to charge my NiMhs as singles? Why such a dedicated charger for small works, why not adding LiFe support?

Looks like a quality one, though. Ok, it’s only a USB charger, but still…

Good if you use a Sipik sk68 or similar with 14500 and AA cells. If you’re using single cell lights it could be a handy travel charger.

If your normal travel kit only uses small LiIon batteries and maybe a AAA in addition to a mobil phone, this charger will fit very nice.

Do you think it is best only to use it with AAA NiMH?

No, but do always use the 0.5A setting for NiMH, both AA and AAA works fine with that.

Only if I modded my SF L2m to accept a 18500, then I guess I could, but still, I have ML102 single 18650 charger. I could happily accept this one if it were a bit longer to accept 18650s too.

Thank you HKJ, awesome review as always.

Please tell us Xtar XP4 Panzer also in progress :wink:

Not yet.

Great Review. Thank for the nice work.
I am currently using it. Wondering why I bought it for in the first place too. Without reading you review first.

How can the LiIon restart the charge, if there is a trickle charge of 150uA for maintaining the 4.20V? With this trickle charge, the voltage will stay 4.20V constant and never drop below 3.90V?

So Eneloops get a 10mA trickle charge after the ~1.5V termination? :)

I do not expect it will ever happen, but this not prevent me from checking it.

Generally chargers does not need a restart function, even without any leak current from the charger, the battery will last for years, before it drops below 3.9 volt.

Cottenspickers chargers with voltmeter is a different case.

Yes, this works nice to keep old NiMH charged.

So the XP1 uses 10mA trickle charge. Hmm.

As a general rule, which range of currents (mA) would you believe to be reasonable for trickle charge?

Would 300mA be too high in your opinion? Wouldn't 10mA be too low? Don't you agree that anything between 50—300mA would be optimal? :)

Trickle charger must be under 0.1C, i.e. for a 2000mAh battery it must be below 200mA. The 0.1C is the standard charge current used for a 16 hour charge when testing capacity. 0.1C can also be used to balance battery packs with NiMH in series.

For trickle charging I would expect a range from 1mA to 50mA would be usable, the 50mA is enough to compensate for a AA that self discharges in two days or a D that self discharges in 8 days.

For chargers with a weak termination algorithm, a extra charge of one or two hours at 0.1C can be used to compensate for that.

I see, trickle charge should be dependent of NiMH cell capacity and <0.1C, good to know!

Thanks for your opinion, appreciated! :)

Similar info is given on BatteryUniversity page.

Does the xp1 have similar problems with the badly soldered usb as the mc0?

Nope. My copy of the charger is fine and of good quality. However, it is being phased out. If i m correct.

Probably a dumb question, but would connecting the provided USB cable from the Xp1 to a 5V—1A output block (i.e. one used for iPhone charging) cause any issues? The specs say it needs 5v — .5A input.

No, you can always use a higher ampere rated power supply.

Cool, thank you for the quick answer! Just got my little XP1 in today.