Wasn’t the main issue on v1 the pulsing on the battery voltage and this causing a too early chargingstop, resulting in not fully charged batteries.
So I took from this that you can sort the main problems out by getting a better power supply, correct? In that case, what specs should they be?
IMHO I don’t think so, as it still leaves the high pulsing current.
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Regards,
Roberta 0:)
Dammit I bought this less than 24 hours ago too aaarrrggghhhh |(
I’m after a very good charger not one with problems. As a laymen I just want to know that it doesn’t have problems working within its specifications. Shouldn’t have to run it at lower current just to get the proper charge!
Wasn't the group buy supposed to wait for HKJ's updated review? I said I was going to wait for a positive update from HKJ before buying, and risked missing the group buy pricing, and I'm very glad I had the patience to stick to that.
@HKJ, thank you for saving me some money. That money is looking like it'll go towards another hobby charger.
I thought I read in the giant group buy thread something along the lines of 'everything wrong with v1 is fixed in v2)', but I may be mistaken.
Anyway, I too am glad I waited. $40 is a lot to spend on something with this many issues.
So what is the general consensus regarding these faults. Does it make this charger poor value for $40 or are the faults excusable? This is my only charger I’m ever going to buy so I’d prefer it to be perfect and ‘work as described’. In Australia, if a product doesn’t work as intended/described or is unfit for purpose, you can return for a refund. I think this will fall into that category although I do not fully fathom the extent of the technical faults.
The BT-C3100 2.0 might not meet the expectations of those who demand a very good to perfect Charger/Discharger/Analyzer.
Personally, for me this is the best value-for-money $39 item I have so far bought. I own an iCharger, Pila IBC and a Maha C9000, used it for years, so I know how this BT-C3100’s performance compares against them.
It might not give the desired CHARGE figures as some people wanted it to have, but hey, it does everything else decently like the chargers I own. I am happy with it.
So go figure it out! Smile
Thanks HKJ. As always.
No, but any time a question was raised, or concerns etc, a member would pop in saying its all OK, buy buy buy… The questions and concerns over the lack of a positive review were drowned out… IN the beginning there were demands that any dissenters should delete their posts and leave the thread alone for those interested.
That thread felt like a market stall in Thailand.
Was curious about this too though couldnt find much mention more than “a better PSU”… So i just preemptively ebayed this Cheese Grater PSU Spec’d at Input 110~240V/Output 12V 15A just to be sure.
EDIT Sees the price of that cheese grater p/s went from $15 to $21
Here's the quote I was talking about.
So I commend Gearbest for keeping the group buy open long enough for us to benefit from the results of HKJ's test even if that meant we wouldn't buy. I also commend Opus for adding "v2.0" to the display, but that doesn't make up for still having a faulty charger. Maybe they'll get it right on the next version.
I didn't see the posts requesting censorship. Fortunately I stopped paying attention to the thread. I figured it would be a bunch of nonsense until HKJ posted his results.
Since this is a gb thread, I suggested this: (it is in the OP until now, unedited)
*
In order to preserve the essence of this thread, may I respectfully suggest to those members who do not intend to join this Group Buy to make another thread where they can discuss their concerns (positive or negative) about this item?*
For the record, there was no demand for any dissenter to delete their posts.
Edit.
No edit edit
I have no regret to spend $39 for this charger. Nothing is perfect anyway!
There was a issue with oscillations (Current going up and down), that made the charger terminate premature. This is completely fixed.
The charger can both charge and analyze capacity. If you do laptop pulls you can easily analyze the batteries. I will say that the charger fulfills its main purpose.
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.