I am not running out of work soon!

Manufactures ask me if they can send some chargers for review and because I do charger reviews I usual say yes.

This can backfire a bit sometimes, usual it means one to three charges, but once in a while it is considerable more. Last time it was 6 charges (Enova, some time ago) and this time it is 6 chargers (Brand will be revealed in a few weeks).
At the current time I have no idea how good/bad they are or how easy they are to use, I have just received a big box with chargers. More about this in a few weeks.

Other manufactures are much more cautious, I have one where I explained that I prefer to get a moderate number of items and they assured me it was no problem, they would only send one to see how I would review it.

From a reviewers diary.

(Just a bit of casual talk on a relaxed day).

Dude, I know it is a lot of specialized work… But, Wow we do appreciate your painstaking efforts and fine attention to detail. I must say, several times a week I have frequented your lists. Just wish I had the equipment needed to do this kind of stuff… But, can’t afford the test equipment even let alone the multi-thousand dollar power supplies!

While I was at university 30 years ago, I had access to some really nice equipment in the day… Oh to have that now!

Good! And when you remember to chill from time to time and eat an apple a day, we are not running out of reviews :wink:
For which we are very grateful, BTW.

I love good equipment and I do put a lot of money into it.

I am not that good at apples, I prefer grapes that has been around for some time (I will admit that I do also eat a lot of fruit and exercise some). Today I have eaten (more or less, teeth was not really required) some old grapes.

We all appreciate what you do very much, and yes, it is important to have a break now and then.

HKJ - your hard work is much appreciated!

We do love your reviews :+1: And we clamor for more, but that can’t happen if you are not in good shape. Do make time to “unlax and rewind” as an old friend of mine says. That is VERY important for a humans good health :wink: We and those boxes of chargers can wait till you get to them.

Properly aged grapes can be lovely. My favorite ones came in the oldest Remy Martin bottles :smiley:

Phil

Cognac can be very good, but mostly I drink less aged grapes, that has not been boiled.

After a rather busy day I will probably look for some now, I need to relax.

The days work:
Taken photos of 7 chargers.
Taken photos of 2 usb chargers.
Taken photos of 1 power bank.
Taken a couple of other photos
Fully tested a usb meter
Partial tested 3 usb chargers
Partial tested a car charger
As usual I have also a charger test and two battery tests running, but they do not require much work.

My initial statement about running out of work was a bit premature. I know that I have many chargers in queue and decided to make a list with work done:

This also shows a bit about how much I split the testing up. I do never test a charger from start to finish, I do it in small pieces. Due to the way my system work is it much faster overall. Some explanation to the chart:
Batt. photos are the list photos with batteries in the charger, for AA/AAA it is done together with the other photos, but for LiIon chargers I usual put the camera on a tripod and grab a box with different LiIon batteries. Due to the setup and teardown time I prefer to do it for a couple of charges at a time.
Night photos are leds/displays with background light, they requires the camera on a tripod and dark surroundings, i.e. either at night or in a room without windows.
Discharge test is all the discharge (and charge) test, this can take a couple of weeks for some chargers, but do not require much work from me. Most of the time I am limited to do one charger at a time, but at the moment I am running 3 chargers (I have had a couple of advanced chargers and also some I had to redo, this has been hard on my prepared review queue).
12V test, chargers that can be supplied from 12V usual get a extra test where I measure current consumption.
Scope, the different oscilloscope pictures including in a review. Requires my time.
Detail test, the list of miscellaneous values. Requires my time.
IR, the heat photos, because I take a couple of photos during a charge it can take many hours. There is not that much work in it, but I must be home.
USB, I have not detailed this, but it is either a usb power bank or usb charger test.
Written, I start on writing when I have most of the tests done, sometimes I need to redo a few test or missed some test (With analyzing charger I usual make a test plan, but not for simple chargers).

I left out the name column, I do not like to talk about what charger I will publish reviews on and especially when.

The 3 chargers without photos arrive a very short time ago.

I really find your hard work useful. Thank you for that.
It is nice to base purchasing decisions on actual data.

+1

Truly outstanding work you do, appreciated by a great many! Thank you.

Every man should have a hobby!

IHMO,I don’t like idea of charger manufacturers send samples to you,since they could fine tune those chargers and use better(more expensive) components just for that review.
It would be better if BLF,CPF and other battery/charger related forum memebers send you donations,so you could buy a random chargers from random store.

The risk of that is fairly minor, it would be rather expensive to make special review version. I do sometimes get faulty chargers, i.e. they have definitely not been made for review.
A more real risk is that the charger design is silent updated at a later date.

I do not get that many chargers directly from manufacturers. Lately I have gotten many from gearbest, they do not manufacturer chargers, they only sell them.

It would not be in the manufacturer’s best interests to make special ‘review’ versions of their products. There are too many members of this forum and others that are skilled enough to run exhaustive tests as part of their reviews. As such, specially tuned products would quickly wind up with varying results between testers, with resulting bad PR for the manufacturers.

Companies that make chargers, batteries, etc would have technically competent engineers and test equipment one would think. I wonder why so many things test so poorly given that assumption (which I understand can be invalid). Another thing I’ve wondered about is why manufacturers send items to be tested by HKJ and others. Again one would think that their tests would mirror the results of others. Or they’re trying to save money by not testing their products? Which sounds silly given the cost to tool up to make things.

I know some will chime in by just saying crappy and cheap Chinese, etc products but that can’t be the only reason. I guess companies that just copy products on the cheap won’t have much in the way of engineering and testing resources.

They’re sending the charger more for review, it’s not mostly manufactures but resellers. He is well known across the web not only in lights but vape scene, anything that runs on batteries, ESP lithiums.

Its a good way to get exposure for the seller and for us users to get empirical tests.

China builds a product to a price point, (usually much lower than what we pay) it’s not always possible to achieve quality and loads of r&d. This is especially true in our ‘budget’ interests as it opens up to much smaller, garage like manufacturers.

Nothing to do with their capabilities.

No doubt that’s true. But why are some of the products so poorly made? Lack of in-house skills?

Ever heard of the term ‘caveat emptor’? [‘Let the buyer beware’] As stated above, they have a price point that they feel will sell the product, and how well it actually performs is a function of how good the designers are, and how well (cheap) it can be manufactured. Hopefully, if it is too bad, it will never see the light of day. But there are always people who only look at price and assume performance, which are these people’s lawful prey.