Review: Sysmax/NiteCore i2 Charger

Charger Sysmax/NiteCore i2



Sysmax made a good 4 channel multi chemistry charger with the i4, now they are trying to repeat it with a two channel charger.



It comes in a cardboard box that list the battery sizes the charger is designed for.



The box contains the charger, a power cord (I bought mine in UK and got a UK power cord), a car power adapter a warranty card and a instruction manual. It looks like the car adapter is optional.



The charger has a standard connection for the power cord and is universal voltage (100-240V 50/60Hz). It does also support 12 volt power. In my tests I have only uses 230 VAC.



The charger has 3 yellow leds for each battery, they will show the actual charge state when charging:
None: no battery detected
1 flashing, 1 steady + 1 flashing, 2 steady + 1 flashing: Charging, number of leds is a rough guide to actual charge level.
3 steady: Battery is full.
3 flashing: Fail.



The plus connection is slightly raised, this means that the charger can be used with flat top batteries.



The minus connection is a slider, making it possible to charge different size batteries without using a spacer. The slider is working very smooth. It will handle batteries from 30mm to 70.1mm.
I had no problem with any of the supported battery sizes, they were easy to put into the charger and did always make connection.








The charger can handle 70 mm long batteries including flat top cells.



Measurements
When power is turned on the charge will charge with 0.5A, if the voltage is below 2 volt it will assume NiMH batteries.
When the charge current goes below the termination current the charging is stopped and it will charge with < 350 uA.
The charger will not restart, if the battery voltage drops.
The charge will always restart charging when a battery is put into it or after a power loss.
When charger is disconnected from power, but with a battery in, it will draw up to 1.2 mA from the battery.
Two batteries in the charger will not change the charge current, i.e. the channels are truly independent.
Because each channel is independent, the different voltages and currents vary between the channels with a small amount.




The charger uses CC/CV charging profile with a termination current around 50mA. My copy of the charger does terminate at a slightly high voltage for LiIon, but it is well with allowable tolerances.
With 0.5A charge current it is not exactly fast to charge 3400mAh batteries, it takes 8 hour on this charger.



The second channel looks exactly like the first.



Using both channels at the same time, does not change anything.



My old IMR cell also charges fine.




NiMH batteries uses another charge algorithm, it looks like it is a constant voltage termination and not the recommended -dv/dt.



The second channel does again look like the first.



And using two channels at the same time, does not change the charge time.




Charging one eneloop and one LiIon at the same time is no problem.



The charging for LiIon is pulsing, there is a short pause each 2 second, probably used to check the voltage.



The charging for NiMH is also pulsing, there is a short pause each 2 second, probably used to check the voltage.




Conclusion

With the 0.5A charge current and dual chemistry support the charger is suitable for a large range of battery sizes and types. The tray works very good with any size battery. The actual charge algorithms are not perfect, but do work.

For most purposes I will say this charger is better than the i4, the lower charge current makes it much better for the 14500 and 16340 batteries, the trays works better and it does not reduce the current when it is filled with batteries.

This charger is a good multi chemistry charger.



Notes

Here is an explanation on how I did the above charge curves: How do I test a charger

from looking around it seems that the intellicore i2 and i4 are one of the best all around chargers thanks to your effort in those great reviews!
I am in the market for a charger than can charge my batteries safely and it seems ill get the i2 instead of the i4.
Thank you HKJ for your great reviews!

My favourite LiIon charger is the Xtar SP2, but for a universal charger the i2 is better, because it also handles NiMH. The i4 can also be used, it is faster, but you have to think about what slots you uses for what batteries, to get the most optimal charging and compared to i2 it has a few mechanical problems (Maybe they are fixed in newer i4).

Yeah i liked the review on the SP2 but i think its price is kinda high for my liking. The think made me feel like getting the i2 is your last comment regarding charging 14500 batteries.
At the moment i only have Trustfire Flames 14500 900mAh and some intl-outdoor NCR18650B 3400mAh on the way, and planning to get a decent 26650 battery and flashlight down the road.

Edit: I went ahead and ordered the i4 i thought i might need the extra 2 slots one day. I hope it wont be any harm to any of my batteries

As always, thx for the very detailed and informative review!

A comparison photo between then i2 and i4:

Thanks for the information on this charger.

Is $19 shipped from the US a good price for this?

People got i4 for 19$ from DD when they had group buy offer, I personally wouldnt get i2 if its not under 15$

Thanks for the review, just picked one of these up!

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

Thanks for the review, H :smiley:
Even for 19, this is a really good charger, IMO. But… unless you have new NiMh’s, I don’t recommend charging semi-old batts because they probably wouldn’t reach 1,5V!

$18.95

http://www.intl-outdoor.com/nitecore-sysmax-intellicharge-i2-universal-dual-channel-charger-p-629.html

I’m gonna buy one of these I do believe.

Or for a $1.04 more, amazon.com will deliver much faster.

You placed it under the HKJ's review of the i2 charger...

[quote=Richie086] Hi folks, I recently acquired this wonderful charger to compliment my Pila and 4Seven's charger. I can't tell you how happy I am with it. After dealing with Hurricane Sandy and a blizzard back to back here on Long Island, my flashlights were getting quite a workout in spite of having an emergency generator. The problem I was running into was using my Trustfire TR-J12 with 3 X Trustfire 26650 5000mAh batteries. I was only able to charge 2 of them at a time using my Pila and the 4Sevens charger. So I felt I needed to get my hands on yet another charger for my 26650 batteries. Now that I've just received my Skyray 9 XT6 that only likes to run on 3X26650's, I have my charging needs pretty much covered. The upside to the Nitecore i4 is that it's the only charger of the 3 that I own that actually charges any of my 26650's (Trustfire flames 5000mAh, King Kong ICR26650E, and 4Sevens 4000mAh) to full charge of 4.2v. The 4Sevens charger will charge their 26650's to full power, but not the Trustfire or King Kongs. The i4 also does NOT get hot or even warm at all when charging, which is pretty amazing too. The downside to the i4 is that it has a much lower charge current, so it takes alot longer to charge and it will only charge 2 26650's at a time. I can honestly recommend purchasing this charger for most all your charging needs. My purchase was made on Amazon.com for $26.99 with free shipping. [/quote]

Thanks for pointing that out to me, I didn’t realize at the time I posted. I just deleted it.

for $16 from HIDC (+shipping I think)

Aw man, that was a nice write-up… you coulda just moved it over to that other review from HKJ

I you didn’t keep a copy, then just copy from my quoted post above and repost over there…. then we can delete these :slight_smile:

Thanks for the detailed and informative review!

I wonder if there’s an updated i4 (version 3?) in the works or already planned for release. I still think 4 independent bays is much more practical, especially if you own a 3xAA or larger flashlight. With that aside, the i2 seems almost perfect. I can’t remember if the i4 v2 was flawed or we were just being a little picky.

19.10$ on DX.com

thanks for the review, great job as always!!