Hi,
In his review of the Opus BT-C3100 V2.1, HKJ writes:
So I’m wondering, and hopefully HKJ can comment on this, what would be a good 18650 charger that does non-pulsing CC/CV charging?
I was originally looking at the NiteCore D4 but nkon.nl has stopped selling them and I’m not too sure I want a Nitecore anymore. I did very much like the fact that it has a built-in power supply rather than a wall-wart.
I’m definitely not looking for a hobyy charger. I would prefer a single contained unit that will charge 18650’s reliably with a minimum of fuss so that I won’t be the only one in the house being able to use it. I guess that kinda rules out the SkyRC MC3000 even though the engineer in me wants it 
.
Perhaps I should be looking at an Xtar VC2 Plus Master? It’s cheap too and available from nkon. Or perhaps the Xtar VC4 (main downside is that it’s not currently in stock at nkon.nl).
So to summarize I’m trying to decide between these chargers:
- Opus BT-C3100 (pulse charging which apparently is not ideal)
- Nitecore D4 (not too keen on this anymore)
- SkyRC MC3000 (probably too complicated)
- Xtar VC2 Plus Master (seems to have a few quirks with NiMH)
- Xtar VC4 (seems to be one of HKJ’s favourites for this type of use?)
HKJ: This type of charger is what I will call a family charger. Nearly anybody in the family can use it, just put the batteries into the charger and wait. Only caveat is that small batteries go into the two center slots or, for sets of four, in all four slots.
Seems like either the VC2 Plus or VC4 might be the best choice for my application, right?