That says nothing about the discharging
1 hour for such high capacity cells is to low for a charger with the Speed of the VC8S
Even the 3A-chargers from Vapcell, LiitoKala, MiBoxer and Folomov will not be that fast, the VC8S can´t be faster anyhow
VC8S discharges up to a maximum current of 300mA.
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I have now had my VC8S charger for 11 days and am still loving it. I have tested and labeled over 50 batteries (capacity testing) ranging from 18350 to 26800 sized. I love that it checks internal resistance. I am really pleased with the charger overall. It is not fast when testing batteries, but I have grown to accept that - I don’t want more fans running in my office, and it can test 8 batteries at 300ma each without getting hot or needing a fan.
If you have 26800 batteries and want to charge more than one at a time, or if you do not own a charger that can test battery capacity, I would strongly suggest that you consider buying the VC8S. If you already have a charger that you love that does everything you want, then this does not apply to you.
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You need 11 days to test over 50 cells, I guess 
I´m also not a fan for chargers with fan but 300mA is very low to test high capacity cells
To be fair, over a dozen of those cells were 7000mah+ 26800s.
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If you´re OK with it I have no problem 
But in general Xtar is in this case not up to date, I think the VP4 Plus Dragon is the fastest at capacity-test with max. discharge of 4x0,5A, LiitoKala have 4x0,75A, Vapcell S4 Plus 2x1A + 2x0,5A. And the Dragon is the biggest (good for spread heat) and most expensive of them.
Not to mention that Vapcell and LiitoKala can directly discharge while Xtar can only discharge via Test-function and is the only one in this price class which have no individual slot configuration.
They need to get some steps forward to catch up with the competitors IMHO.
Being able to charge/test 26800s is the reason I bought it. It is, to my knowledge, the only multibay charger on the market that works with 26800 cells. The fact that it takes a long time to discharge is suboptimal, but unavoidable given the lack of competition.
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Unfortunately, I must share my experience with the new Xtar VC8S, which I have been using for more than a week. I probably had too high expectations, and I am not satisfied with the charger. The first thing that really bothers me is the uncomfortable and unintuitive control. The nonsensically mandatory charging current of 500mA for a NiMH cell, which cannot be lowered or increased, makes no sense. It’s illogical - for some of my AAA batteries it’s too much (e.g., Eneloop LITE, older cells), and for others it’s unnecessarily low (Eneloop PRO, etc.). Thirdly, I found that I am bothered by the charger being only 2-channel. Fourthly, at the beginning, it charges the cell for too long and, in my opinion, unnecessarily with a self-selected current, which the automatic system somehow chooses.
And what really annoys me, today it refused to charge my 3x 18650 Fenix batteries at the current I selected (1A), instead, it insisted on charging at some random value (I think 230mA or similar). The batteries are completely fine, they had a voltage of about 3.86V. Other chargers started charging them exactly as I selected, not according to themselves. Unfortunately, on a scale from 1 to 10, I would only give the charger a 4 at this point. We will see how it deals with the activation of destroyed cells (0V repair/reactivation); the manual claims they have it figured out… so far, I haven’t had such a cell, I dealt with them at the end of last year with other chargers (and disposed of the non-functional ones).
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Try cleaning the contacts of the batteries and charger and wiggle them around when inserting them. The IR “measurement” is very sensitive and when the IR is measured (wrongly) too high, the current will be limited by the charger. It happened a few times to me that it showed values around 150 mΩ and when I inserted it a second time with some wiggling, it went down to 25 mΩ.
I wish XTAR would renew their effort into building hobbyist-oriented chargers in the VP line again.
They offered features and a measure of control that the VC line (presumably, Consumer vs Pro) lacks, and with their questionable logic, and no ability to override it, can result in unsatisfactory results.
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EVERY Xtar charger that I have bought in the last ten years has sucked. For multiple reasons…nonstandard cutoff values, poor charging algorithms, poorly designed slots, I will pay other companies more money… Never spending a cent on Xtar ever again.
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After all the praise of the VC8S a critical view is welcome for me.
Jep, the strange logic with Xtar-chargers to override “manual setting”-possibility with the settings the charger want to use is very annyoing.
However, the VC8S seems to be still much better with NiMH than the VC4SL.
The only 4-bay-charger from Xtar which seems to better than the others is the VP4 Plus Dragon, it seems to be accept the settings you made.
But no individual slot configuration is something which I accept by a <20€-charger, not with the top-model
Xtar miss again the point with upgrading only the slot length of the VP4L
The universal charger MX4 was a deep disappointment to me, can do so many kinds of cells and is only a extreme basic charger, Xtars logic is real some kind of weird.
Dunno if I can hope after this topic for a Xtar which is similar to the Vapcell S4+, or a basic charger with 300mA discharge and only all-slot-setting?
But Xtar need to do many steps forward, especially after Enova want to release two new chargers with functions I like to have
Xtar I hope you’re still checking your threads here. I’ve got a question. Your display counter is only four places, does it roll over and continue when exceeded? I’m looking to make jumper cables to measure some 4695 and 46110 cells.
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Thanks for your kind comment. It can’t show more than 9999mAh. The vc8s is not specially designed for big 46950, 46110 cells.
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So many 18659 chargers out there. Most with almost identical features. Would be nice to see something with 46950 capabilities.
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What happens when it reaches 9999mah does it continue with a frozen counter? Any chance that a charger for these cell might be created?
It’s told that a bunch of EV companies that used the 26800 batteries went bankrupt. And these big size 46800 and 46950 Li-ion batteries are also mostly found in EV industry. Not sure these bigger batteries will be the trend?
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Just make a universal magnetic charger like the Olight UC (with extra features like selectable current).
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Maybe a 2-bay-charger is also an option, I think a 4-bay will getting to big.
And TBH, I don´t know if such big cells are really common in the next years
I’ve had mine for about two weeks and testing all the cells I’ve got. It does all I need and will run six 26mm cells if you place them slots 1,2,4,5,7,8. Usually I’ve got all my cells at nearly full charge. With the storage charge feature all my unused cells have been lowered for hopefully a longer life.