I purchased the Nitecore I2 last year and have been very impressed with it. I decided to purchase the I4 as well and received it Sunday. Quick question; if one slot was to go bad somehow, is the whole charger bad or would the other slots continue working independently?
Thank you.
I would expect that the other slots would continue to work. Each slot in the I4 is an independent channel and has its own electronics. To a certain extent however that would depend upon the
failure. If for example the slot shorts out, that would overload the power supply, and then none of the slots would work. That is not a typical failure mode however.
On the I4 slots 1/3 and 2/4 are paired sharing the charge current between them. I have had two fail where I lost slots 2/4. When I place a cell into either of those slots it shows as full.The other two slots work normally.
Thank you, I appreciate the info. Used the I4 the other day and really liked it quite a bit. Actually had it and the I2 running side by side charging up some 18650 laptop pulls (Samsung).
I have had the i4 for two years. It has been a damned good charger. It has ran on house current, auto current, as well as generated current and inverter current. Always reliable. I am considering the D4 now. Just can’t justify replacing this awesome device when there is nothing wrong with it. I charge 18650, AA, and AAAs. I am considering getting some rechargeable D cells.
Note you got contradictory answers to your question above:
And as I recall, there’s a newer version of the I4 that pairs slots 1/2 and 3/4 instead, and no easy way to be sure which version you have.
But don’t rely on me, I’m some guy on the Internets.
Did you contact Nitecore to see if their warranty is any help to you?
If they won’t take it you might want to look inside for a bad solder join or loose wire or anything that could cause further problems you’d rather not have.
If it’s a broken or loose wire for example it could eventually get into some additional trouble.