I’m wanting to buy a charger for me and the mates I’ve bought D4v2’s, KR4’s and D4AA for, and I’ve found there is not a single model available anywhere that meets the criteria I’m looking for. The closest anyone gets is the Vapcel SU2 but it has totally fatal flaws and I would never buy it as a result. No USB-C charging. What are they smoking.
Perfect charger would be have a similar feature set to SU2 with some additions:
fine control of charging current
2 slot for portability
USB C charging input (non-negotiable - unique cables and charging bricks like the SU2 is unforgivably bad design in 2025. I don’t know anyone under the age of 40 that doesn’t have at least one 60w USB-C charging cable at home, and I want to be able to use the high quality / high power USB-C chargers I already own)
USB-C for the power bank output would be nice
capacity test
definitely reliable Ni-MH charging unlike the xtars (maybe the SU2 has this already I don’t know)
Default is no beeping, easy to turn beeping off if it’s on by default
Closest with USB C charging is the xtar VC2SL but it can’t choose the charging amps so it kills small batteries and it has killed half my Ni-MH batteries with its unreliable and uncontrolled charging output.
I do not understand why no one has made this product yet. USB-C should be the universal standard for all charging everything ever, why are SO MANY charger manufacturers still fluffing around with power bricks?
Have I missed any new releases? Does something meet this criteria yet? Are you a manufacturer and want to make money? Make this charger!!
Yes, I share your frustration, proper USB-C chargers are not at all common.
Did you look at the Nitecore UM2? They changed the design at some point to use USB-C, so make sure you’re not looking at the old versions (micro usb). The biggest drawback is the relatively low charging rate.
Or how about the 4 slot Vapcell BL4? It doesn’t look too bad.
A dedicated power brick actually is much better, you can get all 4 slots to charge at higher rates and not have to design input for various formats. I always like a dedicated power supply, usb-c was never intended for use as a power supply to multi-slot lithium ion stand alone chargers, this is why most manufacturers of multi-slot chargers of high rate use a dedicated ps, easier & better design, example 12vdc 5a input, the chargers circuit is simpler to design for 1 given input. Yes I have usb-c power bricks, several infact, great for phones & tablets. I’d still rather stick with dedicated power bricks for multi-slot chargers
That’s not correct, USB-C PD has slowly been pushing barrel jack PSUs out of a lot of applications. Higher end home routers mostly run of USB-C by now, and so do most other things in the 10-50W class.
The 2 slot usb c xtar VC2SL charges them way too fast and has poor control over the final state of charge. Basically they skimped out hard on the quality of the components for the nimh charging and they’re a dangerous liability anda poor charger as a result. I charged a nimh aaa battery in it once while driving and it nearly started a fire in the car - battery got so hot I couldn’t touch it, totally delaminated the label on the battery, and this was a newish eneloop
Okay, thanks for the info. I don’t think the VS8C has that problem - it started auto charging AA Eneloops at only 250mAh the other night. The rates do depend on the number of cells in it charging though. I’ll keep an eye on it.
It’s funny, I’m moving on from a Nitecore UMS2 (similar to the one you’re keen on- but with higher currents and a USB Micro plug.) BTW it’s easy to get a USB C to micro adapters. I wanted something that can fit 26800 cells. And before that I moved from an even older Nitecore to the UMS2 because it wouldn’t fit 21700 batteries!
Please mind:
" Note: The adjustable charging speed only applies to lithium batteries. for Ni-MH batteries, the charging speed is 0.5A. "
That would be a no-go for me as you cant charge AA NiMH reliably with that.
