I was looking at the Vapcell BL4 charger with the possibility of purchasing one. But it seems to be unavailable for purchase (at the moment).
As far as I can tell from a quick look at its specifications, it seems to be basically a USB-C powered charger very similar in features to the Vapcell S4+ charger but with some limitation on current capacity.
Anyone know what the situation is regarding purchasing the Vapcell BL4 charger? Will it be available for purchase again (soon)? Or has the Vapcell S4+ charger superseded the BL4 charger altogether?
The Vapcell S4+ gets recommended a lot on BLF.
I don’t know much about the BL4, other than it doesn’t get recommended much (or at all.)
Hopefully someone more knowledgeable than me will be able to give you a better answer.
The BL4 is a pretty new model, so I’d be surprised if they discontinued it, but there are not many reviews of it yet. The S4+ has been around longer, but has received a couple upgrades along the way, and at this point should be pretty well tested.
The two have a lot of overlap in features, but the S4+ can charge significantly faster (up to 3A on all 4 slots at the same time vs. up to 3A on 1 slot, or lower rates if using multiple slots). The BL4 is compatible with USB Quick Charge power supplies.
Both can charge or test capacity of both lithium ion and NiMH batteries. The BL4 can also support LiFePO4 batteries, and 1.5V lithium ion. Both can easily fit 21700 protected cells, although the BL4 is long enough it can also fit the uncommon 26800 size. Both also have a USB-out option so they can serve as powerbanks.
Overall, either should be really good options, depending on if your preference is charging speed or USB compatibility.
I couldn’t say why it appears to not currently be available on their Aliexpress store. If you are in the US, it recently became available through Illumination Supply:
As I’m in New Zealand, Illumn do not ship to New Zealand (see thread here) unfortunately. So I can’t purchase anything from Illumn.
If the BL4 charger is relatively new, then I find it to be a bit odd as to the unavailability of this charger (now)? Maybe too busy making the Vapcell S4+ model charger?
Sort of as an aside: I already have the Vapcell S4+ V2 charger as of a few years ago.
But I am not entirely happy with this charger as it on odd occasion doesn’t seem to function properly. One instance was when trying to charge a cell (not sure if Ni-MH or a Li-ion) in the S4+ set on automatic mode but the charger failed to start charging the cell. Don’t recall if there was an error message or not displayed on the S4+? I think I tried another slot and the charger still failed to start charging the cell.
In the end I used my main charger, the Littokala Lii-600 (on automatic mode), to charge the cell. The Lii-600 charged the cell without any issue!
So not really interested in the Vapcell S4+ V3 charger as it has only very minor upgrades from V2, and it is possible the issues I had with V2 would still be present in V3 of this charger(?).
EDIT: From this thread, it seems the BL4 will be available (again) from the end of this month.
