The three 8 bay chargers I’m aware of that are worth considering are:
Anyone have a favorite? I’m leaning towards the Xtar because it supports USB type C, but curious what BLF thinks. Each is around $40, so not much difference in terms of price.
I have the Miboxer C8. IME it works reasonably well with both Li-ions and NiMH batteries as a fire+and-forget charger and allows reasonable current settings, and additionally calculates and shows internal resistance, but that’s it – there’s no discharge, analyze or refresh modes.
One of its high points to me is allowing direct automotive power feed (ie, 12-15VDC, as from a car cigarette lighter), simpler and more efficient to use in my motorhome.
Miboxer C8 is so far my “go-to” charger, especially when charging different battery types/sizes.
Xtar VC8 (or VC8 Plus, for the version that has external AC power, and accommodates up to 8x 1Amp charging), the charger is divided into 2 sets for control.
So basically, the VC8 is like having 2 4-bay chargers each with its own set of controls.
However, each set of 4-bay can only do the same thing (charging, or discharging, or capacity testing, or storage), plus they can only be set to the same charging current. If I’m charging different size battery, I prefer to set charge current differently (eg. a 21700 battery and a 14500 battery needs a different charging current, or it will be too slow for one, but too fast for the other battery type, if set to same charging current).
The Miboxer C8 for me, although it does charging only (no capacity test or discharging function), the charging current can adjust automatically if one battery is almost full.
What I mean is:
1) On the VC8 / VC8 Plus, this charger can charge at 1x 3A, 2x 2A, or (3x or) 4x 1A.
as long as I have 4 batteries on the slots, then the maximum charge current will only be up to 1Amp (assuming using the external AC power, or using a QC2.0 USB charger).
so even if 2 (out of 4) batteries have finished charging, the 2 batteries not yet finished charging, will charge at 1A max.
2) Now on the Miboxer C8, the max charging current is 1.5A (it can accommodate 8x 0.8A, 6x 1A, 4x (or less) 1.5A)
So when we have 4 or less batteries, the max charging current is 1.5A. If charging all 8 slots, then the max charging current for each will be limited to 0.8A (at least that's what's on the display).
However, as we finish charging some of the batteries (or if some batteries are almost full, and their charging current decreases), then the other slots that are still far from full, can increase to higher charging current (up to 1.5A), assuming we did not manually set to a lower charging current.
So assuming I'm charging 8x 21700 batteries, but 2 batteries are already fully charged, then the other 6 batteries will increase charging to 1Amp. Let's say 4 batteries out of 8 are nearly full charged, then the other 4 batteries will start to increase charging current to 1.5Amp max.
I like this functionality (automatically balancing the current load, when a slot uses less charging current).
Unllike the Lii-S8 or VC8, where the slot will be "fixed" to a certain charging current, due to number of slots occupied/inserted in the charger.Thanks for asking this, was just digging into the same, curious what folks say 
Maybe a silly question, but why would anybody need an 8 bay charger for domestic purposes?
Why not? 
Seriously, at the time I got mine, I was using a specific device that needed 9V, and the best way to accomplish that (at the time) was with 8x NiMH in an 8xAA battery holder. Charging all these batteries on my 4-bay BC700 was proving a chore, so that’s why I got the Miboxer C8.
I recently bought an appliance that uses 6 AA (NiMH) batteries among some others that use 2-4, and I prefer to just have a single charger. 4 Bay is fine for all my LiIon needs, lacking for NiMH
Thank you. Its obviously not meant for a flashlight. I was just wondering how many people own a BLF-GT (8 * 18650) or a Fenix 41c (8 * AA).
I like my Xtar VC8 Plus, it does all I need. I like the information it displays and that it can charge NiMh and Li Ion.
Just off the top of my head, some places I use multiple cells:
So in some cases I’m exceeding the capability of a 4 bay charger by just recharging a single device, and in many more I’m exceeding it if two devices need to be charged at the same time. I’m actually surprised there isn’t more demand for multi-bay chargers.
Lots of good feedback here. Sounds like the trade-off is the discharge/testing features of the VC8 vs the better current allocation on the Miboxer C8.
Any one have the LiitoKala? In their official Aliexpress store, they only have the EU plug, but there does appear to be another Aliexpress store selling the US version.
For any who own the VC8 (or plus), how’s the voltage cutoff? Read some amazon reviews that it doesn’t bring cells to 4.2V. My current XTAR charger does the same (every cell I pull off of it is ~4 to 4.1V).
Could be cool to some folks but that’s not what I’m looking for
I’m also interested in an 8 bay charger for general purpose use. My main charger is a SkyRC MC3000. It’s by far the most capable charger on the market, but personally I think it’s too fiddly for day-to-day charging, and the “dummy” mode is so limited it’s not useful. The MiBoxer C8 is tempting.
A couple of thing about that. Have you tried the BT app. It makes it quite easy to create and store programs for your commonly used battery types. I know some don’t like having to use an app for charging cells. I was in that camp. Until I tried it. Now I use it all of the time. Pretty much exclusively if I need to change programs.
But I use mine for mostly LIION charging. SO I leave it set for 1 amp charge with 4.2V termination. Just put cells in and hit enter.
No more complicated than the Vapcell or other more common (cheaper) chargers.
I don’t have any 8 bay LIION chargers, so I can’t recommend any. I just have about 10 chargers on my bench. I use them as needed.
I guess that is another option, doubling or tripling up on 2-bay or 4-bay chargers
+1 to that. I have a modded Python script to log everything from my MC3000 during charge, but to start that charge I still use the SkyRC app, nothing beats it in convenience so far.
Re @Bob_McBob’s request for an 8-bay charger recommendation, not sure he saw it but I posted my experience with the Miboxer C8 up here in this topic..
I’m not sure about the other 8-bay chargers, but having been an owner of the Miboxer for over 3 years and the MC3000 for just 6 months, there’s no situation I would use the former in place of the latter.
It’s not the programming I find annoying, it’s the lack of automatic chemistry detection in anything except the dummy mode. I don’t want to have to use an unsecured BT connection and app to reallocate slots whenever I charge NiMH, and I don’t want to be stuck at 0.7A without fiddling with the settings whenever I want to charge Li-ion.
There are other annoyances. The test time after you insert a cell is fairly long, and if you start a program on that slot before it’s ready, it will show as starting and then just reset. I’ve come back to non-charged cells many times because of this. I also think the tabs on the spring-loaded terminals are far too easy to bend, even when manually holding them open to insert a cell. Some of my 40Ts won’t make contact unless I carefully position them hanging up in the air. And the metal parts are starting to pick up rust spots.
It’s undoubtedly the most capable charger on the market, but most of the time I just want to insert cells and have them charge at a reasonable rate without any fiddling.
OK. Everyone has their own use case and set of likes and dislikes. I could address each of your problems with the MC3000, but that would not change anything…
For my use case, and resigning myself the the fact that I just have to know the machine that I am using, none of them significantly impacts me. For instance, waiting for the 3 seconds for the pre-charge analysis to complete before starting the charge process. I just do it. But honestly, I don’t think it takes much longer than more automated (less flexible) chargers like a VP4+ Dragon+ or the like. And I don’t have to quickly select a charge rate (for each slot individually) before it goes to a default… which it typically not what I want.
I am happy to trade any small inconveniences (and for the way I use the charger there are few, except the having to mess with getting contact on certain cells… which I think the addressed on later units), for the functionality, precision, and reliability of the charger.
But as they say, Different strokes…
One day automatic chemistry detection may be implemented, specially after we succeed in reverse-engineering the MC3000 firmware.
I agree with Mandrake – different strokes for different folks and all that. In my case, I would rather have something that gives me more control, than less.
Case in point: one day a crappy piece of electronics over-discharged one of my 18650s to the point my MiBoxer C8 started auto-detecting it as a NiMH (and yes, I know over-discharged Li-Ions are no longer safe and should be discarded and yadda yadda, but that’s not the point). I ended up having to find a dumb charger that was also very slow so I could slowly charge it up to 2.5V before the Miboxer C8 was able to recognize it properly. I hate it when some supposedly ‘smart’ acts like it’s smarter than me, and restricts me from doing WTF I want; this episode sucked so much it stuck to my memory and was one of the reasons for my buying a MC3000.
Neither of these ever happened to me. But then I always operate my MC3000 over bluetooth (I almost never touch its front panel), and I always pull the tabs using my fingers instead of trying to use the batteries’ butts for this.
Some of my 40Ts won’t make contact unless I carefully position them hanging up in the air. And the metal parts are starting to pick up rust spots.
From this and the “tab-bending” part above, I guess you have an old(er) version of the MC3000, no? The recent ones have a different “nub” pattern on the tabs that works with basically any battery I tried so far (the only ones I had some difficulty were my AAA eneloops – it works if you place them all the way down into the MC3000 bays, but I don’t like it very much the way the nub contacts the battery, so I hang them up “in the air” – not a problem as NiMH can’t go into thermal runaway and so the MC3000 per-bay thermometer isn’t really necessary when charging them.
most of the time I just want to insert cells and have them charge at a reasonable rate without any fiddling.
Now you lost me. Isn’t that exactly what the MC3000 “dumb” mode provides?
I guess you and me both suffer from that same affliction 
except the having to mess with getting contact on certain cells… which I think the addressed on later units
Exacly, by using a different pattern of “nubs” on the tabs – see the comment to @Bob_McBob I just posted above.
for the functionality, precision, and reliability of the charger.
Don’t forget safety! Having a separate temp sensor per bay is a great safety feature, and being able to set a maximum temperature for every cell and operation allows us to adapt to ambient temperature, etc and still count on that extra safety. And additionally we can also set a maximum time, so we can interrupt the process if a battery starts taking too long to charge or discharge.
Case in point, a few weeks ago one of my old LG HE4 batteries started to run into thermal runaway, going from 30C to 50C in a couple of minutes. I had my MC3000 programmed to interrupt the process at 50C, and it dutifully did exactly that and sounded its alarm so I could hear it and come and take the battery out to safely discard. This alone probably saved me from a costly and possibly life-threatening house fire and alone justified my purchase of the MC3000.
Needless to say, I’m a big fan of the MC3000 and don’t see myself going back to less-capable chargers anytime soon.