I’m seeking for a charger and I’ve red the excellent HKJ’s tests . I would want to have a good 18650 Li-ion and C Nimh charger.
I have already a La Crosse RS 1050 but it doesn’t charge Li-ion and C Nimh batteries. I can use C adapters but it stops the charge early (2500 or 3000 mAh, I don’t remember).
The Xtar seems to be the best one with a precise display and the possibility to choice the input charge but we can only charge 2 batteries and my bike light needs 4 batteries :~ . And it doesn’t charge Nimh (I only need 2 C batteries but they must have more capacity than a AA battery).
The ThruNite can charge four 18650 batteries and two C Nimh but we can’t choice the input charge. I’m afraid that 1 A charge for 3000 mAh C batteries seems to be a little fast. And the display is not as precise as the Xtar.
I’m waiting since a few months but I don’t see new product. Thus, I’m a little annoyed to choice :~ .
You might consider getting an adapter AA to C. That way you can use your normal Eneloop batteries instead. And increase the rotation on your NiMH-batteries. That is a good thing if you have more than an absolute minimum of batteries.
I have tried using high capacity normal D NiMh-batteries in a radio (Grundig S450DLX) and they drain from self discharge pretty fast. The radio also has room for AA-batteries, and it actually stay usable about as long on 4 x AA 2000 mAh Eneloop as on 4 x D PowerEx 11000 mAh normal NiMh. It is used only a few hours a week. Not to mention if I use fully populated adapters for 3 x AA to D. Then I can run the radio on 12 AA Eneloop. If I wanted to…
If I didn’t already have a Pila IBC for li-ion and a MAHA C808M and a C9000 for NiMH, I’d go for a Nitecore I2, and save up for a hobby charger or wait for the coming new generation of chargers that can test both li-ion and NiMh.
I do lack the ability to easily test the capacity of li-ion batteries. So once a good charger with that capability is released, I’ll most likely buy it. There has been some reviews here, already. But until is available I’m happy with what I’ve got.
The Xtar XP4 is interesting but it hasn’t a display, which is convenient.
I don’t want to use a AA to C adapter because a good AA Eneloop has only 2550 mAh capacity and a good ready to use C battery has 4500 mAh. And a good Alcaline battery has 9500 mAh (that’s what I use now) , but we can’t charge it.
I use these batteries in a weather report and when I change the batteries, it’s boring because I have to take also the transmitter and reinitialise it, to wait 1 hour to initialise the station, change the region (not very simple, I have to take the instruction manual) and wait a few hours to have it : . That’s why I prefer to avoid frequent changes with this device .
I was also interested in a display model and this pointed to the good looking Thrunite MCC-4. BUT, it overcharged my Li-ions to 4.28V! I’ve got far too much money invested in high end cells to start destroying them by overcharging them. I probably just got a faulty unit. Could probably try again and the next one would work just fine. I don’t know.
I tried the new Efest LUC V4 2014 model, got 2 of them shipped to me and neither one worked at all, just made a smoky Oh OH! electronics burning smell. And that was using the car charger off a lead acid 12V batter, they sent 220V European adapters with them that I could’t use.
So yeah, a good charger, one that simply worked like it was supposed to, would be nice.
I have a SoShine S-1 Max Ver 3 that does what it’s supposed to do, but it was making quite a lot of heat in the process. So I drilled a lot of tiny holes above the charging circuitry (171 holes at 1/16th inch diameter) and now if I have 4 cells that need a heavy charge I simply turn the ceiling fan on and it stays cool without overheating the cells. No display though.
I’d recommend getting the OPUS BT-3100 over these battery cookers if you need multi-chemistry charging. It is not on the market yet, however. Charging NiMH, you will want a discharge feature eventually. For now, just get a Nitecore i4. The display features on MCC4 etc. are not worth paying extra for.
Sounds like you should mod the weatherstation(?) so you break out the batteries to an external battery bank. Or two in parallel. A hole in the lid for the batteries, cable and some battery holders should do it. That way you could even swap batteries on the fly, without restarting at all.
Thanks, I just read your test report and I’m not impressed with it. (Nothing wrong with your report, not impressed with the charger)
I also saw, after I’d posted the question, that Chloe had received one for testing as well. I pretty much make it a point to never base my decisions on pre-distribution testing. Far to easy to send out well executed prototypes for testing and reviews than it is to produce mass quantities at that quality level for the consumer market.
With my recent experiences concerning new chargers, I’m thinking about a hobby charger.
Kreisler talked about a very advanced one and I am working on a review of a simple one.
I do not know when I will publish the review, I have two reviews ready, partial test data for 3 chargers (Including NC2500 and this one) and I expect to receive 3 chargers for review Monday.
. I would want to have a good 18650 Li-ion and C Nimh charger.
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