Thanks for the review. I “almost” bought the Dragon yesterday but the price seemed a bit steep for the features compared to for example the MC3000.
I dropped back and punted for now and settled for a less expensive AccuPower IQ338LX at $39.95 since all I really need right now is to charge 18650’s and D cells. I’ll look at the Dragon again in about a year.
I also thought that as a first release, there would probably be significant changes and maybe upgrades to the next release.
I also don’t like the percentage display. I want a voltage display. I bet they change that next release. Probably push button selectable.
You are most welcome.
Its a good charger but your correct to look at a lower price point, while i don’t have experience with many other chargers i do have a Liitokala 300 (at a fraction of the price), which does almost everything i need, charge li ion, show voltage, show mA in, internal resistance test and capacity test. The advantage of this charger is the internal resistance is actual not an arbitrary unit that maxes out like the Liitokala
As for the voltage/percent, having used it a while i have concluded for an enthusiast voltage is better, and for a novice percent is probably better. Though Xtar needs to improve the percent readings, it says NiMH are empty that are 2/3 full, so a “empty” NiMH charges in just over an hour, and an actually empty NiMH would take 5 hours. A novice would think the battery is shot when in fact the charger is not correctly calibrated.
Each slot is 35mm width, so you can just fit 4 D batteries at once. However they would charge at 1A. If you want 2A charging you can only use slots 1 and 4. I have a photo showing different sized cells (max 26650) in the DRAGON VP4 Plus in my review linked below:
4 D cell charging is a top necessity for me also Brad. The AccuPower IQ338LX was the only other charger I found that could charge 4 D cells at once.
I also believe it can charge all 4 at 500,700,1000 and 1500mAh at the same time.
At $40 it was the perfect fit for my needs. Now I’m just hoping it lasts a few years.
Yes. I returned the first one and got a replacement. SFSG on the replacement.
I was about to pull the trigger on a Dragon but this one at $40 does almost everything the Dragon does and it has a Voltage readout (instead of Percent)
When the Dragon comes down in the $50 - $60 range I’ll reconsider. I think it’s overpriced a good bit at $89.00
But most importantly, the Dragon cannot do 4 D cells at the same time. Big deal for me.
These batteries are beyond strange (and old) so sometimes they will charge forever without getting very hot, no idea where the energy is going, perhaps they have some kind of cold fusion reaction happening?
That said we now know what happens when you put 10,000mAh into a battery with this charger
That is not unusual for older (non Eneloops) NiMH cells. If the charger cannot detect the -deltaV and the voltage does not reach the V cut off, then the charger will keep cooking the cells. I have found my DRAGON to be much better at terminating older cells than my BQ-CC16 and Lii-500.
I know this but where is the energy going, i have had cells that are overcharging or have high IR get too hot to hold at this same current, but these stay cool or sometimes get warm.
I wish, but the same batteries in my BC700 do the same thing. The temperature regulation of the Dragon does not work though, i have had other batteries get too hot to hold but still charging, the 15C max regulation they claim is nonsense.
