You guys are lucky - I have one here that doesn’t terminate at all. I’ve tried it three or four times, it just plain keeps on cookin’.
I really ought to take it out and smash it to make sure nobody ever uses it accidentally. Maybe I’ll just stick a couple of crap cells in it, put it way out in the yard on the end of a long cord and see what happens.
Same type of cells?
I have some cheap NiMHs which causes problems in almost all chargers.
Dunno what Xtar did at creating this awful charger and still shocked at the many good reviews at Amazon about VC4 Plus 
That’s a bummer. I was looking to replace my old Xtar VC4 with something that can do 26650’s. It’s just strange that they’d make such a piece of junk considering how good their other chargers have been that i’ve used.
The VC4SL is my 1st Xtar-charger, so I´m a bit biased now about Xtar.
I´m in contact with Xtar-support now, they want to check my problems. The last offer was to send me a VC4 because it´s more stable(!). But dunno if they testing the VC4SL really and faced the problems.
It´s a shame, the VC4SL is one of the rare Xtar-products with current adjust and with displaying some details about every used slots.
I still wonder why Xtar is in basic functions so outdated: No discharge mode, no different settings für every slot. Even the Dragon don´t have such features, but maybe it´s the best charger from Xtar so far
I thought the VC4 DID charge 26650s. I just canceled the one I ordered for a friend after reading your post.
My friend needs a charger for all batteries and that is automatic, I had thought the VC4 was it.
The VC4 can charge 26650, at least unprotected versions, not sure about protected.
IMHO the VC4 is a bit to weak for such cells, except you like to wait a long time for charging. 2 cells can max. charged with 1A, 4 cells with max. 0,5A. Otherwise, I think it can only charge 2 26650 cells at one time, like the most chargers. I think the VP4 Plus Dragon can charge 4x 26650, but max. with 1A per cell
I´m not a friend of automatic chargers, especially if you want to charge different cells with high and low capacity.
I would go for the Vapcell S4 Plus, it can handle also protected 26650 and have a switch for Automatic and Manual, but it´s more expensive than the VC4.
My friend has protected 26650 batteries that I sold him in a flashlight (HaikeLite HT35), he is a careless drinker and not tech savvy so I worry about the switches.
Does anyone know if the VC4 will handle 26650 KeepPower 5200mAh Protected High Discharge Flat Tops?
Speed of charge is not important.
Maybe you better start another topic, not sure how many VC4-owners will read this VC4SL-topic
Samsung QC 3 isn’t exactly Qualcomm 3.0, its a modified version of it. It’s confusing. My legit from Samsung 18w fast charger isn’t recognized as QC 3 by my xtar, but my random $5 no-name QC 3.0 charger works perfectly. You’ll notice no Samsung devices are listed on the approved Qualcomm list, phones or chargers.
For lithium ion I have had no problems with my vc4sl. Ya theres outdated features, absolutely. The voltage gauge is stupid, the resistance isn’t accurate, etc. That’s unfortunate. But it’s not unusable. If you use a QC 3.0 charger it works fine. I haven’t had any of the light flickering issues, inability to recognize batteries, or any problems anybody else talks about when I use a QC 3.0 charger. I suspect most of the complaints are from people not actually using a QC 3.0 charger.
With lithium ion. NiMH is a different story. You really have to watch it. If you watch it and have a temp gun it works fine. But I fell asleep while charging some 750mah Ladda AAAs at 500mah last night and it had applied ~1050mah to 3 of them and 1200mah to one. It’s usually not that bad, but damn, that’s bad. It does better with AAs. I’m looking at getting a vapcell S4 but not sure how it does with NiMH. Though when I do get a vapcell I’m still going to use my vc4sl.
I was wondering if any of the other XTAR chargers (VC4S, VC4 Plus, VC4H, X4 etc.) have similar issues.
VC4 Plus is the same as the VC4SL, it is for anothzer kind of Dealer, OEM or something?
VC4S looks fine at HJK-Test, but I made the experience the VC4SL did sometimes work slow but fine. If a charger works good with Eneloops it don´t mean it works good with some other NiMHs
Other Xtar with NiMH-problems (from HJK-tests):
MC4S
VC8
VC2 Plus have problems with some older NiMHs
And he does try only two kinds of NiMHs, not so meaningful to test the quality of the charger
I already try it with 5 or more PSUs, with some Powerbanks, also with other cables. It changes the behavior in general, often it stops charging to early, sometimes it stopps much to late.
User cihan had also some different results than me, especially with QC3.0-PSUs
AFAIK the VC4SL is delivered with a Non-QC-compatible cable, did you change it?
I also recognized it have more early termination problems with AAA than AA, dunno why. But to charge high capacity NiMHs with the VC4SL is a pain. Maybe 2 cells get charged with 2x 1A, but if a 3rd or 4th cell is inserted it drops down to 500mA. And because it´s much slower than the selected current:
It loaded a 2300mAh cell with ca. 3800mAh
First I thought this charger did only bad measurements, but with some cells it looks OK. The Grade-Mode show more lower caps than higher caps.
I have the Vapcell S4 Plus, it´s a great charger for NiMH. The only thing I miss is a finer selection of charging currents. The termination works very good with the most cells I have, only very problematic cheap cells from discounter are a problem. But all my other chargers have more problems.
So is this charger fine to use with li-ion batteries?
It charged 2 of my LiIon OK, but to slow for the selected current.
Other ppl have mixed results. Sometimes no full charging and the charger ignores the selected speed. You will find in this forum bad experiences and also at some Youtube-comments
This answer from the Xtar support gives me no confidence in the VC4SL, it looks they don´t have confidence in this product. I don´t know if someone would recommend it, I will not do this :disappointed:
I still recommend the Vapcell S4 Plus, or for LiIon only also the Nitecore UM (S)2/4 if you don´t need to charge with fastest speed
Thank you for this topic, it shows me the best choice was I send this charger back because of the malfunctions
Yesterday I charged 4 Energizer extreme AAA Nimh with Xtar vc4 plus. Termination was problematic. They are all 800 mAh cells and charger keeps charging them beyond 860mAh. Cells were not hot but close to getting hot. I pulled them out myself. They are Japanese cells.
Charging +60mAh over rated capacity isn´t critical, especially if the cells not getting hot.
I have things like +1500mAh or a cell that charged with 3847mAh (I stopped manually) which shows at discharge with the VC4SL Grad-function 1722mAh
But the big problem is the early termination, even if I tried a re-insert after the 1st stopp
29 AAA, 17 stopped to early
20 AA, 7 stopped to early
So far not had any problems with mine. I don't care about early termination much (4.1V is fine), I usually pull batteries out at 4.1 as it takes less life out of them than saturating at 4.2, and check with my multimeter to be sure, but I have let it charge to termination when I wans't paying attention - I don't think I measured every battery but the one I did read something like 4.15. I have some running in it right now so maybe I'll let it terminate on these ones - overcharging is the only thing I'm really worried about. That said, I haven't charged any NiMH with it yet (none depleted since I got this charger) so when some of those need charging I'll do a proper test and watch it.
Not had any obvious problems with li-ion though. Maybe it's a bad batch or inconsistent QC?
Thermally, no problems here - the charger gets warmer than the batteries on my thermal camera, but it doesn't get hot at all, still cool to the touch. Interestingly, it seems to get warmer on one side than the other, although this is with only 3/4 slots filled.
Thermal shots: https://i.imgur.com/GCOddni.jpeg https://i.imgur.com/P9dnur7.jpeg
I think they mean (only) NiMH-termination because they wrote AAA and AA
Had this charger also for short time, it was extreme awful for charging NiMH, worst charger I ever had.
Even if it would work, a charger which you can only select the max. current and no different currents for different slots, seems to be from the far past
Yes, I mean NiMH. Maybe it works with LiIon better, but I tried it only a few times and don´t have many LiIon. But I would not recommend a such worse charger anyhow.
I contacted Xtar Support again after 2 months of waiting, they said (again) I will get the VC4 from a local online shop. This shop is normally very fast.
Detected another issue with the VC4SL. At my Test of charging NiMH it crashed somehow, the display getting dark but it looks like it was dimmed to a very low luminance, I see a bit if I look at it in a specific angle. But it don´t changed. After disconnect and reconnect the Power Supply it start again with default parameters. Happened 2x in one week.
My Xtar VC4SL arrived the other day. I was very careful to use a Qualcomm QC 3.00 USB outlet with 5V @ 3A + 9V @ 2A. No problems using it with 21700 and 18650.
It does however have a terrible smell. Its the same smell the solar panel connectors I use have. I’m guessing its a flame retardant. I hope they don’t use PFAS (per- and poly-fluorinated alkyl substances) as these are really bad for you.
