Great review. I agree with you on making the screen slightly larger and numbering the charging columns so you know what battery to take out when full 👌
Future Suggestions: 1. Temp sensor on each slot. 2. "Time left" countdown on each slot. 3. Discharge rates of up to 1 amp. 4. Smart Life (Tuya) app support for remote monitoring.
Outstanding review. I have been wanting a charger to do storage levels for ages. This is the one. I just ordered one from Amazon. Amazon US is giving it a 6 week spread ETA. So none in stock in a US warehouse. Fingers crossed I have had one bad charger from Xtar in the past and sore off them for years. Time to give them a second chance. By the way I have said this before but I really enjoy your review style, please keep the reviews coming.
Great review! The charger seems to offer all the necessary modes to check the health of your cells. I'm curious as to what the available discharge rates are (you forgot to mention it) and I didn't see it listed in your shot of the manual. I would have liked to see more choices in charging currents and the 150ma cut-off seems a bit high. The development of software for Bluetooth would be a huge cost, at least for software that actually works well with all the different operating systems out there. It would more than likely just cause a lot of negative reviews and it's just something else to go wrong. Get off your a$$ and keep an eye on your cells while charging! I've had several cells in the past year that have decided to take a crap while charging and got quite hot. Luckily I was able to pull them and drop them into a small baking pan and take them outside. The cells stayed hot until they totally discharged themselves. And I never charged them above 1A and 3 of the cells were only about 3 years old and didn't even have 50 cycles on them. Don't take it for granted that your cells or possibly your charger will never fail !!!
Works well for me I have been testing some cheap knock off batteries my relatives bought and they have less then half the MAH on the side of the cells!
Just got mine. It was obviously a return, you can tell by how the box had been torn open and the usb-c cable undone was a bit of a give away. I guess the reason it was previously returned is that channel 5 is not working at all. I wouldn’t mind if it was just a return because someone changed their mind about buying it but the fact that it’s faulty and put back into circulation does annoy me somewhat. Other products I’ve had from them have been great.
Thanks for letting us know about this. I wonder how ch5 was broken. I have a family member who I bought an 8 bar xtar for and they put alkaline cells in it, one leaked and that channel never works now. So I wonder what on earth has happened to that one. What did they say when you pointed out it was a return?
This is a minor point, but at least on their 4-bays I wish there was a way to have a plastic cover or sth over the battery bay. I spilt a mug of tea nearby where my VC4 was charging a bunch of cells and it could've been a disaster but thankfully nothing happened. The obvious solution would be to not have tea while standing nearby charging lithium-ions I guess, but what am I supposed to do? Not have tea while I'm watching my cells charge? Ludicrous
Thank you for sharing your usage scenario; it's indeed a consideration we need to take into account. The XTAR BC4 does come with a cover, but it's designed specifically for charging 1.2V and 1.5V AA and AAA batteries, not suitable for charging 18650 batteries. However, we've noted your feedback on this matter, and we will forward it to our product department for future consideration. Thank you
This is an interesting one and here is another one for you. I had a relative try to charge an alkaline battery in a 8 bay Xtar I bought for them. The resulting leak ruined the metal slider and some went in the hole. I suppose in this case even with a cover they would have still ruined one of the slots like they have but in your case yes a cover would stop debris.
Yes this has a battery recovery mode. It switches into a dumb charging mode and trickles the cell until it gets signs of normal life then i think it goes back to normal mode and tops it up. How successful this is can depend on how low the cells got and for how long it was in that state. The worse ones will end up with a reduced capacity but its worth trying. has worked for me 2 times with family's cells they broke and could not get to charge in any intelligent chargers.
Great review. I agree with you on making the screen slightly larger and numbering the charging columns so you know what battery to take out when full 👌
Totally agree thanks 👍😆
Future Suggestions:
1. Temp sensor on each slot.
2. "Time left" countdown on each slot.
3. Discharge rates of up to 1 amp.
4. Smart Life (Tuya) app support for remote monitoring.
Thank you for another great review bud 👍 I'll def be grabbing one of these, my 2-Bay charger just isn't cutting it as the collection grows lol
Outstanding review. I have been wanting a charger to do storage levels for ages. This is the one. I just ordered one from Amazon. Amazon US is giving it a 6 week spread ETA. So none in stock in a US warehouse. Fingers crossed I have had one bad charger from Xtar in the past and sore off them for years. Time to give them a second chance. By the way I have said this before but I really enjoy your review style, please keep the reviews coming.
Great review Richy.
Cheers
Great review! The charger seems to offer all the necessary modes to check the health of your cells. I'm curious as to what the available discharge rates are (you forgot to mention it) and I didn't see it listed in your shot of the manual. I would have liked to see more choices in charging currents and the 150ma cut-off seems a bit high.
The development of software for Bluetooth would be a huge cost, at least for software that actually works well with all the different operating systems out there. It would more than likely just cause a lot of negative reviews and it's just something else to go wrong. Get off your a$$ and keep an eye on your cells while charging! I've had several cells in the past year that have decided to take a crap while charging and got quite hot. Luckily I was able to pull them and drop them into a small baking pan and take them outside. The cells stayed hot until they totally discharged themselves. And I never charged them above 1A and 3 of the cells were only about 3 years old and didn't even have 50 cycles on them. Don't take it for granted that your cells or possibly your charger will never fail !!!
Thats cool it can do capacity test and the storage mode too i use the lit a kalafor capacity testing
Works well for me I have been testing some cheap knock off batteries my relatives bought and they have less then half the MAH on the side of the cells!
Great bit ok kit and great review. Note that 8 26650 cells won't fit together.
I have just ordered one and am hoping it comes with an Australian adapter
Just got mine. It was obviously a return, you can tell by how the box had been torn open and the usb-c cable undone was a bit of a give away. I guess the reason it was previously returned is that channel 5 is not working at all. I wouldn’t mind if it was just a return because someone changed their mind about buying it but the fact that it’s faulty and put back into circulation does annoy me somewhat. Other products I’ve had from them have been great.
Thanks for letting us know about this. I wonder how ch5 was broken. I have a family member who I bought an 8 bar xtar for and they put alkaline cells in it, one leaked and that channel never works now. So I wonder what on earth has happened to that one. What did they say when you pointed out it was a return?
@@TrailTrek Nothing yet, I’ve not had time to deal with it… 5 hours shifts helping amphibians cross the road 😉, I’m knackered. I’ll let you know.
Hi there.✋ Did you know that the best charging current for li-ion batteries is 0,1c current ( for example 3000mah=300ma current for very long life).
I think you don't have electrical car or never will be buy electric car. 😂😘😂
@@Фончотариката-г4г I own BMW instead.😁👍
Nice review....
This is a minor point, but at least on their 4-bays I wish there was a way to have a plastic cover or sth over the battery bay. I spilt a mug of tea nearby where my VC4 was charging a bunch of cells and it could've been a disaster but thankfully nothing happened.
The obvious solution would be to not have tea while standing nearby charging lithium-ions I guess, but what am I supposed to do? Not have tea while I'm watching my cells charge? Ludicrous
Thank you for sharing your usage scenario; it's indeed a consideration we need to take into account. The XTAR BC4 does come with a cover, but it's designed specifically for charging 1.2V and 1.5V AA and AAA batteries, not suitable for charging 18650 batteries. However, we've noted your feedback on this matter, and we will forward it to our product department for future consideration. Thank you
This is an interesting one and here is another one for you. I had a relative try to charge an alkaline battery in a 8 bay Xtar I bought for them. The resulting leak ruined the metal slider and some went in the hole. I suppose in this case even with a cover they would have still ruined one of the slots like they have but in your case yes a cover would stop debris.
Thank you for taking the time to listen to users. User feedback will continually make your products better and better.
If 18650 fall below the charging voltage of around 1~2 voltage, can this charger recover it?
Yes this has a battery recovery mode. It switches into a dumb charging mode and trickles the cell until it gets signs of normal life then i think it goes back to normal mode and tops it up. How successful this is can depend on how low the cells got and for how long it was in that state. The worse ones will end up with a reduced capacity but its worth trying. has worked for me 2 times with family's cells they broke and could not get to charge in any intelligent chargers.
VC8S is better than VC8 and VC8 plus, isn’t it?
Hi yes this is right. The VC8 came out then the VC8 plus and now the latest one is the VC8S
Hope this helps.