Recommendations for 4 bay charger?

[Baldr]

Looking for advice on a 4 bay charger. It will almost entirely be used for charging 2 18650's at a time. Very occasionally may need to charge 3 or 4 at a time, and ideally, one that can handle a 26650.

I'm replacing a Nitecore that I've had for a very long time. No complaints, I've just worn it out, I think. It's starting to act flakey, which leads me to wonder how safe it is. I'd rather not worry about it.

It would be a bonus if it can be charged in the car. I don't need that often, but it would be nice if I had the option. I see some that charge via USB, but I don't know if that would let it work in the car or not.

 

[Nermal]

No answer, but I use an xtar two bay charger. I like it quite well.

 

[DPLongo22]

I've had my best luck with XTARs too. The two 8-bays I'm currently using have been going strong for 3-4 years now (knock wood).

 

[smacuser]

FWIW - I had the same inquiry a while ago and was recommended the xtar VC4SL. I’ve yet to purchase it, so I don’t have any experience regarding its performance.

Intellicharger i4 still flashing after batteries have been charged

I started noticing that my batteries were starting to take longer than what was usual to charge. Every Thursday, I usually bring my charger in to work and by the end of the shift, they were done. So, last week I popped out a battery that was...

www.e-cigarette-forum.com

 

[UncLeJunkLe]

As far as charging in a car, any charger is able to be used in a car if you have the right 12V adapter.

But if you want a decent 18650 4-bay charger that actually comes with a car power cord, I highly recommend the Efest LUC 4. I had mine for about 6 years until is started not working right to the point I figured I had to retire it. It happens. It's not a high end charger, nor are most chargers that vapers use. I also didn't take good care of it. Efest LUC V4 4 Bay LCD Battery Charger

Keep in mind that the LUC 4 will not accommodate 21700 batteries, not even with modification ( I know, I tried) so if you want that option to charge 21700 batts then the LUC4 will not be a good choice.

The Xtar Dragon VP4 Plus also comes with a car power cord but I have to experience with that charger. It takes 21700 batteries. But it's not inexpensive when it comes to consumer-grade chargers.

I'm gonna get bashed for this next paragraph, but here it goes...

I wouldn't fall for the Gyrfalcon All44. Lots of people recommend it and I don't doubt it's good at what it does, but it's confusing as he||. It's menu and screen system are overkill for someone who just wants to charge 18650 batteries for vaping. It's also hard to take 18650 batteries out of it (it's got deep stalls to acommondate bigger batteries so I need a fingernail to take an 18650 out of it woth a good grip, which has ended in me ripping battery wraps more than once). I bought my Gyrfalcon for super cheap so I can't complain but I'd never buy one at regular price and I don't recommend it to someone who likes simple.

 

[englishmick]

I recently got a Vapcell S4 Plus V3.0. Recommended by @TARTARA.

No idea how it stacks with other choices but it does the job for me. It has a lot of charging features but so far I've just let the machine figure out how best to charge a battery. In manual mode you can select the charging current. It shows the charging Amps as it goes and it rarely goes over 1A which is what I used on my old XTAR.

It has an option to measure capacity which is good for knowing when to retire a battery, although it takes many hours to do that. It also has something called repair mode, don't really know what that does but it drains the battery really slowly then charges it back up really slowly. And it can set a battery to storage voltage. Handles all sizes of battery.

I never used car charging. Read once that the power from a car 12V supply can be erratic and can damage stuff. I would probably get a cheapo 2 bay charger for that.

 

[Baldr]

I appreciate the replies. I ended up with a XTAR VC4SL.

I haven't tried car charging with it. It does a good job in the house.

For anyone else considering one, couple of things.

The USB to USB-C charging cable that comes with it is very short, so if you order one, you might want to order a cable at the same time if you need it more than a couple of feet from your wall plug.

You'll also need a good USB-C power adapter plug. Doesn't come with the battery charger, but XTAR does sell one.

 

[rob33]

I've been using a XTAR VP4 Dragon for years with no issues.

 

[Fidola13]

I use an 8 bay charger which had been a life saving lol! It’s a nitecore 8 bay ..reason I bought it was that some of my batteries didn’t feel fit at all and I was tearing up the out plastic this one takes all the battery sizes I need. Hope that this help.

Sara

 

[Primopuo]

Looking for advice on a 4 bay charger. It will almost entirely be used for charging 2 18650's at a time. Very occasionally may need to charge 3 or 4 at a time, and ideally, one that can handle a 26650.

I'm replacing a Nitecore that I've had for a very long time. No complaints, I've just worn it out, I think. It's starting to act flakey, which leads me to wonder how safe it is. I'd rather not worry about it.

It would be a bonus if it can be charged in the car. I don't need that often, but it would be nice if I had the option. I see some that charge via USB, but I don't know if that would let it work in the car or not.

I'm not a brand name person, but don't make the mistake I made by not looking at how many amps it uses to recharge your batteries!