How to choose a suitable charger？

[allendragon]

How to choose a charger that suits you? Everyone's needs are different. Safe, fast, durable and cheap. There must be at least one element.
Now the battery capacity is getting bigger and bigger, like the capacity of Samsung 50E is as high as 4850mah-5000mah, if you continue to use the old charger, charging once, you may have to wait more than 10 hours. This kind of waiting is very long, even if you use nitocore D4 to charge: it takes 4 hours to fill a battery, if it is 4? That will be more than 14 hours.
So we need the charger to have more power, at least the charging time needs to be doubled. There are also a lot of such fast chargers, but they are very expensive.
The more features the charger has, the greater the chance of failure. Of course, the more features will bring us more convenience. But charging is the most important function of the charger. What we need is that the charger can quickly charge the battery while also protecting the battery. These features, even if we have a screen, we can't see it.
So choose a charger, mainly to see what features you need it, and then whether it is durable. As for the price, of course, the better the benefits.

 

[DaveP]

I have 5 multi-bay lithium chargers that I've bought and accumulated over the years. These days a charger has to have new features I need before I buy another. The most recent purchase I've made this year is the Zanflare C4. It ticks all the boxes for features and adds internal resistance readings. IR is a strong indicator of cell condition and rising IR is a reliable end of life of life marker. The C4's weakest point so far is the bay switches. One is getting sticky and others have talked about complete switch failure being an issue. If it comes apart with screws (as opposed to case parts being glued together) the fix would be easy.

Features I like are 1A charging across all bays, selectable charging rates, sturdy construction, and an informative display. I want the bays to handle at least two 26650 cells at once. Internal resistance is a value I want to see in the display. I also like numeric readouts instead of charging bar indicators. If a charger has multiple selectable progress values on each bay that's a plus.

Most of the cells I use are 18650s @ 2500-3000mah. That's a 3 hour charge at 1A. 26650s are another story, but I only have two and don't mind waiting 4/5 hours for those to top off. As long as vape time doesn't exceed charge time, I'm good. Even if it did, adding another 26650 to the stash would solve that problem. I have 20 or more 18650s charged and ready in various singles and pairs dedicated to classes of mods.

 

[Shadav]

no expert advice here but for me, as with most everything, price is the biggest....next to that.... i like ones that charge independently of each other...i use 2 bay chargers, I have 3 (a few more somewhere packed away) that I use...2 are usb and one is wall outlet, I do prefer the wall outlet one over the usb ones, seems to charge faster
of course safety features are a must. and of course being able to charge different form factors. all of mine currently only hold up to 18650...eventually i'll need to invest into a new one.

 

[tailland]

Ahm, I have bought a decent and very cheap 4bay charger (4*0.5,2*1,1*2amps), but to be honest - it would've been cleverer to buy TWO 2-bay chargers, each one with 2*1.5amps per bay. the Miboxer C2-3000 is on sale right now for about a tenner, so with 2 of those babies, you'd have a real nice charging station...

 

[Baditude]

Guide to Choosing a Li-ion Battery Charger

• Guide to help a novice in choosing a charger. Covers recommended brands, suggestions for the number of charging bays you'll need, independent bays, LED or LCD models, and "smart chargers".

 

[dripster]

The Nitecore NEW i4 (not to be confused with the i4) has my preference because both the charger itself and the batteries don't run very warm so there's better life expectancy of both, and there's no useless bells and whistles on it that can break the charger so it's even more reliable for cheaper. It is compatible with 21700/26650, the sliders on it truly are great, and it accurately stops the charging at 4.2V so if you, like me, can live with the fact it isn't the fastest charger that money can buy (as faster charging only decreases the cycle life of the batteries anyway), then the NEW i4 is what I'll recommend.

 

[Strtsmthng]

Check out the Miboxer C4-12, just added one of these and its fantastic. Up to 3A charging across 4 channels simultaneously