My old Nitecore 2 Channel finally died :(

[Coastal Cowboy]

Over more than a decade, it was my go-to charger for cylindricals. It gave up the ghost last Friday. It provided me with hundreds of safe, reliable charges over the years and "rescued" two cells a few years back.

I have an Efest Luc V2 as a backup, but now I need a new backup. I think the Luc only does Li-ion (lost the manual), but that's Ok. I don't do surveying anymore so no other battery chemistries are in use here.

 

[Barkuti]

The LiitoKala Lii-202 and clones are nice, but you need at least a 5V 2A power supply for it to not throttle when charging at 1A per channel simultaneously. The powerbank function is not recommended by reviewer HKJ, it drops when battery voltage is low when pumping 1+A.

 

[Shawn Hoefer]

Love my Gyrfalcon All-44
GYRFALCON All-44 4 Channel Digital Battery Charger


Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N910A using Tapatalk

 

[DaveP]

I'll watch the video tonight on the Amazon TV app. Look interesting.

I have the LUC 4, xtar VC4, and the Nitecore i4. My next charger will probably be the Gyrafalcon All44 that Shawn mentioned above. It looks promising for $30 at imrbatteries.com

GYRFALCON All-44 4 Channel Digital Battery Charger

 

[Coastal Cowboy]

I never need to charge more than two cells at a time. I'll probably go with another Nitecore I2.

 

[duc916]

I'm done with Nitecore. I had two D4's that were both causing my HG2's to get hot while charging. I also noticed my HG2's were losing charge prematurely and I think it was caused by the D4's. I replaced the chargers with XTAR VC4's and now my batts never get more than slightly warm while charging, and my batteries have performed flawlessly ever since. Strange because D4's only charge at 0.75A max, while the VC4 does 1.0A max.

 

[DaveP]

I'm done with Nitecore. I had two D4's that were both causing my HG2's to get hot while charging. I also noticed my HG2's were losing charge prematurely and I think it was caused by the D4's. I replaced the chargers with XTAR VC4's and now my batts never get more than slightly warm while charging, and my batteries have performed flawlessly ever since. Strange because D4's only charge at 0.75A max, while the VC4 does 1.0A max.

My Nitecore i4 always seemed to heat up lithium cells. The Efest LUC and the Xtar VC4 don't do that and still charge to 4.17v before cutoff. 3 hundreds of a volt is so close it's not worth discussing. I've had batteries that I took off the charger because I had to leave the house that were close to cutoff. When I popped them back in after returning they showed full. The warmth during the rest period probably continues the chemical reaction inside and they rise a bit in voltage.

 

[VictorViper]

I never need to charge more than two cells at a time. I'll probably go with another Nitecore I2.

My I2 has given me pretty darn close to 8 years, myself, but it's starting to make a really high frequency squeal (barely audible) when is sits idle. Honestly, 8 and 10 years is a damn fine endorsement to just go with the new I2, especially for the price. Seems like there have been some nice upgrades. Revisions come with potential changes for the worse, of course, but they impressed me enough to warrant a second purchase.

 

[Coastal Cowboy]

I ended up with the Efest LUC 2. Couldn't be happier. The glide on the sleds is super smooth.

 

[DaveP]

My Efest Luc 4 has been rock steady. It's the only charger I own that will charge 4 bays at 1A. I'm a fan of Efest chargers.

 

[DaveP]

My I2 has given me pretty darn close to 8 years, myself, but it's starting to make a really high frequency squeal (barely audible) when is sits idle. Honestly, 8 and 10 years is a damn fine endorsement to just go with the new I2, especially for the price. Seems like there have been some nice upgrades. Revisions come with potential changes for the worse, of course, but they impressed me enough to warrant a second purchase.

Modern power supplies use voltage conversion circuits to change AC wall power to the voltages needed to operate. Some component has probably developed a resonance that's creating the high pitched squeal. In the older supplies transformers were used to convert AC voltage levels and we heard a 60hz hum. These days it's solid state voltage conversion using IC's, triacs, diodes, and SCR's. The voltage dividers use an oscillator that's divided down from a high frequency to create the voltage and frequency levels needed for the application.

If it works, and doesn't get hot, I wouldn't worry.

 

[VictorViper]

I ended up picking up a "New" i2 charger over the weekend when I popped into an unknown vape shop on a whim. Keeping the old one around, but I have to say so far my batteries are charging cooler than with the original i2, even at the 1A setting (auto-selects 1A for >1500mAh cells, can be changed to 0.5A manually).

I get two years+ from my cells, so I've been allowing it to run at 1A so far.