XTAR Dragon

[englishmick]

Has anyone seen this one. I just spotted it on the Illum site. Pretty expensive. It does a load of diagnostics on a battery as well as charging.

I've got a LUC 2 which is the only charger I've ever had. Still working perfectly. But I was thinking of getting another one as a spare. If the Dragon does what it appears to it might take the guesswork out of deciding when to retire batteries. But I don't know much about the technology.

 

[SJvape]

Dragon VP4 Plus Lithium-ion Li-ion Ni-MH battery charger

Sent from my SM-G955F using Tapatalk

 

[suprtrkr]

Never seen one. But it looks very nice, if it can do what it says. And it has a good brand name.

 

[DaveP]

I own and like the Xtar VC4, Efest LUC 4, and the Nitecore i4, but haven't seen the VP4 Plus. At $84 it's on the very high side of competitive pricing.

Call me negative, but there's a review on Amazon by an engineer in the battery business that says its MAH readings aren't accurate.

It will charge 4 batteries at .5A and 1A, as well as 2 batteries in the outer bays at 2A.

if you just want a solid 4 bay charger that will charge all 4 bays at 1A, you might want to check out the Efest LUC 4 or the Gyrfalcon 88 before you jump.

GYRFALCON All-88 8 Channel Digital Battery Charger

 

[Rossum]

I wonder how loose and sloppy an 18650 will be in a charger that's designed to accept up to D-sized batteries?

 

[DaveP]

I wonder how loose and sloppy an 18650 will be in a charger that's designed to accept up to D-sized batteries?

Good question. My Luc 4 will charge 26650 batteries in the 2 center bays that have wide rounded contours. The saving grace there is that when you insert an 18650 it centers in the charge slide channel slots and you can feel the lateral detent. The outer slots are normal 18650 size.

 

[Rossum]

I have two chargers, VP1 and VP2. I prefer the VP1 because I use 18650s exclusively and it fits them like a glove. On those rare occasions when I use the VP2 (which will also take larger diameter cells, presumably up to 26650s), I'm always a bit concerned that I've gotten the cells centered properly when inserting them lest the charger's positive terminal create a short between the cell's positive and the cells's body. Yes, that really shouldn't be a worry provided the battery wraps are in good shape, but it still bothers me, and I can only imagine bays that will accept a 35mm diameter batter would bother me even more.

 

[DaveP]

I have two chargers, VP1 and VP2. I prefer the VP1 because I use 18650s exclusively and it fits them like a glove. On those rare occasions when I use the VP2 (which will also take larger diameter cells, presumably up to 26650s), I'm always a bit concerned that I've gotten the cells centered properly when inserting them lest the charger's positive terminal create a short between the cell's positive and the cells's body. Yes, that really shouldn't be a worry provided the battery wraps are in good shape, but it still bothers me, and I can only imagine bays that will accept a 35mm diameter batter would bother me even more.

Yep, the bay for a D cell would be like a rocking chair for an 18650. Care would have to be taken if the end battery wrap isn't pristine.