Plenty of chargers out in the market and Xtar was generous enough to send me out 2 of there new line, the VC2S 2 battery charger and the D4 4 battery charger. You can find out more at there website: http://www.xtar.cc/
Xtar VC Series: VC2S
Upgraded colorful VA LCD screen tells you real-time charging status!
Now first thing I checked was it is charged 21700 and 20700 batteries, no problem as you can see below and also charged my 20650 and of course 18650 with any issues.
Funny thing happened the day I received the VC2S, it was the same day my local electric company had scheduled a power outage to make upgrades to the system which was supposed to be 8 hours. Power was due to be back on at 4PM which was good, the house was empty and no one would be home until 5PM at the earliest. Well, no luck as the scheduled repairs kept going until 6AM the next morning!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Curse them. We began to run out of battery on our phones, even went out for the night to grab some diner and keep the phones on the car charger. We figured we would be back and presto, electricity at home....oh the joy quickly turned into despair. That is when I decided to look at my selection of battery chargers to see if any would provide a power bank function and low and behold I saw this on the back of the newly arrived VC2S:
OH JOY!!!!!! Can't say how much this came in handy that night and turns out 2 others nights as the high winds in S California knocked out the power 2 more times in the last month, one lasting 24 hours. Works with just 1 battery but you can install 2 if you like. It prioritizes the left battery to drain first so you would not want to use married batteries as the drain would not be equal.
I got out an old phone to show the charge (use my current phone to take pics) and also an internal battery mod which can also be charged.
I can't believe none of my other chargers from Efest, Hohmtech, Nitecore or even my other Xtar chargers have a power bank function. It is something you don't realize how important it is until you need it and the power bank function of the VC2S is a Godsend with the recent power outages. I had thought my Xtar Over 4 Slim would have a power bank function, has dual outputs but they only work when plugged into a electrical outlet....nope, no power bank function.
Of course it does work to charge your batteries and does a fine job unless you like controlling the amp rate of charge. There is a selection button but that is to change the display from CAP (Charging Capacity) CCR (Real Time Charging Current) and IR (Internal Resistance) You can also press and hold the button to dim the display if you so choose.
The charging rate is determined by the internal resistance of the battery, most Li-ion batteries will charge at 2 amp for a single and 1 amp each for dual. The only time I had 0.5 amps show up was when I was testing the 0V Activation Function with an old AW 18490 from my Provari days. This battery was sitting to long and the voltage dropped too low. The VC2S measured the battery and selected Ni-MH and began charging at 0.5 amps then after awhile switched to Li-ion and began charging at 1 amp. It was able to fully restore the battery but I only keep it around to test these functions. Once a battery has been depleted that far best to get it recycled when using it for a vape device.
Please not that the VC2S does not come with a wall wart, you must supply your own or buy one from Xtar: http://www.xtar.cc/products_detail/productId=85.html To get the best performance you will want the one I just linked, a 5V 2.1A Wall Adpater. You can also use a wall adapter with the same specs if you have an extra lying around, the wall adapter for my Samsung Galaxy Pro 12.1 was the same specs and works.
It also works with most wall adapters you may have lying around from an old cell phone. I tried just that with a 1 amp wall adapter and it still said 2 amp when charging 1 battery and 1 amp when charging a pair.
No problems charging any battery I used with the VC2S which I used exclusively along with the D4 for 4 weeks. What I would have liked to see is an option to change the charge rate, I generally charge at 0.5 amps but with the VC2S I was limited to 2 or 1 amp depending on how many batteries I loaded into it. Would have been good to include a wall adapter as well but that seems to be the norm with the VC series, my 4 year old VC4 didn't include one either.
Xtar AC Power Series D4
Artistic & Practical
Just like the VC2s the first thing I checked was compatible with 21700 and 20700 batteries, no problems fitting and charging either and 20650 and 18650 batteries were fine as well.
Now this is a much more simple design, no buttons and no need to worry about adding in your own wall adapter, it comes with a normal power cord you just plug into the wall.
No graphic display, just 4 LED lights above all 4 battery slots which flash showing the current charge of each battery, simple as can be.
The 2 inner slots are 1 or 0.5 amps and the 2 outer slots are 2 or 1 amp depending on the battery and how many batteries you are charging at one time. There is no option to change the charge rate, the charger measures the battery and then automatically selects what it feels it the proper charge rate.
The slots are marked showing the charge rate.
Now when charging dual married batteries you want them charged at the same rate so either use the 2 inner or 2 outer slots to charge, never charge with one inner and one outer as they will be charged at different rates. You want to charge dual married batteries like the 2 top photo's show, not like the bottom photo.
Now the tricky part comes in if you have a 3 battery mod with 3 married batteries. If you charge all 3 at the same time 1 battery will charge at 2 amp while the other 2 charge at 1 amp which is not ideal. You can get around this by charging a 4th single battery in the last slot which will drop the charge rate on all the slots to 1 amp. Not a great way to go for 3 married batteries, I would not recommend this charger if you need to charge 3 married batteries.
The D4 is a simple charger which comes complete and ready to go out of the box. Includes 2 fast charging 2 amp battery slots on the outside with 2 1 amp slots on the inside for a total of 4 battery charging. No options aside from the work it automatically does like the 3 stage charging for optimizing battery life and the 0V Activation Function which can revive batteries that other chargers will not charge due to the volts being too low. If you just want simple then the D4 just might be for you, not recommended for charging 3 married batteries though.
Xtar VC Series: VC2S
Upgraded colorful VA LCD screen tells you real-time charging status!
- Intelligent Visible Experience
- Micro-USB powered, charge anywhere
- Internal Resistance Testing
- Portable Power Bank Function
- Battery Type Auto-identification
- 0V Activation Function revives over-discharged battery
- Soft Start & TC-CC-CV Three-Stage Charging
Now first thing I checked was it is charged 21700 and 20700 batteries, no problem as you can see below and also charged my 20650 and of course 18650 with any issues.
Funny thing happened the day I received the VC2S, it was the same day my local electric company had scheduled a power outage to make upgrades to the system which was supposed to be 8 hours. Power was due to be back on at 4PM which was good, the house was empty and no one would be home until 5PM at the earliest. Well, no luck as the scheduled repairs kept going until 6AM the next morning!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Curse them. We began to run out of battery on our phones, even went out for the night to grab some diner and keep the phones on the car charger. We figured we would be back and presto, electricity at home....oh the joy quickly turned into despair. That is when I decided to look at my selection of battery chargers to see if any would provide a power bank function and low and behold I saw this on the back of the newly arrived VC2S:
OH JOY!!!!!! Can't say how much this came in handy that night and turns out 2 others nights as the high winds in S California knocked out the power 2 more times in the last month, one lasting 24 hours. Works with just 1 battery but you can install 2 if you like. It prioritizes the left battery to drain first so you would not want to use married batteries as the drain would not be equal.
I got out an old phone to show the charge (use my current phone to take pics) and also an internal battery mod which can also be charged.
I can't believe none of my other chargers from Efest, Hohmtech, Nitecore or even my other Xtar chargers have a power bank function. It is something you don't realize how important it is until you need it and the power bank function of the VC2S is a Godsend with the recent power outages. I had thought my Xtar Over 4 Slim would have a power bank function, has dual outputs but they only work when plugged into a electrical outlet....nope, no power bank function.
Of course it does work to charge your batteries and does a fine job unless you like controlling the amp rate of charge. There is a selection button but that is to change the display from CAP (Charging Capacity) CCR (Real Time Charging Current) and IR (Internal Resistance) You can also press and hold the button to dim the display if you so choose.
The charging rate is determined by the internal resistance of the battery, most Li-ion batteries will charge at 2 amp for a single and 1 amp each for dual. The only time I had 0.5 amps show up was when I was testing the 0V Activation Function with an old AW 18490 from my Provari days. This battery was sitting to long and the voltage dropped too low. The VC2S measured the battery and selected Ni-MH and began charging at 0.5 amps then after awhile switched to Li-ion and began charging at 1 amp. It was able to fully restore the battery but I only keep it around to test these functions. Once a battery has been depleted that far best to get it recycled when using it for a vape device.
Please not that the VC2S does not come with a wall wart, you must supply your own or buy one from Xtar: http://www.xtar.cc/products_detail/productId=85.html To get the best performance you will want the one I just linked, a 5V 2.1A Wall Adpater. You can also use a wall adapter with the same specs if you have an extra lying around, the wall adapter for my Samsung Galaxy Pro 12.1 was the same specs and works.
It also works with most wall adapters you may have lying around from an old cell phone. I tried just that with a 1 amp wall adapter and it still said 2 amp when charging 1 battery and 1 amp when charging a pair.
No problems charging any battery I used with the VC2S which I used exclusively along with the D4 for 4 weeks. What I would have liked to see is an option to change the charge rate, I generally charge at 0.5 amps but with the VC2S I was limited to 2 or 1 amp depending on how many batteries I loaded into it. Would have been good to include a wall adapter as well but that seems to be the norm with the VC series, my 4 year old VC4 didn't include one either.
Xtar AC Power Series D4
Artistic & Practical
- Two-slot 2A Fast Charging
- Unique Owl-Like UI Design
- Battery Life Optimization Charging
- 0V Activation Function Revives Over-discharged Batteries
- TC-CC-CV Three-Stage Charging
- Elaborate Heat Dissipation Design
Just like the VC2s the first thing I checked was compatible with 21700 and 20700 batteries, no problems fitting and charging either and 20650 and 18650 batteries were fine as well.
Now this is a much more simple design, no buttons and no need to worry about adding in your own wall adapter, it comes with a normal power cord you just plug into the wall.
No graphic display, just 4 LED lights above all 4 battery slots which flash showing the current charge of each battery, simple as can be.
The 2 inner slots are 1 or 0.5 amps and the 2 outer slots are 2 or 1 amp depending on the battery and how many batteries you are charging at one time. There is no option to change the charge rate, the charger measures the battery and then automatically selects what it feels it the proper charge rate.
The slots are marked showing the charge rate.
Now when charging dual married batteries you want them charged at the same rate so either use the 2 inner or 2 outer slots to charge, never charge with one inner and one outer as they will be charged at different rates. You want to charge dual married batteries like the 2 top photo's show, not like the bottom photo.
Now the tricky part comes in if you have a 3 battery mod with 3 married batteries. If you charge all 3 at the same time 1 battery will charge at 2 amp while the other 2 charge at 1 amp which is not ideal. You can get around this by charging a 4th single battery in the last slot which will drop the charge rate on all the slots to 1 amp. Not a great way to go for 3 married batteries, I would not recommend this charger if you need to charge 3 married batteries.
The D4 is a simple charger which comes complete and ready to go out of the box. Includes 2 fast charging 2 amp battery slots on the outside with 2 1 amp slots on the inside for a total of 4 battery charging. No options aside from the work it automatically does like the 3 stage charging for optimizing battery life and the 0V Activation Function which can revive batteries that other chargers will not charge due to the volts being too low. If you just want simple then the D4 just might be for you, not recommended for charging 3 married batteries though.
