Best Battery Charger

[Imthiaz Khan]

Hi All,

I would like to get your opinions on which is the best battery charger.
I am currently looking between the Efest LUC V4 and the Nitecore D4.
A bit of googling states the following:

Nitecore only does Output current: 375mA x 4 when all are in use, the LUC V4 will do 500mA x 4 or 1amp x 4 or 2amp x 2.

Which one do you think is better?

Thanks!

 

[zadiac]

mmm.....never thought to check that. Interesting.

 

[ET]

Whichever one puts out the most amps

 

[Silver]

@Imthiaz Khan , i dont have either of those - just the i4 and the i2
I do know that for battery longevity its better to charge them as slow as you can

But both seem very good and i know Rob Fisher for example loves his Luc charger
Others love the nitecore. So both are good

 

[johan]

Hi All,

I would like to get your opinions on which is the best battery charger.
I am currently looking between the Efest LUC V4 and the Nitecore D4.
A bit of googling states the following:

Nitecore only does Output current: 375mA x 4 when all are in use, the LUC V4 will do 500mA x 4 or 1amp x 4 or 2amp x 2.

Which one do you think is better?

Thanks!

View attachment 25132 View attachment 25133

Not one is better than the other, they both use the following constant voltage, constant current linear control Integrated Circuit (IC); TP4056, and the only difference is the micro they use to do battery measurement and display on LCD. Only the very high-end chargers use other dedicated IC's like Microchip's i.e MCP73831. .... and as @Silver mentioned, the slower a battery is charged, the longer it will last.

 

[6ghost9]

I have the efest and I have no complaints with it. It comes with the car charger so when I am travelling. The display tells you what voltage the batteries are which works well especially with my mechs. I have never used the Nitecore so I cant say anything about it unfortunately

 

[stevie g]

you don't want to put the Efest on 2 amps then charge a 18350, it will get hot and heat kills.

 

[thekeeperza]

I have the Nitecore D4 and the Efest LUC V2. Both work well.
I haven't kept record on charge times as I have enough batteries in rotation.
I have noticed, according to the @johan voltage doohickey, that the Efest charges batteries to 4.25V and the Nitecore charges batteries to 4.18-4.20V.

 

[Gazzacpt]

The Nitecore can be used to charge your AA and AAA NiCd and NiMH batteries aswell. Not sure the Efest Luc does that.

 

[Andre]

Here is a site with reviews of chargers: http://www.lygte-info.dk/info/indexBatteriesAndChargers UK.html

 

[johan]

I have the Nitecore D4 and the Efest LUC V2. Both work well.
I haven't kept record on charge times as I have enough batteries in rotation.
I have noticed, according to the @johan voltage doohickey, that the Efest charges batteries to 4.25V and the Nitecore charges batteries to 4.18-4.20V.

4.25V is the upper limit according to most Li-ion & Li-polymer battery manufacturer's data sheets (4.15V is the lower limit, hence data sheets).

 

[Rob Fisher]

Hi All,

I would like to get your opinions on which is the best battery charger.
I am currently looking between the Efest LUC V4 and the Nitecore D4.

I have both... the eFest LUC V4 is the one I use the most because it's the one I bought first and is already in situ on my desk... the other one I take with me when I travel. I can't asnwer on the technical side of it but both seem to do a fine job. Interested to see what the electronics boffins say.

 

[Imthiaz Khan]

Wow, thank you so much for all the responses! Greatly appreciated!
@Andre, the link you provided has really detailed information. Thank you!

The Nitecore D4 seems like the better choice.

 

[JW Flynn]

I have the LUC 4 EFest charger, and it works pretty damn good in my honest opinion, I do not have another charger to compare it to, but... as the initial post mentions, you can charge 4 batteries @ 1 amp each, that is pretty dam n decent...

1. 4 @ 500mA
2. 4 @ 1A
3. 2 @ 2A your two middle slots.

4. and then, another added feature, you can use your charger, as a charger for USB devices... it works on one of the ports on the Charger, where the battery you have in that slot, will supply the Charger with power and it will output onto the USB port,... this is a nice feature if you where to get yourself in a tight spot having to charge a cell phone or something similar

Then as far as battery safety goes and actually charging up to the 2 amp option...

on your batteries spec sheet, you should see a maximum charge rating, either shown in amps or in a "c" rating

with amps it's pretty straight forward, if you batteries spec sheet says that the maximum charge current is 1 amp, then do not charge your batteries at an higher rate than that...

with the "C" rating, it works a bit different... the c rating works with your capacity, so let's say your battery has a 1000mAh rating, and the battery can be charged at 1C then you can effectively charge that battery at 1amp, if it was a 2000mAh battery and the charge rating is still 1C, then you can charge the battery at 2 amps... you see these ratings allot on your RC batteries, for instance you will get a 4500 mAh battery with a maximum charge rating of 5C, that means you can charge a battery at 22.5 amps, this is not good practice, and you should always try and charge at 1C this prolongs the lifetime of your battery

Some of the batteries out there can charge at pretty high rates... for instance, the 26650 64A 3500mAh batteries has a maximum charge rating of 6.4 Amps... that is much higher than these chargers even offer... so even charging this @ 2amp will be fine, and well withing it's safe range...

the big problem however is that some times they don't even state charge rating... for instance on the efest site itself, for the current batch of 18650 2500mAh 35A batteries, they don't even list a charge rate, they only state a charge temperature... this kinda sucks, but with these I have been charging them sometimes at 1 amp and they are fine, not even getting hot or nothing, but, when you push 2 amps into them, I have picked up that they do heat up, I tested this with the first attempt and discontinued trying it @ 2amp... The latest batch of this battery, the upgraded version 2100 mAh 38A (60 pulse) does not even state a charge rate... these look like nice batteries BTW!!

ok, my 50 cents on this, I ope it helps.. an yes, I can definitely recommend the LUC V4

 

[Imthiaz Khan]

Interesting, thank you for the info @JW Flynn

 

[Yusuf Cape Vaper]

I've got both. And I think the luc v4 is a winner. The d4 has a cool screen that shows you how long the batteries are charging and everything, but te luc charges batteries so much faster at the 2A or 1A when charging 4. Because I'm married box mod kinda guy, I charge 2 batteries at a time at 2A and its chicken dinner from there on


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Silver]

So what battery charger did you get @Imthiaz Khan ?
And how is it working for you?

 

[Mike]

Just to chime in here, I prefer to charge batteries as slow as possible. On my D2 I make sure to set it to 375mA rather than the usual 500mA. I have enough spares that it doesn't bother me how long they take to charge and I'd rather the batteries last longer than charge them quickly.

 

[John]

I have the D2, No complaints whatsoever from my side

 

[Viper_SA]

I must say that I am very impressed with the Efest Soda charger I bought. Was the cheapest I could find as a start-up charger and one of the few that was in stock at that time. Charges up to 4.25V an goes quite quick even at the 0.5A setting.

 

[PeterHarris]

i have the luc v4 - it seems to charge my batteries - so i like it

 

[BumbleBee]

I picked the Nitecore purely for its versatility, it charges everything from AAA to 26650... at the same time

 

[zadiac]

Managed to resurrect my Luc v4. It had a dry joint on the pcb. Fixed now and charging as it used to.
Once you're used to the charge speed of the Luc v4, you won't want a slower charger.

 

[Imthiaz Khan]

@Silver, I took the Nitecore D4 charger and I am happy with.
The only issue I have with it is that it's a mission to get a battery out of a bay (that is when all of the bays have a battery in it).
There's either not enough space to put my fingers in-between and get a single battery out or my fingers are maybe too fat

 

[Rob Fisher]

All battery chargers have the silliest of systems and I used to whine about it when I started vaping and I still swear at my battery chargers often... I have just accepted the silly system and live with it now... one day someone is going to build a real charger that has an awesome display and putting in and taking out batteries will be a breeze...

But I feel your pain @Imthiaz Khan!