Looking for Smart Charger/s for AAA/AA/RCR123/10180

What's the best charger that ticks these boxes?

I'm not too fussed by speed, safety is better.

- Charges AAA/10440, AA, RCR123, 10180
- Smart charging (cut off when fully charged)
- 2-4 bay

4rmless said:

What's the best charger that ticks these boxes?

I'm not too fussed by speed, safety is better.

- Charges AAA/10440, AA, RCR123, 10180
- Smart charging (cut off when fully charged)
- 2-4 bay

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When you state "AAA/10440 and AA," do you mean NiMH AAAs and AAs, or just li-ion cells in those form factors ie: 10440 (AAA size) and 14500 (AA size?)

For the smaller 10440s and 10180s you're going to want a charger that charges at a low rate of say 200mA, or 250mA.

If you're just talking about li-ions and not NiMH batteries, you might be able to get by with something like an Xtar VP2, which has three charging rates of 250mA, 500mA and 1A.

The 250mA rate is good for 16340s and 10440s, although it's probably a tad high for the 10180s, but should be safe enough, albeit possibly at the expense of cycle life for the smallest of those listed cells.

Chris

ChrisGarrett said:

Xtar VP2

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Thanks Chris. Elsewhere I've just been recommended a Pila IBC dual bay, would that be suitable and how would it compare to the Xtar?

Also, I meant ideally both NiMH and Li-ion. Having looked into Xtar, does the VC2 offer anything over the VP4? doesn't seem to to me and the price is not much different.

4rmless said:

Thanks Chris. Elsewhere I've just been recommended a Pila IBC dual bay, would that be suitable and how would it compare to the Xtar?

Click to expand...

Pila's were the king of the hill at one point, but technology has passed them by.

I think the Pila has a single charging rate of 600mA, or 650mA, so that's way too high for the 16340 and smaller cells.

The Xtar VP2 won't do NiMH, but it future proofs you going forward, for most of one's li-ion needs.

If you need a decent, but inexpensive 4 bay 'Jack of all trades/all-in-wonder' charger, the NiteCore i4 v2, or D4 might be the ticket, but their lowest charging rate might still be too high (with 4 cells installed,) for the smaller li-ions.

Look through these:

http://www.lygte-info.dk/info/indexBatteriesAndChargers UK.html

Chris

The XTAR VP1 is still shown to be available at Battery Junction(www.batteryjunction.com).
How about it? It's a little bit cheaper than the VP2.