[Different] Practical test/review of Miboxer C4 charger

Hi all.

I guess, you all already tired with different reviews of this charger, so I decided to go in a bit different way. I will skip all that yada-yada, like packaging, who likes what color of display and so on, my tests/conclusions will be practical, and analyze aspects, not shown in other reviews. As others, I've received this charger free of charge, in exchange for honest, unbiased review.

First of all, why someone should ever consider "all-in-one" charger? I'm personally big fan of hobby charger, and by using dedicated cradles, I use Turnigy charger for almost all my battery charging tasks. But, it requires a lot of space, changing of wires, etc. each time, so universal charger might be a bit useful. I do have a bunch of chargers, part of which you can see on the attached picture. I will compare C4 charger to each of them in a corresponding field, so you can see, whenever it replaces them all or not. So here we go.



From left to right (with current average street prices in brackets):

Xtar MP2s charger - one that can handle CR2/CR123A cells, and has LiFe support. ($15)

iPowerUS 9V smart charger - so far, this is only one known to me, charger, which can charge 9V NiMH cells with rapid charge, and also handles 9V LiIon rechargeables. ($35)

Lacrosse BC-700 - well known veteran for AA/AAA NiCd/NiMH charging, can charge, can analyze, can refresh, can cook a dinner (ops, that's not it!) ($35)

LiitoKala Li-260 - charger for 2 LiIon cells, can charge and discharge ($15)

Miboxer C4 Smart charger - our hero ($30)

At the first glance, C4 might look like behemoth, compared to others, but it has built-in power supply, so if we put power supply, next to, say BC-700, size difference is not that much.



Let's start with VS comparison. If one feature is missing from C4, it will get -1 point. If feature is present in C4, but absent in competitor, C4 will get +1 point. If feature is present in both chargers, no points will be awarded:

C4 vs MP2s:

-1 Can charge CR2 cells? - no, they are too short for C4 charger.
+1 Can charge CR123A cells? - yes.
+1 Can charge LifePo4 cells? - yes.

C4 vs iPowerUS charger:

-1 Can charge 9V batteries? - no.

C4 vs BC-700:

-1 Can all slots be used for analyze/refresh/discharge?: no
-1 Max charging current is 300mA vs 700mA
+1 can measure cell internal resistance: yes

C4 vs LiitoKala Li-260:

-1 Can two slots do discharge/IR test: no
+1 Can charge Life cells: yes
+1 Can charge NiMH/NiCd cells: yes
+1 Can charge 4.35V cells: yes

So, C4 got 5 -1 points and 6 +1 points, you have to decide, which ones are important for you.

One is clear, LiitoKala Li-260 is not a competitor for C4, so if you was planning upgrade, you can select C4 with no doubts - it has same features as Li-260, but it can charge 4 cells at time.

For the BC-700, it is hard to say, which one is better. On the one hand, you get 700mA charging current with BC-700, which is not adding health to cells, but sometimes can be useful. Also, it is good for analyzing whole batch of cells, while C4 can only do 1 cell at a time. Overall, if you have BC-700, and do not plan to charge LiIon cells at all, there is no reason for you to upgrade to C4. But, if you're going to buy a first charger, you should go with C4 - for less price than BC-700, it has much more capabilities.

C4 is definitely not a competitor to iPowerUS 9V charger, but that is very specific product, I just included it, to showcase, that someone might need fast 9V charger, and having such function in C4, would it make one of the best chargers in the world.

MP2s shines in only one department - it can recharge rechargeable CR2 cells, but it has 400mA charging current, just like C4, which is overkill to most RCR2 cells. So these are not direct competitors.

So, are there any competitors to C4, in given price range? Sure they are some, but all of them have own shortcomings - Opus chargers have noisy fan, no LiFePo4 support, Nitecore chargers lack analyzing features, hobby chargers require external cradles/power supplies. So, I believe, in the given price range ($30 and under), C4 is one of the best chargers available.

I'm using this charger for a while already, and did some more tests;

- Charger can handle any cell size, starting from CR123A, ending with protected 26650 cells.
- It has excellent dV sensitivity for NiMH, which works even in temperature ranges 0C-30C. At high room temperatures, for example, BC-700 has overheat issues, and terminates charge prematurely, this does not happen with C4.
- Unlike LiitoKala 260, this charger does not overheats LiIon batteries during discharge test.

So, my recommendations/considerations are as follows:

1. Add more current choices - like 150mA for LiIon and 600mA for NiMH
2. Add analyzing capabilities to all 4 slots
3. Show charging mAh, instead of charging time
4. (very personal) change backlit color to white or to amber orange

Thanks all!

Nice [different] comparison! 😊
The C4 sounds like a very nice charger. After reading this I would compare it to my LiitoKala 500. The LiitoKala is a couple bucks cheaper, but cannot use LifePo4 cells. Otherwise it sounds about the same. The LiitoKala 500 does his your recommendations 2 & 3.

The one feature in the C4 that stands out is the built in power brick. I like not having extra wires.

Note: If some aspects, such as voltage stability, temperature issues, etc. Are not mentioned here, it does not means that they were not checked, it just means, that all is OK, and no need to waste time either writing or reading it. As some users reported, springs are a bit weak, and don't hold batteries very well, but I don't find that issue, for sure, if you hit charger with fist, batteries will fall out. Also, some users mentioned, that charger inaccurately reports voltage. This is true, but it only happens when starting charge - at CC mode. At CV mode, current is already low, so this inaccuracy causes no issues at all.

Thank you very much for your excellent review. I will forward your comparison with our competitors to my engineer.
Good review for us!

An important notice for possible buyers. This charger WILL NOT differentiate LiFePo4 cells from LiIon, so if you just insert and let them it charge, it will assume them to be LiIon cells, and will try to charge them to 4.2V. So you should always set the proper battery type, in case of LiFePo4 cells.

I recently got some dead (below 0.5v) 14500 LiFePo4 cells from solar light. This charger was able to recover them without any issues. Will give discharge test and measure capacity shortly.

Is there any charger that can tell you've inserted a lifepo4 cell? None that I know of

vicv said:

Is there any charger that can tell you've inserted a lifepo4 cell? None that I know of

Click to expand...

I don't think it`s possible as it overlaps an standard li-ion voltage range, Lifepo4 2.0-3.6v - standard li-ion 2.5-4.2v

EDIT: Maybe battery should have a way to identify their charging properties to the charging slot, Maybe an NFC chip on each battery.

John.

vicv said:

Is there any charger that can tell you've inserted a lifepo4 cell? None that I know of

Click to expand...

I have not seen any.

TinderBox (UK) said:

I don't think it`s possible as it overlaps an standard li-ion voltage range, Lifepo4 2.0-3.6v - standard li-ion 2.5-4.2v

Click to expand...

It is possible, but it would slow the charge process:
Stop charging when 3.6V is reached (A CV phase may be needed) and wait a couple of minutes, then check how much voltage has dropped. LiFePO4 has considerable larger voltage drop than other LiIon, at least when charging at low current.

6 months passed since the initial review, and I still use this charger a lot. Surprisingly, it replaced Lacrosse BC-700 on my charging deck. Reason? Lacrosse does not recognize heavily discharged NiMH cells, and needs to give them external "kick" to start charging, which is not always handy. Contrary to it, Miboxer C4 is handling such batteries with ease, so I'm very pleased with it.

I purchased one of these specifically for the internal resistance readout, based on HKJ's review.

I found that a pair of batteries, which I bought together, were widely different. I had been using these in series for only a couple weeks in a new light.

I immediately marked these batteries to be used as singles only, and ordered a different pair of batteries. The new pair had perfectly matched internal resistance.

HKJ's review probably saved me from a damaged flashlight.