VC2 Charger Use

Everyone pretty much recommends this as the the charger to get for charging 18650 cells. It's supposed to tell you the voltage, how many mAh the battery is, etc.

The instruction manual is vague. The thing doesn't tell you anything about mAh except how much juice you just put into the battery; but you better keep an eye on it because after it reaches 150 mAh, for example, then it will start over from 0. I don't know if it's still trying to charge the battery or what. I tried the VC4 too and it was the same story (ultimately returned that one because it was way too big).

Can anyone tell me how to use these chargers?

Thank you!

I've never used it but HKJ has reviewed it.

http://lygte-info.dk/review/Review%20Charger%20Xtar%20VC2%20UK.html

Lol, that's the thread that made me buy it! I just charged my Fenix 18650 3500mAh (the one with the USB) with this charger. It stopped at 200 or so mAh and it actually was flashing "full." So, at least it let me know how "dead" the battery was (not very much). I guess to test the capacity of the battery completely I'd need to let it die down to nothing first first.

If you wish to measure capacity then you should get an analyzing charger with discharge capability, e.g. the Opus BT-C3100 or Li-500 - which have far more features.

However healthy Li-ion cells have good Coulombic efficiency, i.e. charge_out/charge_in is typically > 0.99, so mAh charged will be very close to capacity. But this won't tell you the capacity at different discharge rates - as would an analyzing charger.