Charger Xtar D4





This is one of Xtars simple chargers, it can only charger LiIon batteries and is fairly fast doing it.

I got the charger without a box or accessories.



The charger is mains powered and support 100-240VAC 50/60Hz.



There is not much user interface, only a couple of blue leds that are animated during charge and will show charge state.



The specifications are on the back of the charger, but you need light from the right angle to read it.



The charger can handle both button top and flat top batteries.
The slider moves smoothly and can hand cells from 31mm to 72mm long.



The charger is marked with charge current, but it is not very clear when it uses what current.








The charger can handle 72 mm long batteries, including flat top cells.



Measurements charger

• Slot #1 & #4 will charge with 1A or 2A depending on the internal resistance in the batteries and number of batteries in the charger.
• Slot #2 & #3 will charge with 0.5A or 1A depending on the internal resistance in batteries.
• Power consumption when idle without batteries is 0.13 watt.
• From 0V to 2.9V the charger will charge with 200mA
• Above 2.9V it will use regular charge current (0.5 to 2A).
• When charge is finished the charger will charge with 0.7mA.
• Charger will restart if voltage drops to 4 volt.
• Charge will restart charging after power loss, or battery insertion.
• When not connected to power it will drain up to 9mA from a battery.

This is a fine 2A CC/CV charge curve with about 120mA termination current.




Slot #2 and #3 only charges with 1A and uses same termination current.



The charger decided this battery was slightly old (My sense resistor makes the cell look a bit older that it is) and used 1A charge current.




These batteries is older and slot #2 reduced the charger current to 0.5A.



This is a high current cell and slot #1 charged it at 2A



This is also a high current cell, but for some reason it was only charged at 1A



This is a very old and worn down battery, in slot #2 the charger current was reduced to 0.5A and due to the large voltage drop when charging was finished the charger did one restart.



A 14500 is nicely charger with 0.5A



With 4 cells in the charger maximum charge current is 1A.



M1: 35.5°C, M2: 37.3°C, M3: 39.8°C, M4: 37.9°C, M5: 45.1°C, HS1: 48.7°C



M1: 44.2°C, HS1: 48.2°C



The charger is very fast to start and it do not have a special internal resistance analysis cycle, it probably looks at the voltage increase when turning current on. This time it selected 2A, I wonder about that because I have 100mOhm in series with the battery.



In slot #2 it correctly uses 0.5A charge current.

The charger passed the 2830 volt and 4242 volt test, this means it is it is fairly safe.



Conclusion


This charger is only for LiIon cell, it can charge fairly fast but will adjust charging speed depending on cells. The user interface is very simple: cell for fast charging goes in the outside slots, other cells in the centre slots.

I will rate this charger fairly good.


Notes

The charger was supplied by XTAR for a review.

Here is an explanation on how I did the above charge curves: How do I test a charger