Charger Xtar SC2





This Xtar charger looks like a simple USB charger, but that is a bit deceptive. It is a simple LiIon only charger, but it uses Quick Charge and will charge batteries fairly fast when used with a QC usb charger.



I got the charger in this packing with many languages and specification on the back.



The pack contained the charger, a USB cable and a instruction sheet also in many languages.



The charger is USB powered and can work on both a normal USB charger and one with Quick Charge support.



The user interface is four blue leds for each battery. All leds will be one when charger is empty or battery is full, when charging one led will flash and the other will show charge status.



The charger uses the typical slider construction with a metal rail and works smoothly from about 52mm to 76mm, i.e. the charger can handle long protected 18650/26650/32650 cells and it is not possible to charger shorter cells (With the charger current this charger uses this is a good design).





The charger can handle 76 mm long batteries, including flat top cells.
When supplied from a QC supply this charger is only for high current rated batteries.



Measurements

• When not powered a LiIon will discharge with less then 0.3mA
• When used with a QC charger the voltage will be 9V.
• When charging two batteries the current consumption can be up to 2A from QC 9V
• When charging one battery the current consumption can be up to 1.5A from QC 9V
• Power consumption when idle is 10mA from 5V USB
• Power consumption when idle is 7mA from 9V QC

Charging from QC supply



This is a fast charge at 3A and the termination looks fine with about 200mA termination current.



The other slot looks similar.



The 20700 high current cell is also charged fine.



With two batteries the charge current is reduced to 2A for each, this is still very fast.



M1: 45.3°C, M2: 45.7°C, M3: 60.3°C, HS1: 65.6°C
When charging at high current the batteries do get warm.



HS1: 69.1°C




Charging from 5V USB supply

Using the charger with a non QC supply will limit the charger current some.



A single cell is charge with 2A, but for some reason the charger terminates at 500mA, this is rather early and means that the battery is not completely full. This only happened once.



The second slot terminated at 200mA and this looks much better.



This time the charger terminated correctly at 200mA.



No problem with this cell, except a lower termination current would have worked better with it.



Even this old cell is charged nicely.



With two cells and non-QC supply the current is down to 1A for each battery, this means less than 2A draw from the supply.



Using a 0.5ohm resistor in series with the supply to simulate a long cable or weak supply did work, the batteries got charged, but the charging is slow.



Conclusion

This charger works fine, but it is limited to high current batteries. I would have been nice with more visible warning on the charger than the black 3.0A marking in the slots.

For the right type of batteries it is a good charger, but it will be hard on regular 18650 batteries.


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
Read more about how I test USB power supplies/charger