Shawn Connelly
Comentado en Canadá el 17 de abril de 2025
I waited almost a week and a half for this product to test my more than 30 18650 batteries, some as old as 15 years.Received it today and I am so disappointed!1) No manual!! Why? It would have added 2 cents to the cost to include at least an information paper... but nothing!2) This unit only works with unprotected flat-top 18650 batteries! Why? Why? 90% of my 18650 batteries are protected with dimples. They will not fit!3) I have a few flat tops... it took me a few moments to learn that it needs a USB-C 5v supply. The menus seem intuitive enough, but I am certain I am probably missing some information such as what the purpose of the other USB-C port and the two terminal blocks????But the fact that the manufacturer decided to cheap out on very basic and limiting battery holders and therefore eliminate the possibility of testing all 18650 batteries makes this unit not very useful IMO. :(
dwarf_tossr
Comentado en los Estados Unidos el 13 de junio de 2024
There are very thorough EE-style videos on youtube which praise the device for what it is and the value of it. For a lay-vaper's purposes, this unit will give you a fairly accurate reading on the capacity of your new cells if you do a discharge test down to about 2.7V or so. I charged my 18650s in a faster charger to capacity first, then discharged with this tester and got a reading after around 4-5 hours or so discharging at around 1 amp. So yeah, it works fine and is as described. I wouldn't use it to charge anything on a regular basis, though it might do well with low voltage or otherwise dead cells (be careful). Edit: it certainly can revive otherwise dead cells, just did 2 of them.Some time later edit: I just pulled this out of a drawer and am reviving 2 salvaged laptop pack 18650s @ 90mA one at a time. They were south of dead-dead and are now taking charge. I have it in a fire resistant bag just in case, but it's looking good and not heating up. No chargers I had would touch them, so this has its uses. Going to shuck another pack tomorrow after which this thing may have paid for itself. Later still: it didn't take long to get them above ~3.2V, at which point it charged @ 1A. I then switched it off and transferred them to a 2A charger. Temps still great, looking good.A quick summary of the basic controls follows here.From left to right:Button 1: select which value to change from the 3 choices in lower right (Mode, Stopping voltage, and how many loops).Button 2: changes the value of the field selected by Button 1.Button 3: Start/Stop operation once you've selected your values (per slotted battery!)Button 4: Select battery slot.Example:To charge a battery in slot 1 (it auto-selects amperage based on voltage):-Place battery in any slot, minding correct polarity given by marks on board.-Click button 4 to select bay 1 (displays CHN: 1).-Click button 2 to select CHG, since by default it starts at top field.-Click button 1 to select the stop (charging) voltage field, then button 2 to set its value.-Click button 3 to start the charging on battery 1. The LED for bay 1 will begin to blink, and STA(tus): CHG is displayed.It looks janky, it is fragile, but it is a safe and effective means of both testing true cell capacity as well as reviving long-dormant cells (laptop hadn't been used in 4-5 years). It can charge, but at 1A max, so I'd say it's more for testing/reviving than a daily charger. Last edit: I should mention that I'm not going to use laptop cells in a vape, as they are Samsung ICR, and will instead use be using them in my low-power flashlights.
Felix
Comentado en los Estados Unidos el 9 de mayo de 2024
Products like this one typically come with a manual, but this product didn't come with one. I am unable to determine if this is in error, or the standard practice of this business, because the product listing states, "no" as the answer to the question of "what is in this box?"That is just the beginning of the problems with this product. For commercially available PCB boards, one can typically find the datasheet or some documentation of the board online. I didn't find any such thing for this one.This documentation was desired because the battery discharger reported unlikely values for some batteries. Without documentation, it is difficult to troubleshoot the device.I bought this intending to save myself some time measuring battery discharges, and instead it has wasted time. I would advise against buying from this business.
Intashu
Comentado en los Estados Unidos el 8 de octubre de 2024
Needed to go through and test a slew of 18650 batteries for general capacity to figure out which ones where going bad and which ones where close enough to make pairs out of.Using it as discharge only, it was easy to setup with a couple button presses. Using a wall charger that has two channels each able to do 5v2a and rotating through a dozen batteries it worked consistently without any issues. Doesn't pull much power when discharging only, and takes an hour or two to run each cell down at 1a. But the readings are fairly consistant run to run.While you can find it cheaper online the markup to get it quick isn't that bad. Overall I'd rate this a good value for your money and an excellent way to run through your batteries and see which ones are holding their capacity vs which ones are not.Cannot testify to its charging ability but given the cost, I'd suggest using a dedicated charger for your batteries and just use this one as a discharge tester.
Wavebourn
Comentado en los Estados Unidos el 25 de abril de 2024
It does not charge 100%, but good enough to sort out cells to discard weakest ones.