Test/review of Charger Nitecore Q4

Charger Nitecore Q4




The charger is a four slot LiIon only charger than can charge with 1A or 2A.




It arrived in a cardboard box with a lot of specification on it.



The box contained the charger, power supply and instruction sheet.



The charger is powered from 12V.



The power supply is a standard 12V plug pack.



The charger has a LED for each slot and no buttons. The LED will flash red on error, light red when charging and green when done.



The specifications are on the bottom of the charger, but very hard to read on the translucent plastic.



The charger uses the classic slider construction and will handle batteries from 28mm to 75mm, this will handle even the longest protected cells.






The charger can handle up to 75mm long batteries. Some small cells can be charger, but only if they are rated for 1A or more in charge current.



Measurements

• Power consumption when idle with no batteries is 0.23 watt
  
• Charger will discharge a full LiIon battery with 0.5mA when not powered.
  
• When powered a full LiIon will be charged with less than 0.1mA
  
• Below 2V the charger will not detect a battery and not charge
  
• Above 2V full charge current will be used.
  
• Will not restart charging it voltage drops.
  
• Will restart charging if battery is inserted or power cycled.
  

This is a CC/CV charge curve with 100mA termination, this slot charges with 2A





The 2. and 3. slots chargers with 1A and the 4. with 2A, termination current is 0.1A for all.





These cell is handled fine.



This old cell is also handled fine.



A new high current cell is charged nicely.



The same is a large high current cell.



With four cells they are all charged at 1A



The charger uses about 2A from the power supply with four cells.



M1: 41.0°C, M2: 41.9°C, M3: 41.9°C, M4: 40.7°C, M5: 61.5°C, HS1: 67.7°C



HS1: 74.9°C



The charge profile is fairly simple for this charger.



The charger starts in about 1 second.


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



Conclusion

The charger is a good LiIon charger for larger cells, but can only be used for smaller cells rated for high current charging.
As usually with charge current selection by slot I would have liked a better marking on the 2A slot.




Notes

The charger was supplied by NiteCore for review.

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