Here’s my most recent XTAR item – a 4 bay charger powered by USB-C. It’s a very simple charger, so this probably won’t be a very long review. Read on!

Official Specs and Features

Here’s a link to the official product page.

Price

This one goes for $13.99 on amazon (referral link).

Short Review

It’s a good enough simple charger. There aren’t many bells and whistles but for general chargin, it’s fine.

Long Review

Key Features

Type-C input, Ni-MH battery compatible

New upgrade, more compatible

Independent 4-slot, support mixed charging

Type-C powered, dual-way in/output

0△V and -△V smart charge, prolong battery life

Seven protection functions to ensure safe use

Current adaptive, higher charging efficiency

Manual and Packaging

What’s Included

XTAR MC4S 4-bay charger

Charge cable (USB to USB-C)

Manual

Build Quality and Durability

Like I said, this is a simple charger, and the design and build quality are “simple” too.

Each bay is labeled with the charge rate, as seen below.

Each bay has its own indicating LED, which can be red or green.

These posts for the negative connection aren’t all that straight, but could be touched up easily.

The back has some cooling ports.

And a sticker with all the supported sizes and chemistries.

Size

Size is 100mm x 97mm x 26.5mm. It’s a small charger!

Power

Power to the device comes through the USB-C port. Others have said that this isn’t a proper PD port and that may be. I did try USB-C to USB-C and the charger worked fine.

The provided cord is USB to USB-C though.

Various size cells fit in here, with the largest diameter being the 26650 cell, and the longest being the 21700 cell.

The charger also works with NiMH and NiCD, as well as of course the LiIon cells seen above.

I did 4 tests in a way a bit different from normal. I just tested the power going into the charger – so these results won’t be a “per bay” charge rate. Also it’ll be the current at the input Voltage of 5.2ishV, so actual current to the cell should be a little higher than simply what you see here. But just so you have an idea what charge rates you’ll see…. here are the graphs.

When charging (or “activity) is happening on any bay, that bay’s LED is red. Once charging (or “the activity”) is complete, the bay’s LED switches to green.

Interestingly the standby current of those four emitters (which are green if the bay isn’t in use) seems to me to be quite high. (It can be seen in the graphs above, toward the end on the last graph.)

User Interface and Operation

There isn’t one. Nothing to press, nothing to do. Anything you get this charger to do, it does automatically. That’s charging the various chemistries, and activating zero voltage cells. Charge speeds too – the outer two bays can do 0.5 or 1A, but it’ll be selected automatically.

Conclusion

What I like

If what you need is a charger then this is a good low cost option.

Inexpensive

Supports multiple chemistries

Very small for a 4-bay

Does seem to work from PD power

What I don’t like

No rate lower than 0.5A

Notes

This item was provided by XTAR for review. I was not paid to write this review.

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