18650 Mega Cell Charger and Capacity Tester

Brief overview of my experience with the Mega Cell Charger. I found the programming difficult. It needs an external power supply and connection to wifi. I don't have wifi in my garage and won't be keeping this charger. If I have another project with 18650 cells I'll buy some simple charger/testers from Amazon. I linked to one below.

18650 Lithium Batteries are from Modem packs from Battery Hookup. The cells all tested great. I had no heaters and no dead cells. These are new-old stock, never cycled. I think they will work great for my upcoming project.

Use coupon code "davidpoz" for 10% off.

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[eth]

You're a good man. Thank you for all of your assistance in learning.

[kevlarandchrome]

I'm a tech guy (I fix and rebuild computers for a living) so I understood what you were saying as far as being told what to do by the "experts". That thing is barely a prototype, and certainly shouldn't be a product that people are being charged money for. Flashing new firmware isn't something an end user should ever have to do just to get a product to work, hell I'm a pro and I've bricked stuff when firmware flashes went wrong. Thanks for taking the time to make a video warning people before they end up wasting their time and money.

[joshuabest]

For someone like me all what you were explaining to us is simple and easy but this video is a good scenario of someone who's not computer savvy and that's is a good test

[Alexander]

Hi David, thanks for your time reviewing our product! We will be working on improving the usability of this device. About bay 2 and 9, we will be testing to see if that's something that happen because of software problem or was something wrong with your device. We usually test with a capacitors bank to keep things precise.

It's always good to see the problems users have setting things up so we know what to work on. So thanks again for your time to document your journey, that's how good products arrise, with feedback and with the willing to solve those issues.

All the best with your projects!

[ahaveland]

Kudos for jumping in the deep end, trying and documenting everything - sounds like they still have some debugging to do.

[MaxGoddur]

Thank you for your time and the making of this video. I am frustrated with this charger and the support. I am looking to sell mine and will just pick up four liitokala chargers. I have done repeated tests of inserting cells in the exact same way only to find problems with the interface. I don't know what it means when the screen turns from showing each cell and its values to a screen of red/orange with the letters n/a in each one. Sometimes the cells show up as in the led lights up after hitting the charge icon in the sw other times the little led never comes on. Just more frustrating than it has to be the overextended themselves with the sw it is not really a good fit. Now I am told lots of folks are using this charger and the makers of the charger state no reports of problems. I found it hard to believe beings the rough edges on the sw.

[JasonPrice]

Ya, I was rather excited to see these things and a few different guys on YT have tested them. I am not intimidated by the hands on aspect as it is my bread and butter (But these don't actually need programming, more in a sec on that). What I DON'T like seeing is how incredibly friggy and temperamental they seem to be. The need to go in and fiddle with configuration files should be a power user OPTION and not a straight up first place to go if something is wrong. The user issues should have been ironed out a lot more in prototyping so that at least it would be easier to weed out where the actual issues are; meaning user error or manufacturing or design faults.


Thanks for trying though!

[kennethalmond]

I get the enthusiasm for the potential sophistication of this and not bashing it, but at a practical level - you've just made the case why I just use OPUSs.

[yankey]

Sorry brother I would have helped but I do not know about that thing. I am working on a small 12 volt pack from 18650s. Thanks for sharing with us man. God bless.

[benlyons]

Actually just laughing a little. I figured with your knowledge of charge controllers terms like flash and firmware would be something you’d have known but hey love your videos and your honesty. Great job!!!

[landonferguson]

I have two Xtar VC4S capacity testers that I use. I also bought a simple load tester to help me test bigger batteries

[kevinroberts]

I picked up 300 of the 21700 Samsung 4 ah. Trying to figure out the best way to use them. Planning a backup solar generator with a 3000 aims inverter. Bad thing is the aims in 12 volt inverter.

[triaxialwolfwolfy]

Is there a bulk testing unit lile this that isn't as convoluted... I need one for both 18650 and 21700 but I have over 100 cells to test...

[korishan]

"They were using words, like they call it firmware" 🤣😜 LOL Newb!!! 😉😎 But you did a good job figuring it out in the end 👍

[Alexander]

There are a lot of things improved on the Megacell Charger since we were running the Beta Version.

[frankz]

Man I wondered when your next video was coming out. Must have set you back a bit of time. Thanks for the review

[phizicks]

We're doing something similar with an active balancer/BMS similar to batrium. but ours is web based, so you just browse the ESP and see what it's doing. no need to stay connected. also will be doing alarms and grafana data metric etc. early stages though.
When you update the firmware, you could be possibly updating any calibration it may have had.

[kevinroberts]

Sounds like it needs some kinda offset programed in.

[dasimpson]

thors modem batterys look a great deal but been in the uk i think the import tax would be the killer prob more then the the cost of the packs

[mostlymessingabout]

It seems you can buy fully working and intuitive quad smart chargers with AC adapters for $25. Paying $170 is excessive.