The Xtar 7 in 1 battery charger for the EOS R series begins shipping

[Canon Rumors Guy]

Xtar launched a Kickstarter campaign for their SN4-7 IN 1 AI Camera Battery Charger last month and easily reached their funding. I am posting this now because Xtar has started shipping chargers to people that have pledged, I am one of those people.
This charger will allow you to charger up to 4 batteries at one time. Which is great for anyone that shoots with an EOS R camera. There are also compatible chargers for your Canon DSLR.
As an avid photographer or videographer it is not uncommon to have multiple cameras and devices on hand at any given time; each that requires their own battery charger and exclusive battery pack. But taking all those with you means lugging around a bunch of extra bags for space or constantly having to swap out batteries or connections to get them each charged up on a single port. That’s why we developed the innovative and versatile XTAR SN4 Battery Charging Hub that lets you charge multiple batteries and battery types simultaneously at home or on the go...

Continue reading...

 

[EOS 4 Life]

It looks interesting other than the Kick Starter part

 

[ordinaryfilmmaker]

I had a unit to test too, it worked great when charging four batteries: two sony batteries and two Canon LP-E6N, or even two sony batteries, but when charging just two Canon L6-E6N batteries, it would not charge. It would show the batteries charging an be done in just seconds. I provided my info to the company. I'm using Canon batteries, not knockoffs. It seems the canon batteries don't take fast charging. But again, if the unit is loaded wth four batteries. the Canon batteries will charge fine.

 

[Ian K]

Two things I can see about this. First a fast charger is not something you want. Everyone will think they want it but it basically is a great way of killing batteries. I used a fast charger on my iPhone and about 18 months later the battery needed replacing. My wife's phone was bought at the same time and only charged with normal chargers was still on 99% of original capacity.

Secondly, no one answers the key question. Does it actually do the job you want, which is to fully charge the battery to 100% of its capacity. I've never come across a 3rd party charger or a USB charger that will actually fully charge an LP-E6, LP-E6N or LP-E6NH. I've tried a whole slew of them and they only ever seem to get to about 90% and then give up. You then have to remove the battery and put them back on to top up. Even then they don't seem get to 100%. How do I know it's not fully charged, simple. Put it on the Camera and see what it reads as. I trust the camera to tell the truth with Canon original batteries.

So those who have used this charger does it do the job or leave you flat. I see above that it seems to have a problem with LP-E6 batteries anyway. Which would kill it for me.

 

[EOS 4 Life]

Two things I can see about this. First a fast charger is not something you want. Everyone will think they want it but it basically is a great way of killing batteries. I used a fast charger on my iPhone and about 18 months later the battery needed replacing. My wife's phone was bought at the same time and only charged with normal chargers was still on 99% of original capacity.

Secondly, no one answers the key question. Does it actually do the job you want, which is to fully charge the battery to 100% of its capacity. I've never come across a 3rd party charger or a USB charger that will actually fully charge an LP-E6, LP-E6N or LP-E6NH. I've tried a whole slew of them and they only ever seem to get to about 90% and then give up. You then have to remove the battery and put them back on to top up. Even then they don't seem get to 100%.

So those who have used this charger does it do the job or leave you flat. I see above that it seems to have a problem with LP-E6 batteries anyway. Which would kill it for me.

What seems cool about this unit is the ability to mitch match batteries from different cameras since there is a good chance for needing a multicam setup where not all the batteries are the same.

 

[Ian K]

What seems cool about this unit is the ability to mitch match batteries from different cameras since there is a good chance for needing a multicam setup where not all the batteries are the same.

and yet one of these or similar:



and another for the alternate battery type, plus a USB brick would match any set of batteries and would be smaller in size and weight.

 

[Chaitanya]

I had a unit to test too, it worked great when charging four batteries: two sony batteries and two Canon LP-E6N, or even two sony batteries, but when charging just two Canon L6-E6N batteries, it would not charge. It would show the batteries charging an be done in just seconds. I provided my info to the company. I'm using Canon batteries, not knockoffs. It seems the canon batteries don't take fast charging. But again, if the unit is loaded wth four batteries. the Canon batteries will charge fine.

This is interesting, I have couple of Xtar chargers(universal and their previous camera charger) and they have turned out to be quite reliable and reasonable. Though I am avoiding QC even on larger 21700 and 18650 batteries. I also received email about shipping but I have to wait till my friend can return from US to India.

 

[Chaitanya]

and yet one of these or similar:



and another for the alternate battery type, plus a USB brick would match any set of batteries and would be smaller in size and weight.

Nitecore also makes quite a few USB camera chargers that so far have good reviews from users.

 

[dave7]

Why does Canon not simply offer something like this? A 2 battery charger that you can plug into a Power Delivery USB C charger for example.

 

[Chaitanya]

Why does Canon not simply offer something like this? A 2 battery charger that you can plug into a Power Delivery USB C charger for example.

Fuji offers a Dual Slot USB charger for their cameras and given 1st party product it would be a no brainer instead of having to go to 3rd party(though Xtar and Nitecore are reputed enough that their options are going to get job done).

FUJIFILM BC-W235 Dual Battery Charger

Buy FUJIFILM BC-W235 Dual Battery Charger featuring Simultaneous Charging of 2 x NP-W235, Charging Status Backlit Display. Review FUJIFILM null

www.bhphotovideo.com

 

[Ian K]

Nitecore also makes quite a few USB camera chargers that so far have good reviews from users.

I’ve ordered one and will see how it does.

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

It seems to be difficult to find actual tests done on chargers with real numbers. for example, how many watt hours output after charging compared with the canon charger. Its harder to calculate the effect of fast charging, but it would be possible to do something like 100 charge / discharge cycles and compare the remain capacity in watt hours.

That's the bottom line, how much power do you get from a battery after being charged and what does fast charging do to capacity of a battery. How does OEM compare?.

If you really need fast charging and it reduces battery life, many users might still want it, but they need to know when to expect replacement of batteries. I've seen fast chargers cut the life of a battery by 80% for AA rechargables.

 

[AlanF]

Batteryuniversity.com is a mine of information about batteries. Here is a useful webpage https://batteryuniversity.com/article/bu-808-how-to-prolong-lithium-based-batteries
Use a cheap charger at your peril, it can be more costly because of reducing battery life.

 

[kaihp]

Batteryuniversity.com is a mine of information about batteries. Here is a useful webpage https://batteryuniversity.com/article/bu-808-how-to-prolong-lithium-based-batteries
Use a cheap charger at your peril, it can be more costly because of reducing battery life.

Just to back you up on batteryuniversity.com - I spoke with a former colleague who is a battery specialist and he said that they are one of the better sources of battery chemistry information out there, as they aren't saying anything directly wrong.

 

[dilbert]

The power adapter that plugs into the wall socket is too big. They should use the standard figure-8 cable socket. Those plates are too easily lost,

 

[AlanF]

Two things I can see about this. First a fast charger is not something you want. Everyone will think they want it but it basically is a great way of killing batteries. I used a fast charger on my iPhone and about 18 months later the battery needed replacing. My wife's phone was bought at the same time and only charged with normal chargers was still on 99% of original capacity.

Secondly, no one answers the key question. Does it actually do the job you want, which is to fully charge the battery to 100% of its capacity. I've never come across a 3rd party charger or a USB charger that will actually fully charge an LP-E6, LP-E6N or LP-E6NH. I've tried a whole slew of them and they only ever seem to get to about 90% and then give up. You then have to remove the battery and put them back on to top up. Even then they don't seem get to 100%. How do I know it's not fully charged, simple. Put it on the Camera and see what it reads as. I trust the camera to tell the truth with Canon original batteries.

So those who have used this charger does it do the job or leave you flat. I see above that it seems to have a problem with LP-E6 batteries anyway. Which would kill it for me.

Charging to only 90% rather than 100% will increase the life of a lithium battery as will discharging to only 20% rather than fully flat.

 

[kaihp]

One obvious downside from the Xtar is that it only charges the 7.4V batteries (2S) but not the 11.1V batteries (3S) used for the LP-E4/E4N/E19.

 

[kten]

Batteryuniversity.com is a mine of information about batteries. Here is a useful webpage https://batteryuniversity.com/article/bu-808-how-to-prolong-lithium-based-batteries
Use a cheap charger at your peril, it can be more costly because of reducing battery life.

agree wholeheartedly but not all cheap chargers are bad and xtar usually pretty good for the price. I use an Xtar vp4 dragon and the charge algorithm is pretty good (you likely know most lithium chemistries needs duty cycling with specific length pulses which also varies throughout the charge level as well as other factors). Only for Li though since I do NCR and INR cells with it but it's not great for none Li NiMH which I use maha wizard for instead. Many Xtars often fare well in full teardown and analysis in the EEng and communities big o Li charging like RC and flashlight communities.

This is possibly as good as the OEM chargers, not sure exactly how good the Canon is tbh and suspect although it isn't bad at all it likely isn't the pinnacle either. Best we'll get for a set and forget no customisation needed style charger though, short of going intelligent hobby charger route. Even in the latter case ideally you need to know the exact chemistry of cells inside the battery as well as capacity so you can min max the charging especially since some terminate a tad higher just fine and require it to get the full capacity where as that is bad for many other cells life or can be problematic in other ways for some other chemistries.

Edit: With how I churn through batteries in the R and knowing the newer models like R5/R6 are similar and that isn't likely to change with future models I may just switch to using a dummy battery with d-tap plug on since I can get quality v-mount cells with much higher cap than grip and multiple E6N's/E6NH's for similar weight/size in my bag when I need the runtime. I find Canon batteries are overpriced compared to alternatives like that albeit the best I've found in the E6 formfactor.

 

[bergstrom]

I read peoplecomplaining about the RP batteries doing 250 shots etc which is horrendous and off putting to buying the camera. I hope canon are working on a new version of the battery.

 

[kten]

I read peoplecomplaining about the RP batteries doing 250 shots etc which is horrendous and off putting to buying the camera. I hope canon are working on a new version of the battery.

the problem is not easily solved by Canon since they don't make cells and even the leaders don't do much in the way of development on the 18490's front (what is inside E6 batteries). Short of making mirrorless tech less power hungry there is little they can do without making batteries larger. 18650 get the brunt of efficiency improvements thus for multi cell packs I use them for building my own high cell count batteries usually due to cost to performance; such as for powering inverters for mains powered monoblock lights when I have no access to power outlets but a pack and head or SLA battery setup would be too big/heavy.

There are cells with better density such as 21700 and maybe 26650/26700 if you're lucky that are better for single cell style uses due to increased density from size but per gram/cubic mm they tend to be behind the 18650's on efficiency so at equivalent space multi cell batteries they still lag behind especially since they also cost more. The tech improvements does trickle into larger cells first from what I've seen such as substrate film manufacturing improvements to pack more electrolyte in given space and so on. As for smaller cells they don't see as much development and are limited in how much you can push them so not all developments translate down in length or width for various reasons I wont go into here. 18490 are a really minor formfactor especially and cr123 or 18350 are likely to be more popular before them and you barely see the big cell makers like samsung, sanyo, panasonic and so on update them never mind 18490's.

If canon released a slim grip sans controls that was basically just a battery holder with a decent BMS in it that allowed you to put your own unprotected 18650's or 21650's in I'd be a very happy man but I can't see them ever doing that really.