Well i have about 250 18650 cells tested under my belt since the arrival of the Imax B6 Mini and the Foxnova 4S, so i figured i would give a review on them because i feel like the most common tester on this site (Imax B6) has fallen behind times on technology and speed compared to cheaper alternatives (Foxnova 4s)
So the Imax B6 Mini is the V2 of its kind that was ordered directly from SkyRC through Amazon and the Foxnovo 4S's were ordered from an ebay seller out of New Jersey. The Imax was suppose to be canceled due to a few people recommending i get the Foxnovo due to my situation of only needing tester/chargers for the 18650 cells i salvaged from laptop batteries, but even though i cancelled the order with a confirmation number, SkyRC still shipped it to me and it arrived about 5 days before the Foxnovo's i ordered.
My first impressions of the device is that its very nicely put together, the case is very nice with a very crisp and easy to read display, the cables it comes with are kinda odd, since they use a plug type that is no longer common among RC hobbiest, but using the alligator clips with some small magnets did the trick, but my impressions of the device kinda stop there... the charging rate of the newer 6amp hardware is actually pretty dang fast, much faster than the FoxNovo's, but the discharge testing side of it is where it really needs looking into. The discharge time of first battery being tested when its cold is always way faster than any test following, so doing back to back test is painfully slow.. the fan on it actually gets up to higher rpms after a full day of testing cells back to back and i even tried to help it out by placing a small fan in front of it to blow air across the unit.. but this seemed to make no difference in the pace it tests at, also every battery after the first test from being cold seems to stray further and further in capacity rating, for example when testing a 2200mAH cell, it gave me a result of 1948mAH the first time, but testing the same cell again directly after showed a capacity result of 1819mAH, then again on the third test a result of 1798mAH... Now taking the same cell and letting the imax sit overnight to test the same cell again the next days resulted in a rating of 1945mAH on the results... so heat seems to throw off the results......during back to back results tell the unit is fully warmed up, then the results are pretty rock solid at lower numbers...
Another issue i have come to dislike with the unit is the charge/discharge testing. The highest it will test the 18650 cells to during charge cycle is 14.08v even though it says 14.10 on the screen during charging, once you flip the setting button over to meter to see the current battery voltage, it always says 14.08v only after a fresh charge... the downfall to this is when you do the discharge test its doing the test from 14.08v to 13.0v, which seems to place all results on the tester 100-150mAH lower compared to the Foxnovo unit.
My first impressions of the device is that its very simple, yet not cheap looking. The device comes with a 120v to 12v wall adapter as well a 12v cig plug in for mobile usage. The display is kinda small, but easy to read actually.. The device can charge and discharge batteries. The charge cycle is actually much slower than the imax b6, but its not painfully slow... The discharge test setting is actually pretty nice, if you put a undercharged cell in the device it actually tops the cell off fully to 14.20v before automatically performing the discharge test cycle. The testing of the cells from 14.20v seems to net results about 100-150mAH higher than the imax unit. The unit can actually discharge test 4 cells at once, but the time it takes to test them slows down for each cell in the unit, so testing 4 at once is significantly slower than just doing 1 at a time, but doing 4 at once is still faster than doing 1, 4 times in a row... One thing i have noticed about this unit is that it runs fairly warm when testing 4 at once and as the unit heats up the speed that it discharges them slows down it seems, so i turned them on side so the vents on the back can dissipate heat better as well i added the same small fan blowing on them like i tried on the imax, the fan significantly speeds up the time it takes to test 4 cells, Another cool feature i found that is useful on this unit vs the imax is its ability to charge 18650 cells below 13.0v, on the imax after you perform the discharge test down to 13.0v, it sometimes refuses to charge the cell due to the voltage being to low.. the foxnova doesnt give me this issue, it also will allow you to charge far lower voltage cells.. i had a few that were around 1.0v or lower and was able to charge them in the foxnova on the 0.50a charge mode, sometimes it would error out when you first place them in the unit after the charge rate ramps up to 0.5a, but if you pull it back to reset the charge cycle a few times the trickle charge it gets as it ramps up a few times will throw the voltage high enough that the tester will not go into error anymore.. i found that resetting it tell the battery voltage exceeds 2.5v seems to be the cut off for them.. i have nursed back a good handful of cells that said like 0.1-1.0v, which ended up testing like 2200mAH and have held the charge for a week now.. i believe a lot of these cells came from poorly welded tabs that never allowed the cell to charge after being manufactured, so it slowly lost it charge over time..
In regards to back to back testing on this unit, i did the same 2200mAH cell i did on the imax b6 that resulted in 1948maAH and got a result of 2103mAH on the foxnovo, the 2nd test directly after resulted in 2099mAH, and the third after that resulted in 2101mAH, so the results seem to be very reliable on the foxnovo on consecutive test. I took the same cell and put it in the foxnovo to charge it to the 14.20v on the charge cycle, then took it out and placed it in the imax B6 and got a result of 2107mAH....
In my opinion, if you want a tester for 18650 cells, the foxnovo 4s is worlds better than the imax b6....
So the Imax B6 Mini is the V2 of its kind that was ordered directly from SkyRC through Amazon and the Foxnovo 4S's were ordered from an ebay seller out of New Jersey. The Imax was suppose to be canceled due to a few people recommending i get the Foxnovo due to my situation of only needing tester/chargers for the 18650 cells i salvaged from laptop batteries, but even though i cancelled the order with a confirmation number, SkyRC still shipped it to me and it arrived about 5 days before the Foxnovo's i ordered.
My first impressions of the device is that its very nicely put together, the case is very nice with a very crisp and easy to read display, the cables it comes with are kinda odd, since they use a plug type that is no longer common among RC hobbiest, but using the alligator clips with some small magnets did the trick, but my impressions of the device kinda stop there... the charging rate of the newer 6amp hardware is actually pretty dang fast, much faster than the FoxNovo's, but the discharge testing side of it is where it really needs looking into. The discharge time of first battery being tested when its cold is always way faster than any test following, so doing back to back test is painfully slow.. the fan on it actually gets up to higher rpms after a full day of testing cells back to back and i even tried to help it out by placing a small fan in front of it to blow air across the unit.. but this seemed to make no difference in the pace it tests at, also every battery after the first test from being cold seems to stray further and further in capacity rating, for example when testing a 2200mAH cell, it gave me a result of 1948mAH the first time, but testing the same cell again directly after showed a capacity result of 1819mAH, then again on the third test a result of 1798mAH... Now taking the same cell and letting the imax sit overnight to test the same cell again the next days resulted in a rating of 1945mAH on the results... so heat seems to throw off the results......during back to back results tell the unit is fully warmed up, then the results are pretty rock solid at lower numbers...
Another issue i have come to dislike with the unit is the charge/discharge testing. The highest it will test the 18650 cells to during charge cycle is 14.08v even though it says 14.10 on the screen during charging, once you flip the setting button over to meter to see the current battery voltage, it always says 14.08v only after a fresh charge... the downfall to this is when you do the discharge test its doing the test from 14.08v to 13.0v, which seems to place all results on the tester 100-150mAH lower compared to the Foxnovo unit.
My first impressions of the device is that its very simple, yet not cheap looking. The device comes with a 120v to 12v wall adapter as well a 12v cig plug in for mobile usage. The display is kinda small, but easy to read actually.. The device can charge and discharge batteries. The charge cycle is actually much slower than the imax b6, but its not painfully slow... The discharge test setting is actually pretty nice, if you put a undercharged cell in the device it actually tops the cell off fully to 14.20v before automatically performing the discharge test cycle. The testing of the cells from 14.20v seems to net results about 100-150mAH higher than the imax unit. The unit can actually discharge test 4 cells at once, but the time it takes to test them slows down for each cell in the unit, so testing 4 at once is significantly slower than just doing 1 at a time, but doing 4 at once is still faster than doing 1, 4 times in a row... One thing i have noticed about this unit is that it runs fairly warm when testing 4 at once and as the unit heats up the speed that it discharges them slows down it seems, so i turned them on side so the vents on the back can dissipate heat better as well i added the same small fan blowing on them like i tried on the imax, the fan significantly speeds up the time it takes to test 4 cells, Another cool feature i found that is useful on this unit vs the imax is its ability to charge 18650 cells below 13.0v, on the imax after you perform the discharge test down to 13.0v, it sometimes refuses to charge the cell due to the voltage being to low.. the foxnova doesnt give me this issue, it also will allow you to charge far lower voltage cells.. i had a few that were around 1.0v or lower and was able to charge them in the foxnova on the 0.50a charge mode, sometimes it would error out when you first place them in the unit after the charge rate ramps up to 0.5a, but if you pull it back to reset the charge cycle a few times the trickle charge it gets as it ramps up a few times will throw the voltage high enough that the tester will not go into error anymore.. i found that resetting it tell the battery voltage exceeds 2.5v seems to be the cut off for them.. i have nursed back a good handful of cells that said like 0.1-1.0v, which ended up testing like 2200mAH and have held the charge for a week now.. i believe a lot of these cells came from poorly welded tabs that never allowed the cell to charge after being manufactured, so it slowly lost it charge over time..
In regards to back to back testing on this unit, i did the same 2200mAH cell i did on the imax b6 that resulted in 1948maAH and got a result of 2103mAH on the foxnovo, the 2nd test directly after resulted in 2099mAH, and the third after that resulted in 2101mAH, so the results seem to be very reliable on the foxnovo on consecutive test. I took the same cell and put it in the foxnovo to charge it to the 14.20v on the charge cycle, then took it out and placed it in the imax B6 and got a result of 2107mAH....
In my opinion, if you want a tester for 18650 cells, the foxnovo 4s is worlds better than the imax b6....
