Fogstar Charger Concept + What would you like to see?

[Pittard9]

A £30 charger is unlikely to last for years but I would hope a quality well built (and well optioned) charger would last almost forever - as long as a decent washing machine say.
Thing about chargers is they won't go out of fashion, who cares too much what they actually look like, it's functionality is what's needed and long life and reliability.

But the nature of electronics now, even with white goods, is that thy are disposable. Like @SirLugg said, expensive doesn't always mean quality and reliability.

 

[Tubbyengineer]

I feel I should point out here that all electronic components have a predicted life span - an MTBF or mean time between failures. This tends to be in a bell curve distribution, with the vast majority of parts lasting a medium amount of time - the peak of that curve is the given lifespan of the component. This would mean that even the most expensive charger is going to have a limited lifespan and whilst more expensive units may have higher precision components it's unlikely that their MTBF will be significantly better than the midrange components used in the average charger. It therefore stands to reason that in a unit like a Li-ion battery charger that is going to be fairly basic (mostly off the shelf standard resistors, capacitors, IC's and Optoelectronics) the cost of repair would be prohibitive compared to cost of replacement so a charger costing £100 plus would not use components of significantly longer lifespan, in which case cost per unit becomes a deciding factor, cheaper units that can acheive the same function as more expensive units will simply outsell and therefore prohibit investment and creation of more expensive units.

In other words the £100 "Super" charger will not sell as it's dominant features can be matched at a lower price point by the "Mass Market" charger - Witness the Blu-6, a 6 bay bluetooth enabled charger that should in theory dominate the market amongst the "POTV set" vapers - but doesn't, the cheaper less featured 4 bay chargers dominate as they can perform the same main function - charging batteries at lower cost...

 

[WaitFor1t88]

fyi I have a xtar vc2 plus that I can write anything you like on it for the small price of £100

 

[Alstoj79]

Put an ohm meter on it - no other charger has that!! Maybe even automated coil jig..make it a true all in one piece of kit. Then charge extra!

 

[Simon G]

I use a Nitecore D2.

Like:
Comes with a UK power cable
Doesn't rip my battery wraps
Easy to use
Does what it supposed to do
Nice display
Charges all the battery types I need, including AA's for remotes etc.

Dislike:
It's a bit slow

Other features that would be nice:
Ability to measure mAh of batteries (like a VC2 does I think?)
Ability to charge batteries to a set lower level 4.1v (to prolong life of battery) or to 3.7v? (for storage) .... I can do this manually by taking them out obviously but it would be nice not to have to keep looking at the display.
a USB output to charge a mod with a built in battery at the same time as charging batteries.