As a flashlight enthusiast, you might be interested in this new professional battery charger and analyzer for checking and maintaining your batteries.
The full review is available here
English review at BudgetLightForum
German review on my website
Summary
For many years, the SkyRC MC3000 has been considered one of the best chargers for round batteries. The user has full control over the charging process and can set not only the charging current but also many other parameters. It can also connect to a PC or smartphone for settings and data logging.
And here comes the new SkyRC MC5000!
I was really looking forward to the SkyRC MC5000: a modern design with a large color display, innovative scroll-wheel input, charging currents of up to 5 A per slot, Bluetooth connectivity and advanced analysis features.
All in all, everything has worked so far, but the range of functions still seems somewhat limited. Many enhancements could potentially be introduced through firmware updates, such as expanded parameter ranges, more effective use of the status LEDs and possibly even support for 1.5V Li-ion batteries. The absence of program memory slots is particularly disappointing. At this price point, a PC interface for control and data logging should also be included.
In its current form, the SkyRC MC5000 is still a long way from being a real successor for the MC3000. It is not a bad device by any means, but it does not yet fully meet the expectations I have for a professional charger in this class.
The thing is it's not possible for a charger to know how fast a battery should be charged, as that varies widly between different types of cells. It would require RFID tags on each cell or something like that.
So it's not technically possible; that's fine. If the charger can't tell, I guarantee I won't be able to, either.
The cell will have a model number on the side you can use to get the datasheet, which lists the max charge rate.
Alternatively just use 0.5c rate on everything which is easy.
Yup - already more work than I want to do. I do not have a heterogenous cell collection, so I'd need a spreadsheet to track everything and consult it every time I needed to charge.
That's what I was saying about there being some domains where the knobs and dials are valuable to me, and a whole lot more where the value is in the tool being more knowledgeable than I am.
This charger sounds great for battery wonks. I prefer smarter charges so I don't have to fiddle with battery charging; there are other things I'd rather be spending my time on.