Gyrfalcon S8000 Battery Charger and Analyzer Review
Gyrfalcon S8000 Charger⌗
- Specifications
- Introduction
- Dimensions
- Battery compatibility
- User interface
- Charger in use
- Testing a battery charger and analyzer
- Tests
- Conclusion
- Product page
Specifications⌗
| Brand/model | Gyrfalcon S8000 |
|---|---|
| Channels | 4 |
| Charge Current Range | 0.03A to 2.00A per channel |
| Discharge Current Range | -0.03A to -1.00A per channel |
| Battery Chemistries | Ni-MH, Ni-Cd, Li-ion, Li-ion 4.30, Li-ion 4.35, LiFePO4 |
| Battery Sizes | 10340 to 32700 |
| Firmware updatable? | Yes (via micro USB) |
| Input | 10-15V 48W DC 5.5mm/2.1mm |
| Review date | March 2024 |
Introduction⌗
The Gyrfalcon S8000 is a new Battery Charger and Analyzer by Enova that fits into the same category as a SkyRC MC3000. Here is an excellent review of the MC3000 by HKJ.
The ability to configure the termination voltage, charge current, discharge current etc is what sets it apart from hobby chargers like the Vapcell S4 Plus or the XTAR VC8S.
It is nice how the charge and discharge current can be adjusted down to 0.001A increments.
When Enova posted on budgetlightforum.com to announce the Gyrfalcon S8000, they asked for recommendations for professional and objective reviewers due to HKJ taking a break.
stephenk kindly recommended SammysHP and I due to our recent reviews of the XTAR VC8S. 🥰
Enova sent a direct message on BLF and I agreed to review the Gyrfalcon S8000.
Enova have been making battery chargers for a while. Here are a few reviews by HKJ of the Gyrfalcon All-44 and the Gyrfalcon All-88.
Enova kindly sent this charger for review. I have not been paid for this review nor have I held back my opinions of this charger.
Packaging⌗
The Gyrfalcon S8000 comes in an orange and black box with an image of the S8000 on the top.
The following is included in the box:
- Gyrfalcon S8000.
- USB-A to micro USB data cable.
- 12V 4A power supply with a 5.5mm/2.1mm DC plug and a US figure 8 power cable.
- User manual.
There is plenty of foam to help protect the S8000.
A printed user manual with several pages was included. It is very comprehensive.
The user manual is also available on the product page as a PDF:
https://enova18650.com/portfolio-items/gyrfalcon-s8000/
Dimensions and weight⌗
Dimensions⌗
I took the following measurements using a digtal caliper and a ruler.
| Measurement | Unit (mm) |
|---|---|
| Charger height | 62.2 |
| Charger width | 142.2 |
| Charger length | 227 |
| Shortest cell length | 34 |
| Longest cell length | 76.4 |
The Gyrfalcon S8000 is taller and bigger than an XTAR VC8S.
Weight⌗
I took the following measurements using a digital scale.
| Weight | Unit (g) |
|---|---|
| Gyrfalcon S8000 | 549 |
Battery compatibility⌗
The following battery chemistries are supported:
Ni-MH, Ni-Cd, Li-ion, Li-ion 4.30, Li-ion 4.35, LiFePO4
The following battery sizes are supported:
AAAA, AAA, AA, Sub-C, C, D
10340, 10350, 10440, 10550,
12340, 12500, 12650,
13450, 13500, 13650,
14350, 14430, 14500, 14650,
16340, CR123, 16500, 16650,
17350, 17500, 17650, 17670,
18350, 18490, 18500, 18650, 18700,
20700, 21700, 22500, 22650, 25500,
26500, 26650, 26700,
32600**, 32650**, 32700**
**Up to two of these large cells can fit at a time.
Various button top and flat top AA/AAA and 14500 Li-ion cells fit the S8000 easily:
Various button top and flat top 21700 cells also fit the S8000 easily. The longest cell that I tried was a NEXTORCH 21700 cell with built-in USB-C charging. It has a length of 76.4mm.
Cells with recessed tops may not work in the Gyrfalcon S8000 due to the notch on the positive terminal being too short.
For example:
A Vapcell F14 18350 cell has a recessed top where the wrap sits higher than the flat top. A long notch is required on the positive terminal of a charger to be able to touch the flat part of the cell or it won’t charge.
As can be seen in the photo below, the Vapcell F14 18350 cell was not detected.
User interface⌗
The Gyrfalcon S8000 has eight capacitive touch buttons and an LCD display with 192*64 pixels.
The four channels each have a capacitive touch button directly below with a multi-colour indicator LED followed by the label 1, 2, 3 and 4 respectively. These buttons are known as SNB or CNB buttons (i.e. a channel button). They are used to view, select or configure a channel.
The are four more buttons below the display to navigate the user interface:
- SETUP/CANCEL
- UP/LEFT
- DOWN/RIGHT
- ENTER
The S8000 has a Normal mode (default) and a Professional mode.
Normal mode tries to simplify things for the user and limits what you can configure.
Professional mode provides full access to the battery charger analyzer. I would recommend using Professional mode.
I highly recommend reading the 32 page user manual:
https://enova18650.com/portfolio-items/gyrfalcon-s8000/
Charger in use⌗
The Gyrfalcon S8000 came with protective film on the display.
The display and the buttons look shiny but they quickly attract fingerprints.
The backlight for the display can be turned off.
There are two ventilation fans near the DC power input socket that activate when the Gyrfalcon S8000 is discharging a cell.
There are heaps of ventilation holes on the back and four large rubber feet that help provide a gap for air to move.
I can see two MCU’s though the ventilation holes:
An ARM Cortex-M0 STM32F030K6T6:
STM32F
030K6T6
GQ29N 9C
CHN33713
An ARM Cortex-MX4 GD32F303RCT6:
Gv32F303
RCT6
CUJT035
AL2331
GigaDevice
ARM
The top of the positive terminals stick out slightly to act as notches but they are a bit too short to allow some cells with recessed tops to connect. The negative terminals have little notches that help with connectivity.
Flat top 21700 cells fit easily. But I found that the sliders sometimes get stuck and a bit of force is required to extend them for a cell to be inserted.
There is a micro USB port on the side to provide access to a serial interface. I have successfully updated the firmware on the Gyrfalcon S8000 a few times by using this micro USB port.
Testing a battery charger and analyzer⌗
I started by reading HKJ’s web page “How do I test a charger” to figure out how to measure the voltage, current and temperature of a cell in a charger.
This resulted in ordering some parts from mouser to create a shunt to measure the voltage so that the current could be calculated:
30*603-MFR-12FTF52-0R1 MFR-12FTF52-0R1 0.1 OHM 1/6W 1%
1*590-540 540 DB SIDE COP CLAD BRD
I had a few ANENG AN9002 Digital Multimeters with Bluetooth connectivity laying around. I purchased them the other year with the intention of one day reviewing battery chargers after seeing a post by parametrek about ble_meters.
After assembling the shunt, I tried to determine the resistance of it so that I could calculate the current:
https://www.robotroom.com/Measuring-Low-Resistances.html
I measured a resistance of roughly 9.5686 mΩ using a UNI-T UT319C Digital Multimeter. I also used a Fluke 117C.
The ble_meters script sees what the ANENG AN9002 has on the display.
For example:
The voltage measured across the shunt might be 0.99mV when there’s a pre-charge current of 100mA.
An AN9002 that’s hooked up to the shunt will display 00.99mV and ble_meters will have 0.00099 V.
I can use Ohm’s law (V=IR or I=V/R) to determine the current based on the voltage displayed and the known resistance value of the shunt (0.0095686 Ω).
I = V / R = 0.99mV / 9.5686 mΩ = 0.00099 / 0.0095686 = 0.10346 A
In the interest of transparency and to help others try to measure battery chargers, here is a charger_plot.py script that I created based on bmengineer’s RuTiTe to generate graphs showing the voltage, current and temperature over time.
To measure the temperature, I taped a type K thermocouple to the cell with Kapton tape.
Feel free to reach out if you see some fundamental issues with my testing methodology. I have been asking SammysHP, parametrek, Enova and XTAR engineers a lot of questions so that I can learn and improve.
DISCLAIMER: My results may not be very accurate because I have not calibrated the two ANENG AN9002 Digital Multimeters. A 2A charging current might end up being read as 1.95A or 2.05A. There may also be gaps in the data where Bluetooth connectivity has dropped. I restarted tests where too much data was lost.
Here is a video of the setup:
Tests⌗
The charger uses pulse charging with a 0dV or a -dV termination for Ni-MH batteries and a TC-CC-CV algorithm for Li-ion cells.
The following tests will hopefully show those algorithms being used.
I have measured the voltage, current and temperature of various Ni-MH and Li-ion cells while using Normal and Professional modes and Charge, Discharge and Storage modes.
Normal Charge CH1 Li-ion 2A⌗
Mode: Normal
CH1: Molicel P45B 21700 Li-ion 4500mAh (flat top)
| Voltage | CH1 | CH2 | CH3 | CH4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Start | 2.973 | |||
| Finish | 4.183 |
BATTERY IR: 46mΩ
TOTAL TIME: 0D|02:35:46
Normal Charge CH2 Li-ion 2A⌗
Mode: Normal
CH2: Molicel P45B 21700 Li-ion 4500mAh (flat top)
| Voltage | CH1 | CH2 | CH3 | CH4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Start | 2.899 | |||
| Finish | 4.186 |
BATTERY IR: 60mΩ
TOTAL TIME: 0D|02:31:32
Normal Charge CH3 Li-ion 2A⌗
Mode: Normal
CH3: Molicel P45B 21700 Li-ion 4500mAh (flat top)
| Voltage | CH1 | CH2 | CH3 | CH4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Start | 2.776 | |||
| Finish | 4.184 |
BATTERY IR: 62mΩ
TOTAL TIME: 0D|02:38:05
Normal Charge CH4 Li-ion 2A⌗
Mode: Normal
CH4: Molicel P45B 21700 Li-ion 4500mAh (flat top)
| Voltage | CH1 | CH2 | CH3 | CH4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Start | 2.899 | |||
| Finish | 4.176 |
BATTERY IR: 102mΩ
TOTAL TIME: 0D|02:40:25
Normal Charge CH1 Li-ion 1A⌗
Mode: Normal
CH1: Sanyo NCR81650GA 18650 Li-ion 3500mAh (flat top)
| Voltage | CH1 | CH2 | CH3 | CH4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Start | 3.042 | |||
| Finish | 4.170 |
BATTERY IR: 45mΩ
TOTAL TIME: 0D|03:54:42
Normal Discharge CH1 Li-ion 1A⌗
Mode: Normal
CH1: Sanyo NCR81650GA 18650 Li-ion 3500mAh (flat top)
| Voltage | CH1 | CH2 | CH3 | CH4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Start | 4.164 | |||
| Finish | 2.855 |
BATTERY IR: 221mΩ
TOTAL TIME: 0D|03:29:06
Professional Storage CH1 Li-ion 21700 (charge) #1⌗
Mode: Professional
CH1: Molicel P45B 21700 Li-ion 4500mAh (flat top)
1A charge. 0.5A discharge. Target: 3.6V
| Voltage | CH1 | CH2 | CH3 | CH4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Start | 2.923 | |||
| Finish | 3.591 |
BATTERY IR: 76mΩ
TOTAL TIME: 0D|02:10:18
Professional Storage CH1 Li-ion 18650 (discharge) #2⌗
Mode: Professional
CH1: Sanyo NCR81650GA 18650 Li-ion 3500mAh (flat top)
1A charge. 0.5A discharge. Target: 3.6V
| Voltage | CH1 | CH2 | CH3 | CH4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Start | 4.110 | |||
| Finish | 3.616 |
BATTERY IR: 90mΩ
TOTAL TIME: 0D|04:46:55
Professional Storage CH1 Li-ion 18650 (charge) #3⌗
Mode: Professional
CH1: Sanyo NCR81650GA 18650 Li-ion 3500mAh (flat top)
2A charge. 1.0A discharge. Target: 3.6V
| Voltage | CH1 | CH2 | CH3 | CH4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Start | 3.075 | |||
| Finish | 3.583 |
BATTERY IR: 309mΩ
TOTAL TIME: 0D|02:01:06
Professional Storage CH1 Li-ion 18650 (discharge) #4⌗
Mode: Professional
CH1: Sanyo NCR81650GA 18650 Li-ion 3500mAh (flat top)
2A charge. 1.0A discharge. Target: 3.6V
| Voltage | CH1 | CH2 | CH3 | CH4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Start | 4.164 | |||
| Finish | 3.625 |
BATTERY IR: 187mΩ
TOTAL TIME: 0D|02:56:43
Normal Charge CH1 Ni-MH 1A⌗
Mode: Normal
CH1: LADDA AA Ni-MH 2450mAh (button top)
1A current. Target: 1550mv 0mv -dV/dT
| Voltage | CH1 | CH2 | CH3 | CH4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Start | 1.202 | |||
| Finish | 1.453 |
BATTERY IR: 87mΩ
TOTAL TIME: 0D:02:40:59
SammysHP contacted Enova about the 0dV termination and they updated the firmware to support -dV termination.
Professional Charge CH1 Ni-MH 1A⌗
Mode: Professional
CH1: LADDA AA Ni-MH 2450mAh (button top)
1A current. Target: 1550mv 3mv -dV/dT
| Voltage | CH1 | CH2 | CH3 | CH4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Start | 1.203 | |||
| Finish | 1.430 |
BATTERY IR: 57mΩ
TOTAL TIME: 0D:02:52:19
Professional Charge CH2 Ni-MH 1A⌗
Mode: Professional
CH2: LADDA AA Ni-MH 2450mAh (button top)
1A current. Target: 1550mv 3mv -dV/dT
| Voltage | CH1 | CH2 | CH3 | CH4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Start | 1.213 | |||
| Finish | 1.438 |
BATTERY IR: 100mΩ
TOTAL TIME: 0D:02:51:59
Professional Charge CH3 Ni-MH 1A⌗
Mode: Professional
CH3: LADDA AA Ni-MH 2450mAh (button top)
1A current. Target: 1550mv 3mv -dV/dT
| Voltage | CH1 | CH2 | CH3 | CH4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Start | 1.216 | |||
| Finish | 1.451 |
BATTERY IR: 556mΩ
TOTAL TIME: 0D:02:49:39
The termination looks a bit odd. The voltage went over the target voltage of 1.55V to around 1.67V before settling on 1.451V.
I ran the test again with a different cell and it looked normal.
Professional Charge CH3 Ni-MH 1A #2⌗
Mode: Professional
CH3: LADDA AA Ni-MH 2450mAh (button top)
1A current. Target: 1550mv 3mv -dV/dT
| Voltage | CH1 | CH2 | CH3 | CH4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Start | 1.157 | |||
| Finish | 1.457 |
BATTERY IR: 144mΩ
TOTAL TIME: 0D:02:48:59
Professional Charge CH4 Ni-MH 1A⌗
Mode: Professional
CH4: LADDA AA Ni-MH 2450mAh (button top)
1A current. Target: 1550mv 3mv -dV/dT
| Voltage | CH1 | CH2 | CH3 | CH4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Start | 1.181 | |||
| Finish | 1.434 |
BATTERY IR: 200mΩ
TOTAL TIME: 0D:02:50:59
Normal Discharge CH1 Ni-MH 1A⌗
Mode: Normal
CH1: LADDA AA Ni-MH 2450mAh (button top)
1A current. Target: 0.95V
| Voltage | CH1 | CH2 | CH3 | CH4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Start | 1.419 | |||
| Finish | 1.150 |
BATTERY IR: 276mΩ
TOTAL TIME: 0D:02:36:59
Normal Cycle Ni-MH⌗
I inserted four LADDA AA Ni-MH 2450mAh batteries and used the Cycle mode to measure the capacity of each battery.
Cycle mode can be configured to charge, discharge, charge, or charge, discharge etc. Please read the user manual for all the options!
Mode: Normal
CH1: LADDA AA Ni-MH 2450mAh (button top)
CH2: LADDA AA Ni-MH 2450mAh (button top)
CH3: LADDA AA Ni-MH 2450mAh (button top)
CH4: LADDA AA Ni-MH 2450mAh (button top)
The capacity measured looks good. It is closed to 2450mAh:
| # | CAP | CAPACITY |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | -2471mAh | 2530mAh |
| 2 | -2474mAh | 2541mAh |
| 3 | -2459mAh | 2561mAh |
| 4 | -2443mAh | 2542mAh |
There is a slight difference between CAP (capacity from the discharge stage) shown on the main screen (TOV) and CAPACITY when viewing information about a channel.
Standby drain⌗
The Gyrfalcon S8000 discharged a Li-ion cell at about 828 µA and it discharged a Ni-MH cell at about 128 µA while the power was disconnected.
Conclusion⌗
The Gyrfalcon S8000 Battery Charger and Analyzer is pretty good!
I am very impressed with how fast Enova has responded to feedback (especially from SammysHP) by providing firmware updates.
The user interface is mostly intuitive. I personally prefer mechanical buttons that click instead of capacitive touch sensors because they can be faster to use.
The S8000 appears to be designed for advanced users. You really need to configure each channel and think about what you are doing. You can’t just chuck a battery in and expect the charger to ask you what you want to do or default to a program that is appropriate for that battery type.
I was a bit surprised that the battery type is not automatically detected. I put a Ni-MH battery into the first channel and it defaulted to a Li-ion Charge program. Enova has since added a safeguard to the firmware to warn the user and ask them to confirm before proceeding.
I would love to see temperature sensors added to each channel so that the cell temperature can be monitored.
I asume that thhe heatsinks and fans help keep the charger cool. I may need to invest in a thermal camera to find out!
I like how the backlight for the display automatically turns off.
It would be even better if the positive terminals had longer notches to allow cells with recessed tops to fit.
I would recommend the Gyrfalcon S8000 or SkyRC MC3000 if you are looking for more control when charging and discharging cells.
Pros:⌗
- Multiple battery chemistries are supported.
- A relatively wide range of battery sizes are supported.
- Termination voltage can be set.
- Up to 2A charging with 0.001A increments.
- Down to -1A discharging with 0.001A decrements.
- Micro USB port can be used to update the firmware.
- Heatsinks and two fans help with heat.
- There is a backlight that can be turned off.
Cons:⌗
- Capacitive touch buttons.
- The battery type is not automatically selected.
- Cells with recessed tops may not work due to the positive terminals having short notches.
- No temperature sensors for each channel.
Price⌗
The price is unknown at the time of writing.