In any case, he still has a charger that cannot charge to 4.2v.
My always flawed understanding is, if you do charge to 4.2v, you shouldn't store them long at that voltage. Charging to 4.2v is ok if you will not let them sit there like that long. Is the end of an overnight charge and balance using a bms too long? Maybe. But if you want to ride before dawn to get to work, what other options do you have?
I now charge to 4.1v most of the time. Then if I need more range on a given day, I bring up the charge to 4.2v, then immediately start discharging on the ride. If I know I won't use the batteries for 24hrs, I leave them at whatever the discharged voltage was, 3.8v-4v.
You cannot tell if a cell is balanced to .01v if the cell is not fully charged. But you can tell if a cell is grossly out of balance at 4.1v. Obviously if one cell is at 3.9v and another is at 4.1v, you have a pretty out of balance pack.
So what I'm saying is, you can tell if a cell is grossly out of balance (.2 off) at less than full charge, but you cannot tell if a cell is .01v out of balance at less than full charge. This is due to the relatively flat discharge curve of all lithium batteries. And, in addition, most multi cell voltage checkers are not accurate to .01v, including your RC charger.
If you generally charge to 4.1v, then you can get them balanced enough at 4.1v. Bear in mind, balanced does not mean a weak cell got strong. A weak cell will have less capacity, no matter what. Then balanced or not, the pack has less capacity. The main point of checking balance is to find and eliminate weak cells asap. FYI, that weak cell is often the one that overcharges every cycle. So balancing may not help much till you chuck that weak cell.
