TF flame 14500 judgement call

Kreisler@ Usually I'll go for the low dollar item and lots of hoping/praying

2100@

True that but the hologram thing is kinda emotional and I take it as a sign of quality LOL. With my limited resources in testing and with my laziness/tendencies I'd pitched them with an established benchmark to see if they OK or way off.

that made my day, fantastic, thanks!!

lmao

I have 6 of these batteries and they have been good so far. I really don't use them very much. I bought them to use in my Xeno E03 but that light has been acting up on me a little and I wasn't really happy with the 20-25 minute run time on 14500 batteries.

I bought these batteries from this guy and he is in the US. Free fast shipping. I bought this with the charger and I emailed him and bought bought some 2 extra batteries. I later emailed him and bought 2 more batteries. I think I paid $10 for the two including shipping and they arrived the next day. He is in Salt Lake City and it's only about 100 miles from me.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/2-TRUSTFIRE-14500-Li-ion-RECHARGEABLE-BATTERY-CHARGER-/370485328406?pt=US_Batteries&hash=item5642a57a16#ht_500wt_1180

Chidwack, i have put much effort (=time) to test the Xeno's runtimes in detail with repeated runs and 2 different cells, i.e. the cells of a 2-pack i got from DX. I documented my results in the Xeno review thread (and in order to test the quality of my fake Dinodirect cells i would repeat the tests at some later point).

If you get only 25mins on your Xeno (mine is Xeno E03 V3 XML T6 CoolWhite), then.. your cell must have a low capacity!

Reverse charging can happen to any cell in a multicell battery pack and also not surprisingly in flashlights using 2 or more cells. This does not only happen to Li ion. NiMH/NiCd/Pb and of course Li Co behave differently when "pushed past zero". You can google it up. The idea is to use matched cells, now if the PCB kicks in then there is no problem. In reality, it is not 100% for this kind of protection. I still remember my E03 nearly killing my TF Flames 14500 because it drained it to like 1.6V?

Short circuit protection is good though, i have never come across anything (no matter how low cost it is) that did not cut the juice when i dead short it on a DMM in current mode.

It could be that my 14500 TF cells are not up to par. I really don't know any way to test them except put them in the light and time the burn.

I have stated on another thread that I'm not real happy with my Xeno E03. It's the same V3 cool white as you have. I had problems with the light when I first got it. The switch wasn't working very well. I emailed the guy I got it from (Tacticalhid) and he said to change the clicky which I did. It worked for awhile but lately it's been acting up like the first switch. The light has become a shelf queen as I have other lights that cover the same bases that I like better. Not having a memory in the Xeno drives me crazy.

For about $3 more I bought a Shiningbeam S-mini XP-G. It's less than 3/4 inch longer than the Xeno and otherwise, it's about the same size. Runs much longer on one battery, has similar brightness, throws longer and best of all, it has a MEMORY.

Draining to PCB cut, depending on voltage, can reduce useful life from 500 recharges to 100 or less.

I normally trip them a couple of times to see if they work, their voltage however hover around 3.4+ to 3.5+v.

I was always interested in knowing at which voltage the protection trips. Protected LiIon cells? All I possess are some Ultrafire 10440's, these Trustfire 14500's, and 2 cells of XTAR 18650's. I've used the Ultrafire and Trustfire cells EXCESSIVELY for runtime tests for BLF posts. in my most recent 10440's test with iTP A3 XP-G R5, i measured 2.653V, and today i happened to measure 2.627V with these Trustfire 14500's.

How did i measure it?

the cell was in my Xeno E03 XML on Ultralow Mode. When the light shut off due to the cell's tripped protection, i quickly took out the cell and placed it in my charger for 1.0 second. After that (again quickly) i measured the voltage. And there it was: 2.627V.

Now we know it.

While common advice on forums is "Dont let your liions discharge below the 3.6V mark", in reality the cell manufacturers dont let the protection trip until the nominal 2.75V mark. With slow discharge currents (e.g. in ultralow mode), this mark is even undershot (2.627V in Xeno, 2.653V in iTP A3, both in Low mode).

good info. i know. thanks.

haha

You are right on the low low voltage cut off but I haven't gone beyond what you tested. Maybe it will if I put them on on low mode.

ppl often exaggerate is that...

the first say: should never discharge lico under 2,5v or you will short the life of the cell, better don't go not under 2,7v, remember keeping under 2/1,5v make it dangerous to recharge!

the second reading the first say: never discharge lico under 2,7v or will explode

the 3rd reading second: lico are unsafe use only batteries with protection of discharge under 3v or will explode

the 4rd(from CPF? xD) reading 3rd: discharging litio under 3,6v will damage your cell, it can explode but first will fk your wife/GF giving you a son like radioactive Hulk version of Greta xD

There are many opinions about that.

Panasonic specifies in their datasheet for the NCR18650A that it must never be above 4.25 volt (Including during pulse charge) and must never be below 2.0 volt.

LG does not specify these limits, but has some test conditions, that will damage the cell, but must not make it explode. This is stuff like discharge 250% capacity (i.e. reverse polarity on the cell).

that never stay for "can produce" explosion, danger, overheat or just short the life?

maybe is different by brand but in your opinion(HKJ you are a landmark for who walk in forum in search of battery info, your post can clear the dubits, the same post of a common human is read with suspicion xD), from your huge direct and indirect experience, also if i know that u don't make crazy test like LG, what is the "best" range to charge and discharge the lico with best life/autonomy proportion? Can trust the protection that usually cut at 2,6v and 4,22/4,26v?(can you confirm pls?)

Is also well know that you weight your words but try to answer :)

Generally detailed specifications for LiIon cells are difficult to get (Except if you buy large amounts of cells), but it is know that extreme conditions (Like discharging to much) can shorten the life of LiIon cells and increase the danger of explosions. With the LG test they do not repeat the test, it is only done once and then the cell is discarded (That is my guess).

Most LiIon cell has a recommended minimum discharge voltage of 2.75 to 3 volt (NCR18650(A) is 2.5 volt), this voltage is measured during discharge and not 1 second after the discharge has stopped (Where it might be considerable higher). When doing the discharge at a higher current it might not be a problem to go below this voltage, but at low current there is a risk of damage to the cell.

According to some battery expert you need to be below 2 volt, before there is a risk of serious damage to the cell, but I have not seen any confirmations (or denial) of this in the datasheets.

Personally I do trust the protection, in my experience electronic is very reliable. You can break it if you drop it on a hard floor or zap it with static electricity, but as long as nothing is broken it will work 100% each time. What I wonder about is at what voltage?

What you have to watch out for is low mode on light, this might include extra wear on the battery, because the protection limit is below the recommend minimum discharge voltage (It has to be that way).

I did not include protection voltage in my test, because that would require individual configuration for each battery and a mistake could damage the cell. I might test this at a later date, where I can sort the batteries and then test protection on each type of battery.

I do not really worry about the batteries that I have in daily use, some get charged after each use, because I want them ready with full power, other get charged when the protection kick in or when I know I need some runtime. This usage pattern does not optimize the lifetime of the batteries.

I have also seen a few cheap batteries die, but not anything with flames or sound effects. The batteries could simply not be charged anymore, instead they generated heat (i.e. the battery was warm, but not hot).

ty hkj

love how you write, in the way that you can't never say something of wrong, is kinda an horoscope way xD

but not for that you don't give the info, just with not presumption you describes your experience/way to do

I do not like posting hearsay, except if I mark it as such. When (If I do it) I have tested the protection voltage on a lot of different batteries, I will know considerable more about what limit the battery manufactures has selected.

You can see some of the chips it is possible to used in this list.

For our records an update for this thread. i posted:

today i received price version 2. From the above quote you can see that the original price at that time was USD4.99. I had paid USD5.39, and today's price is USD6.99 (SKU: A06730000E). just letting you know that my sample of price version 2 came with the hologram sticker (which has btw the exact quality of a lottery scratch ticket!!!), yay!


cell#1 had a remaining offline voltage of 3.847V, cell#2 of 3.854V.

So far i own 5 cells of these TF flames 14500 and my measurements are:


TF flames 14500 weight max. length capacity source hologram sticker
cell#0 (disposed) unknown unknown unknown DX no
cell#1 20.708g [21g] 51.09mm (skew) 759mAh DX no
cell#2 20.696g [21g] 51.06mm 830mAh DD (price version 3) no
cell#3 20.465g [20g] 51.01mm (skew) 744mAh DD (price version 3) no
cell#4 [20g] 51.03mm (skew) 559mAh DD (price version 2) yes
cell#5 [20g] 51.00mm 786mAh DD (price version 2) yes

Note: weights in brackets are readings from 1g kitchen scale. in addition, cells #1-#3 were weighed with a 0.001g precision scale. capacity measurements taken by Genuine Imax B6, discharged from 4.200V (offline voltage, UT61E) down to "3.00V" (Imax B6 standard discharge program) at "-0.1A" discharge rate.

total weight (cell#1-#5) on kitchen scale: [102..103g], i.e. ~102.5g

average weight (cell#1-#5) on kitchen scale: (~102.5g/5=) 20.5g

average length is 51.0mm, if the PCB is perfectly aligned and not skew.

the variation of capacity between shipped samples, even within a 2pcs-set, is quite high. and it doesnt depend on the presence of the hologram sticker. from the above data, as a rule of thumb, you should expect around 750mAh min. capacity out of this cell product. Apparently cell#4 is a poor cell. Another discharge test resulting in 561mAh confirmed this observation.

Then the common advisers don't know to read a discharge curve. Manufacturers specs are clear.

Doing that on a NCR18650A @5A will get you 250mA total battery usage and @3A not more than 800mA.

Jerry wrote:

no comment from my part :p

just wait for your unprotected cells and the charger, will ya? ;)

WOWEEEEE My idea was a terrible one. I'll Wait and wait and wait as long as it takes. Thanks.

Jerry