That red Sofrin cell has the exact looking wrapper scheme as some XXX-Fire knockoffs that HKJ has tested in the past.
Too funny.
Chris
That’s to be expected - assuming you are comparing the Shockli 5500mah (5750mah actual) to the 5000mah Sofirn. There should not be too big of a difference, but some.
How are you measuring and how big a difference are you seeing?
my sofirn 21700 4000mAh battery gives more power in C8F and FF PL47 than sony VTC6 and samsung 30Q
I must have 4 defective 21700’s then. Ran all four through discharge/charge cycles just to make sure. I get the exact opposite on the Fireflies E07
Samsung 30Q’s, and 25r’s purchased through Liionwholesale, not Aliexpress Liitokala stores
Sorry, no measurements, but enough of a difference to notice in walks down the driveway. Both are 5500 cells. IR is about twice the Shockli if you can believe the charger.
I contacted Sofirns battery store (E-Battery store) and they told me they don’t carry a 5500mah 26650 even though there are tons of pictures and such. They said they are all 5000mah. This is quite confusing. I may need to ask Tracy at Sofirn if she knows what the situation is.
Tracy has told me their 26650 does not pull a lot of amps with a FET driver. In the SP70 prototype (70.2, FET driver and 2 x batteries) their 26650 performed about the same as a pair of Panasonic NCR18650B. That’s an old cell from 2012. So we know they aren’t good for high drain usage.
The Shockli 5500mah is quite new and is a top rate battery. I would expect it to be better than the Sofirn 26650, but not by much as far as the SP33 is concerned. It might have higher voltage sag causing the SP33 to loose turbo sooner, maybe?
The question is, is there a big enough difference in performance to justify the higher cost of the Shockli 5500mah?
Your forgetting that the E07 pulls about 20A while your C8F and PL47 pull about 10A, roughly. I got the same results as you.
What RobertB is saying is that at the higher amp draws (the 20A range), the Sofirn 4000mah seems to be having difficulty while the 30Q keeps pulling strong. It seems strange to me, but I suppose it’s possible.
Some scientific testing of the Sofirn 4000mah is needed.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=chinese+"good+enough"
The Battle for China’s Good-Enough Market - Harvard Business Review
It’s hard to unlearn the “good enough” attitude toward corner-cutting quality, once it gets established.
I worry about China’s “good enough” nuclear power plant expansion.
The whole thing about switching to save $0.10 is just a theory. They may have had to switch to a different battery for other reasons.
Or they’re getting their batteries from a subcontractor who cut a corner and Sofirn didn’t assess the change.
Yep, that could have a real bad outcome…… :person_facepalming:
Just like Tepco got warned that the tsunami barriers at Fukushima where subpar and not high enough and there a fairly high chance i think it was a 20% chance of 30+ foot wave hitting Fukushima. Low and behold look at it now. Cited twice on two different occasion from different reports and urged to be prepared but money wins all the time.
Now look the clean up cost plus lose of lives and lively hoods ruined.
Yep, they certainly ‘pooped in their bowl of Cheerios’ on that one. :person_facepalming: . And then had to eat them with a Big Spoon…… 
It looks like many chineese battery sellers or budled batteries are in the last months replacing original SDI or Sony cells with some doubtful cheap cells with just a lot worse internal resistance
and Liitokala and other Aliexpress selllers are even faking the original labels and sell for the same price as original cells
I doubt this will pay out in the long run, they simply gamble with their reputation and will loose over time
Ah, no. That’s not how fission plants fail. But you knew that.
I’ve ordered from Sofirn a number of times by now. I cannot order bare batteries from them (bare batteries not allowed to be shipped to my country), so the Sofirn batteries are always ordered only with the Sofirn flashlights.
I have had several Sofirn 18650s by now. The earliest one was the red one (looks like “UltraFire” wrapping), followed by the black wrapper — the black wrapped Sofirn seems to be the current wrapper for the 18650s, and indicates 3000mAh (I’ve ordered a lower Sofirn flashlight model which came with 2200mAh 18650 though, but that is another subject…)
(these are only about the capacity test, didn’t do much IR testing, but )
Sofirn “3000mAh” 18650 (red wrapper, and black wrapper)
-The earliest Sofirn 3000mAh 18650 (red wrapper, or the black wrapper — these 18650s are likely 6 or more months ago) — when I first tested their capacity with my MC3000 (–0.50A discharge to 2.50v), I only got around 2700+ mAh for all of them. (so these are actually a bit lower than their 3000mAh label)
-But the newer Sofirn 3000mAh 18650 (same black wrapping) from more recent order (around 2 months or so ago) — testing their capacity, I’m consistently getting 3000+ mAh capacity (same –0.50A discharge to 2.50v). (they are now correctly labeled)
Sofirn “2800mAh” blue/black-wrapping protected 18650
-The blue/black-wrapped Sofirn 2800mAh protected 18650 are protected batteries, which trip at around 6 amps.
I only got a few of these (I think they were all from around 6 or so months ago) - their tested capacity were 2700-2800mAh, so they are “correctly” labeled.
Sofirn 900mAh 14500:
- now these seem to have several batches too.
- as mentioned above, some of them (the earlier models, as in 6 months or so ago) are quite short in physical length — they are a bit shorter than Eneloop AA NiMh batteries.
- tested capacity are between 800-900mah
- the newer batch appears to be a bit longer now (similar size to other common unprotected 14500s, not “a bit shorter” anymore), tested capacity seems to still be around 800-900mAh
I asked Tracy at Sofirn if she could explain the capacity of their 26650 cells. Some are sold as 5000mah and some are sold as 5500mah.
Been a few months. Any more data on the Sofirn 5000/5500 26650? I would imagine a lot of BLFers have a few now. Max amp draw? Don’t see a HKJ test yet.
I have a few but they are for sale with the flashlights so don’t really want to test for maximum discharge current.
I have 21pcs of the new high drain 26650’s that should arrive within a week I’ll be giving a good test.
The Sofirn 14500’s are decent at up to 3A
The Sofirn 26650 High Drain are good for just over 10A. Not sure why Sofirn rates them at 25A for Continuous Discharge Current.
Up to 10A they perform as good as a Samsung 30Q
I didn’t expect 25A for 5000mAh capacity. I’m quite happy with their performance
I’ll update with my tests tomorrow