Just finished a 5A test of the Sofirn 26650 5500mAh and it was 4411mAh to 2.8V.

I’ll run some more tests and start a new thread for each cell

Funtastic wrote:

There’s too much voltage drop on the 20A to be of much use. Sofirn don’t give a data sheet with a max temp so I didn’t want to risk it. 20A reached 70 degrees.

Just eye-balling that discharge curve, it looks like at least 15 watts of heat would be generated inside the cell when draining at 20 amps. I’m surprised it only reached 70C. It might get hotter if it was inside a sealed flashlight.

I have nothing against Sofirn batteries. They seem to be decent cells, but not for high-drain lights. I use one of their 18650 cells in an old Niwalker light, but it’s probably only drawing about 3 amps. Sofirn lists it as a high-discharge battery, but it’s certainly not. Neither does it meet their 3000mAh capacity. At around 2800mAh, it’s not bad. Good cell for a 1000 lumen light, but not much more.

There’s certainly better options out there but they are decent as a bundled cell.

The Sofirn 3000mAh 18650 black matches the Sanyo NCR18650GA up to 10A. I’m not sure what you tested but these ones were 2987mAh at 0.2C that’s pretty decent. The Sanyo NCR18650GA is rated at 3500mAh but only achieves 3300mAh

JasonWW wrote:

…

Edit, here is the discharge curve of the Samsung 25R from the link above. I'm not sure how comparable it is to the Sofirn HD, though.

…

That is a pretty old test (older gen cell) done on the non 4-wire test station, it does not reflect current 25R cell performance. Check the following reviews (25R rewraps) for the latter:

• Ampsplus INR18650 2500mAh (Black)
• Vapcell INR18650 2500mAh (Purple) 2018

Funtastic wrote:

Thanks for that Jason. It gave me a boost to try the 25A test,

20A at 64 degrees
25A at 70

Even though it didn’t hit the 80 degrees temp I don’t think it’s handling the 25A current well at all.

Keep in mind that my CBA has a voltage drop of 0.03V at 20A & 0.04V at 25A so it’s not spot on but works well enough to show performance

May I ask how trustworthy or reliable is your CBA? I know Mooch uses one, but the similarities between Mooch's setup and a stock CBA end up as soon as you finish uttering the name. Some known top brand high current cell test graphs we could compare to those of Henrik or Mooch would help to discern how your setup does versus theirs.

If all that voltage drop I see on the 20A curve would translate into cell heat I am sure your temperature figures would be somewhat higher. 

Funtastic wrote:

The Sofirn 3000mAh 18650 black matches the Sanyo NCR18650GA up to 10A. I’m not sure what you tested but these ones were 2987mAh at 0.2C that’s pretty decent. The Sanyo NCR18650GA is rated at 3500mAh but only achieves 3300mAh

The one I have is black, with gold lettering. It says 3000mAh on the label. I tested it at 2791mAh, using a low drain of 250mA. That’s nowhere near what my Sanyo GA’s are. So, it’s definitely not a GA cell, unless it’s a recycled cell they’re using.

I think Shockli 26650 5500mAh 30A and LiitoKala Lii 26650 5000mAh 50A are great cells.
Shockli 21700 4550mAh 30A, seems also to be doing well in tests.

RapidLux wrote:

I think Shockli 26650 5500mAh 30A and LiitoKala Lii 26650 5000mAh 50A are great cells.
Shockli 21700 4550mAh 30A, seems also to be doing well in tests.

Barkuti wrote:

May I ask how trustworthy or reliable is your CBA? I know Mooch uses one, but the similarities between Mooch’s setup and a stock CBA end up as soon as you finish uttering the name. Some known top brand high current cell test graphs we could compare to those of Henrik or Mooch would help to discern how your setup does versus theirs.

If all that voltage drop I see on the 20A curve would translate into cell heat I am sure your temperature figures would be somewhat higher

I don’t have a type k thermocouple yet so the temp could definitely be a little higher.

I got the pro version which is calibrated to be quite accurate according to Mooch but with of course the mentioned voltage drop. Mooch’s cba is only drawing 10% of the load to keep it as accurate as possible.

I really only purchased mine to confirm the cells I sell are genuine

We should all remember that Sofirn doesn’t actually make batteries. All of their cells are rewraps from other companies so we have to take each battery model on a case-by-case basis. Some will be better than others and they may change cells under the wrap over time.

JasonWW wrote:

RapidLux wrote:

I think Shockli 26650 5500mAh 30A and LiitoKala Lii 26650 5000mAh 50A are great cells. Shockli 21700 4550mAh 30A, seems also to be doing well in tests.

This thread is about Sofirn.

Ohh, I thought it was somewhat into high drain cells since other brands are mentioned throughout the thread. I gotta learn to read closer what’s the main topic before posting. My bad

JasonWW wrote:

We should all remember that Sofirn doesn’t actually make batteries. All of their cells are rewraps from other companies so we have to take each battery model on a case-by-case basis. Some will be better than others and they may change cells under the wrap over time.

Yup. That’s one of the risks with buying cells from a re-wrapper. You never really know what you’re getting, even when you’ve tested previous samples.

But, hey, Sofirn includes these cells for “free”. You can’t really expect too much from them.

Concerning cell rewrappers you should start thinking and believing higher (in case you're not doing so already). Believe in honest cell rewrappers without bait and switch or other product degrading practices. Sofirn is not gifting their batteries, and neither is forcing you to buy them.

I've seen some pictures of unwrapped Sofirn cells and it looks like they do not remove OEM wraps, they just add theirs above (see: What's under the wrapper (Sofirn + Thorfire 18650s)). This is nice and I hope for them to continue doing so. It is our right to know what exactly we are buying.

P.S.: What you think matters, what you believe defines your experience.

From Convoy AliExpress store for the new M21A

Quote:

don’t use vapcell, sofirn , LISHEN etc. 21700 battery ,they replace the shrinkable tube of LG or Samsung 21700, they are little thicker and not suitable. )

I can confirm the Sofirn 21700 has no OEM wrap underneath

Here’s my test of the Sofirn 18650 3000mAh

Here’s the Sofirn vs the NCR18650GA

I purchased a bulk lot of 100pcs and the above test is from that lot. I have another cell the same from 1 year ago and it performed much much worse. They’ve changed cells within the last 6 -8 months

Current cell – 65.8mm with white OEM wrap
Old cell – 66.3mm with pink OEM wrap

Measurements are taken excluding the button top

Quote:

don’t use vapcell, sofirn , LISHEN etc. 21700 battery ,they replace the shrinkable tube of LG or Samsung 21700, they are little thicker and not suitable. )

JasonWW wrote:

Quote:

don’t use vapcell, sofirn , LISHEN etc. 21700 battery ,they replace the shrinkable tube of LG or Samsung 21700, they are little thicker and not suitable. )

Who’s qoute is this? It is completely false.

Simon from Convoy

Funtastic wrote:

JasonWW wrote:

Quote:

don’t use vapcell, sofirn , LISHEN etc. 21700 battery ,they replace the shrinkable tube of LG or Samsung 21700, they are little thicker and not suitable. )

Who’s qoute is this? It is completely false.

Simon from Convoy

JasonWW wrote:

Funtastic wrote:

JasonWW wrote:

Quote:

don’t use vapcell, sofirn , LISHEN etc. 21700 battery ,they replace the shrinkable tube of LG or Samsung 21700, they are little thicker and not suitable. )

Who’s qoute is this? It is completely false.

Simon from Convoy

Do you know where he said this and if someone has corrected him yet?

Go onto his AliExpress store and look at the description on his new 21700 models

Okay, I think he was talking about battery diameter and that double wrapped cells won’t fit in his particular flashlights.

He is not saying anything about their quality, etc… We know Vapcell, Sofirn and Lishen 21700 cells are really good quality.

I don’t know what cells have single wrappers and what cells have double wrappers so I can’t comment on that part.

Funtastic wrote:

Here’s my test of the Sofirn 18650 3000mAh

Here’s the Sofirn vs the NCR18650GA

JasonWW wrote:

You might want to shrink your pictures like this, they are really huge.

Yours were larger lol

I’ve reduced the size

In post 80 I linked some pictures directly from HKJ’s website. I had to use the advanced post editor and have no idea how to make them show up smaller. Sorry.

How to use the advanced post editor to insert images scaled to fit.-

General tab, Dimensions: input 100% in the width (x-axis) field. This prevents aspect ratio issues.

Advanced tab, Style: input max-width: n%, where n is the amount of relative width to the available thread post box width.

As an example the following emoji is set at 25% max-width, so it should appear huge and pixelated:

Barkuti wrote:

How to use the advanced post editor to insert images scaled to fit.-

General tab, Dimensions: input 100% in the width (x-axis) field. This prevents aspect ratio issues.

Advanced tab, Style: input max-width: n%, where n is the amount of relative width to the available thread post box width.

As an example the following emoji is set at 25% max-width, so it should appear huge and pixelated:

 

 

 

 

Sofirn 26650 5500mAh – Red Line
Sofirn 26650 5000mAh HD – Black Line

5A – CBA 0.01v drop
10A – CBA 0.02v drop
15A – CBA 0.03v drop
20A – CBA 0.04v drop

I’m surprised how close they perform. You’d think they were the same cell minus some capacity. The button top of the HD cell would be adding resistance so I wonder if that’s it’s limitation.

JasonWW wrote:

…

On my Advanced tab is says Dimensions: ___ x ___ - like width times height. I put 100% in the first box, nothing in the second box and unchecked the "constrain preportions". It worked! I would not have thought to try that. Thanks.

Well, you can certainly set the proportional size in General tab -> Dimensions. In doing so, the image will fill that much screen width in any case. As an example, this ROFL emoji at 30%:

What I said concerning the Advanced tab -> Style, just made up my mind better. The max-width property can be used to limit the span of a low resolution image to avoid it becoming too large in big screens and looking awful.

As an example, the following gif is set with 672 × 420 pixels of resolution (336 × 210 actual) and max-width: 100% property. Thus it should fill the whole forum box or close in small devices, but remain no larger than 672 × 420 in larger screens:

As I see there's a problem with the aspect ratio when I rotate my smartphone screen, it does reduce its max-width but not the height. This is undesirable. 

I was told of this property by a zak.wilson on a related thread, but it really does not work as intended without a max-height adjustment.

Funtastic wrote:

Sofirn 26650 5500mAh – Red Line
Sofirn 26650 5000mAh HD – Black Line

5A – CBA 0.01v drop
10A – CBA 0.02v drop
15A – CBA 0.03v drop
20A – CBA 0.04v drop

I’m surprised how close they perform. You’d think they were the same cell minus some capacity. The button top of the HD cell would be adding resistance so I wonder if that’s it’s limitation.

JasonWW wrote:

…
This is odd because Sofirn measured a big difference in output with the SP70. Their regular 26650 battery made 5500 lumen and the HD battery made 7000 lumen. 

If you cannot measure or see such difference then it doesn't exists. At least for you, which already is enough.

Those cells are overrated. You know you can get better ones somewhere else and cheap, too. Maybe they buy in bulk from some lesser name provider and either they already get the cells binned and label wrapped accordingly (5000mAh for the lower performing, lower graded cells and 5500mAh for the high ones) or they do in house binning and rewrapping (could be, but don't think so).

≈200mAh of capacity difference for ≈4500mAh cells is less than 5%. The discharge curves' shape matches perfectly. Same OEM cell, just different grade.

Barkuti wrote:

Maybe they buy in bulk from some lesser name provider

Getting “better” ones is no so easy for people in certain countries which is why Sofirn sourced the HD cells in the first place.

As far as choosing between “lesser” and “more lesser” I’m not sure. The test above on the Sofirn 5500mah makes it look quite good (like a high drain 4500mah cell). I was told by Sofirn as well as other users that the non-HD 5000 and 5500 were not capable of high amp draws on FET driven lights. Maybe they recently upgraded all their 26650 cells?

Funtastic, have you measured any Of the “better” 26650 cells like Liitokala cyan or black or maybe the Keeppower 6000/Shockli 5500? (I like the Aspire 4300) I’m curious how it would compare to the Sofirn cells on your test equipment. A real apples to apples comparison.

@JasonWW, the reason Simon says not to use Lishen 21700s(PLB 21700s 4500mAh), is that they are thicker than standard 21700 cells, and so, they don’t fit in the thin Convoy tubes.