Brinyte introduced their new 18650 cells with build in charger here on BLF not too long ago.
I ordered and paid two to check them out and Brinyte covered the shipping to me (normally the killer for getting things from Alibaba, thanks Brinyte!
This is what I received two times
Pre production, no labels.
With compliments of Brinyte, here is the label and how they are supposed to look:
Label looks like, functionality looks like and well the whole package looks like other similar new cells, HKJ tested in depth the Mecarmy version or to quote maukka:
The cool thing about my pre production samples is that there is no printing so it is clear to see what is below the wrapper:
Here is it with two of the cells that are used as foundation for it, the big Panasonic protected cells, white small button the older and the reddish bigger buton one is the newest version of this 3400mAh protected cell.
The size if the same.
They fit my Convoy C8 just barely, as the normal panasonics do too:
They fit all my normal chargers:
Some testing with my limited resources for this:
The IR testing of the Liitokala is not the most reliable, I normally try 5 times and see what it shows, it showed 80 and 60 the last 4 times so I took a pic.
After several discharge and charging cycles (where I drained the cells with the Convoy C8 with bistro FET+1 driver and the two of them in the Uniquefire UF1401 since that was easier)
After abusing them as I will describe below the IR is still the same (but I only did about 35-40 (dis) charge cycles)
The main thing setting these new cells apart is the build in charger.
Little red light during charger and green when done
Cutoff neatly at 4.2
My little USB power thingy measures +/-755mA during charge at the start and that gets lower over time.
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Soooo…. I was looking at that little USB connect while the cells in a normal charger.
And seeing the contacts when charging it via USB.
Hmmm, either method left the other way wide open…
Could it charge both ways?
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So I emailed Brinyte to ask this.
“No do not do that, we have not designed it for that” was the response.
Hmmm, if I think of it, surely some normal consumers will think it too.
“Dear Brinyte, sorry I just have to test this, I am going to do it outside and have a video camera running the whole time, use a IR thermometer and take wind direction into account.”
Well this resulted in a stream of emails to and fro, They were as excited as I was.
setup, switch on and… all seemed fine.
see that plant right side on right pic. An insect repelling plant so not even a fly would get hurt in case of problems
charging went well, no high temperatures.
No booms or sizzlers
Actually, it seemed better then fine, the cell charged faster.
Using the two charging systems seems to add the value chosen of the normal charger to the input of the build in charger.
Meaning my Liitokala that only provides 1000mA max can be used and the build in charger adds 750mA at the start. Neat!
However, Brinyte strongly recommends NOT doing it since they are concerned how it will affect the cells over time and they are NOT designed for this use!
It was a blast to test these and the cells provide ample Turbo runtimes on the C8 with FET+1 driver.