Review Brinyte 18650 cell with build in charger

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 :wink:

charging went well, no high temperatures.
No booms or sizzlers :smiley:

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.

:+1:

That was clever, the dual ultrafast charging! :wink:

I was ordering some batteries from Gearbest the other day and decided to get one of these to check out. I will let you know what they send me as the pics they show are of the unlabeled pre production ones. The package size dimensions don’t even make sense so we shall see.

Great job, Miller.
It is great a review. Just as what I have said, you are very professional to do such tests. :+1: :+1: :+1:

Interesting product. Thanks for checking it out and reporting!

I would guess that the built-in charger on these batteries does not have all the protections, redundant termination circuits/algorithms, and so on, that you get with a full-featured stand-alone charger. Were you able to learn what protections it does have?

Time, temperature, voltage, and, of course, CC/CV, all come to mind.

Why not? It is just a single LiIon charge chip with everything build in.

Hmm. I saw this and thought it would make a great standalone usb charger. So have the charging part on +ve and short wire with magnet for -ve. That’s essentially what this is already, just wrapped around a battery.

Well I figure the mecarmy HKJ reviewed and is linked to consist of about the same parts
I measures +/-750mA at charging g start and that went down at the end (gradually see the pics you see my cheap a$$ USB thingy showing different amps )

Sorry the in depth reviews are from HKJ and others, I merely do user perspective reviews :wink:

Careful with that copper plate (or mcpcb) under the batteries :smiley:

Yeah it came the same day as the cells and I am testing some new things for pics
The chessboard is most to my liking since about all colors flashlights come in stand out nice against it.

I guess I will feel more comfortable about this sort of charger after I have read a positive review that can verify that the algorithms used match those of a good stand-alone charger. You know anybody who does that sort of thing?. :wink:

Nice review.Thanks for your great job,miller. :wink:

It was a blast doing it!
I will take one apart to show the inner workings since CRX brought up the interesting point that the size of the charging system makes it of great interest for modders who could use it to mod an 18650 flashlight to have build in charging. Idk when but will update title when done with this.

Hmm yeah I removed the grey wrapper and black disc covering the top. Rge charging and protection part are very solid attached to the cell and I do not dare to proceed, it seems pressed fit and knowing the strip connecting the protection with the - is probably used makes me not going any further.

It is very solid in construction so that is nice to know, but my adventure with these cells ends here and I will now just use them. I like the high mAh and put them in a Eagle Eye X6 XML2 NW stock and modded Convoy C8 with XPLhi and bistro driver.

Time to add discharge and charge curves:


Looks like there are 2 charging ICs in parallel, each set for 350mA charging current and about 40mA termination.
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The charge und discharge curves of similar UltraFire and FandyFire USB-rechargeables are practically the same:




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The Mecarmy is a bit different, it seems to have a single charging circuit. It takes more than 1h longer to charge.


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BTW: There is now also a CooYoo-branded version: https://www.fasttech.com/product/5656100

Wauw, thanks for these graphs!

Really nice stuff. These surprisingly look like decent cells. And I see no real reason to pay more for the MecArmy ones.

When I modded a MecArmy PT16 I removed the charging circuit and soldered leads to it with magnets on the ends. Taping over the entire board with Kapton tape ensures no shorts and the tiny little charger easily fits in my carry bag with a battery bank for on the fly charging anywhere anytime. :wink: (The PT16 was bored and fitted with an 18350)

Nice find Miller, might have to gnab a couple of these for back-ups…

I gotta quit reading y’all’s stuff! Went to GearBest to pick up a few of these cells, left spending $165! Ugh! lol
(Had my eye on that Nitecore light for a while now, pulled the trigger… and the 8 pack of Samsung 30Q’s for only $33 was too much to resist!) :wink: