Review / Test: Protected Trustfire 26650 5000 mAh Battery from Manafont

Review Protected Trustfire 26650 5000 mAh Battery Test from Manafont

Ordered: 26/3/12 Dispatched: 27/3/12 Received: 17/4/12

Lenght 68.73mm from button top + to base - Width 26.11mm

Will work in multi cell lights with out adding magnets

Charged at 1.5 amps to 4.2 volt then discharged to 2.75 volt at 3 amps

Data table:

A quick discription of the above data table

Zenit [s] is time of the charge, it is updated every 2 seconds.

Input [V] is how much volts my power supply is giving my Ichager 106B+

Voltage accu [V] is battery voltage

Current [A] is how many amps the charger is charging or discharging the battery or batteries.

Capacity [mAh] is how long the battery will last under load. A 2500 mAh battery should be able to give 2.5 amps for one hour till empty.

Volts VS mAh

Volts VS Wh

3 amps down to 2.754 volt measuring 4313 mAh thats realy good.

Recomended 1.5 amp charger

https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/8049

I have ordered more of these protected batteries.

Layman's verdict?

So like typical Trustfire, Manafont version is over-rated (which we knew), but comparable in capacity to some of the higher priced cells - King Kong, MNKE, etc. Makes you wonder why they think they have to exaggerate capacity doesn't it?

Thanks for the review, benckie. I'll link to it in the 26650 battery thread.

Layman's verdict is they are very good IMHO.

Will match the king kongs in mAh, but read slightly higher in IR due to the protection pcb, but sofar these seam to be the best protected 26650 cells out there that can be used in multi cell lights with out adding magnets.

Thumbs up to trustfire for a protected 26650 cell over 4000 mAh that can be used in multi cell lights with out magnets.

Ive been happy with all my trustfire batteries brought from manafont, not so much DX or flea bay

Thanks, benckie. I too have been happy with TFs from Manafont. It is important to note that your test is of only the Manafont Trustfire cells. Many people assume that because Trustfire was tested here, they will get the same cells anywhere else they buy them. I will not buy TF from DX, DD or any outlet on flea bay. CNQG carries the 4000mAh version, but again those have not been tested.

Anyway, good price on a protected 26650 cell.

Thanks for testing and posting! I'd been waiting to hear more on these cells, but in the meantime (well yesterday actually) I ordered a KingKong INR from Int'l Outdoor.

-Garry

Thanks for testing these.

Looks like we now have several options when it comes to quality 26650 cells.

One question though:

King Kong's from Int'l Outdoor are $8.97.

Is there any advantage to the TF 26650 from Manafont for $13.33?

Hi Garry they INR,s from IO are good if you get them some got ICR's not as good, i was lucky and got all INR,s.

I sold 3 brand new INR,s today that have been sitting in a box waiting for magnets to get here and brought some more of these protected trustfire 26650's as i was impressed with the test and would like to test more and my collection of 26650 lights is growing.

I will do another discharge test soon on this cell.

Trustfires have a protection circuit, KK's do not.

benckie: Any chance you can test the TF protection circuit hi/low limits?

Yes this cell i tested is protected from over discharge, over charge and short circut the king Kong's are not protected, using a protected battery could save damage to your light or an explosion or a fire (very very rare but does happen). In lights with no low voltage warning or multi cell lights protected batteries are very handy and recommended as you have to check and monitor each batteries voltage and match the cells before and after use or it could cause trouble.

I think the added protection circut is worth the extra $4.36 as there is no price for safety and piece of mind, new flash light users or people with out hobby chargers and battery checking equipment should use protected cells at lest but that's just my opinion, i consider myself fair experienced due to 20 years back ground in RC and years of using li-po batteries but i still like to use protected batteries where i can.

Going from mitro's 3 amp tests of the king Kong's so far this cell has given more mAh then the 3 he tested, the more mAh the cell has or can give the longer the battery will last. On another note Foy ordered king kong INR,s but got a mixed order and got a couple of ICR,s (from my resurch ICR,s are not as good).

Just my opinion.

Sheesh....that's really good. If you use even a powerful flashlight like J12 2200 lumens OTF, it's like taking about 2A with 3 of these. You can do well over 2hrs at 2200 lumens OTF with slightly cool weather. As these are protected cells, no issue at all.

Benckie, perhaps you can try shorting it with your DMM in current mode and see if the PCB's good.

Now I shall wait for 9 XM-Ls with a 80mm head (say Xtar S1 size, it's actually handy) and driven at least 10A (slightly over 1A for each XM-L) with 2 x 26650s. Still would be cool running @ 3500 lumens OTF. :)

Im charging the cell now i was planing on testing the low cut off and how many amps the protecting curcuit can give before if cut off as i feel this is a good one as it simlulates over discharge and a dead short .

Ill see what i can do with my charger to get it to over charge might have to to use nimh mode as all other modes will not let me go over 3, 3.7 or 4.2 volt with out altering the calibration of my charger as it is spot on so i dont want to mess with it.

If people want to chip in some $ to my paypal ? i will pull the protection circuit off and see how many mosfets it has (the more the better) and if there is any thing writen on the cell once finshed testing, sorry for asking but i have already killed a few good batteries and so on for the sake of the forum and money is a bit tight right now.

I'll pitch in a few bucks - worth it to get good info for the cause. Let me know if you get a few more to share the load and send me a PM.

Testing the over discharge protection and it works.

4.15 volt to 2.75 at 7 amp discharge

(charger maxed out at 6.43 amps, battery 3.091 volt)

Data table

Volts vs mAh

Volts vs Wh

Photo's showing that the protection pcb on the battery kicked in

There is a 4 second, 2 mAh delay between my computer and the iCharger with data logging on my computer, but this shows that the battery PCB protection did kick in and the disconnected from the battery reading 0.0 volt as it should.

It does take time for any battery protection to kick in and it often can not be kicked in with very low current draws as i have made this mistake before when testing batteries and have said to protection does not work, when it did it just did not work say at 0.5 amps.

This test is like testing a dead short the battery but slower if that makes sense in a dead short the amps climb high very very quickly and the battery protection kicks in after a short time, but in a discharge test it takes time for the the charger to ramp up to the Maxim discharge for the protection to kick in.

I could of done the test shorting the battery out with a DMM (digital multi meter) the protection would of kicked in sooner but unless i made a video there is no real way of logging or recording to PCB disconnecting its self from the battery.

Ah man, come on.. Just when I was feeling dam good about ordering 2 of these cells from DX, you got to put DX down...

What am I in for getting these cells from DX???

Thanks for the report/review too..

I am a team player..Wink

I will pitch in a couple.. Send me PM too.

Ok cool that makes two willing to chip in a couple more to share the load a bit more would be sweet.

Some links to other battery tests i have done, slowly improving i like to think.

18650,s

trustfire flames 2400 mAh

https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/4522

redilast 2600 mAh

https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/5025

Hi-max 2600 mAh

https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/5082

Solarforce 2400 mAh

https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/4958

Panisonic NCR18650A

https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/4557?page=1

I would like to say a big thanks to cehowardGS for the $3.50 USD donation towards this battery test and strip.

Thanks for the review benckie!