Test/review of Sony US18650VTC5A 2600mAh (Green)

Sony US18650VTC5A 2600mAh (Green)







Official specifications:

  • Nominal capacity: 2600mAh

  • Rated capacity: 2500mAh

  • Maximum continuous discharge current: 35A with 80° cut-off

  • Nominal voltage: 3.6V

  • Internal impedance: 13.0mOhm typical at 1kHz

  • Cycle performance: 300 cycles to 70% with 10A discharges.

  • Standard charge current: 2.5A

  • Maximum charge current: 6A

  • Charge voltage: 4.2V +/-0.05V




A very high current cell with fairly high capacity.









The discharge curves has very good tracking and the cell handles the 30A discharge nicely.







The cell was very close to the cut-off temperature at the end of the 30A discharge.















Conclusion

The upgrade from VTC5 to VTC5A did not add more capacity to the cell, but the voltage is slightly higher when drawing current.

As usual the Sony cells are very good.



Notes and links

How is the test done and how to read the charts
How is a protected LiIon battery constructed
More about button top and flat top batteries
Compare to 18650 and other batteries

how does vtc5a compare to vtc6

vtc6 is higher capacity, but which one is better at 20A and 30A regarding temperature rise and voltage sag?

That is what the comparator is for. I would say that VTC6 wins below 15A.

Thats for the review m8, again exellent!

vtc5a is the best of the best battery in existance so far , especialy for our fet dd drivers: considering gaining maxed results
for 24/7 use VTC6 is the one…yet, for a single emitter flashlight with a moderate power(3-6amps) 30Q will perform the same
VTC6 main issue its its price and awailablilty, you can get 2x30q`s for that money

Thanks HKJ for the review of these great cells!

comparing the discharge curves, the VTC5A looks better than the VTC6 in the beginning, probably why it should do better when we do our tests at first 30 secs from a full charge. But if you look at the duration of the discharge, the VTC6 holds up a higher voltage, which for us FET driver fans, means higher amps.

Sooo, yes - the VTC5A is a great cell for those critical first 30 secs, great for testing/quoting #'s. If you want to actually use the cell for normal discharging, the VTC6 beats it - just compare the curves at what amps we typically use, like 5A or 7A.

With that said, interesting, just ordered a pair of the VTC5A's yesterday before seeing this review. Already got a lot of VTC6's and 30Q's. Also ordered the new SANYO 20700A, which actually just might beat the VTC5A -- we'll see, but of course the 20700A requires a 26650 light that fits long cells, but fortunately I got a few of those.

Ohh - just noticed HKJ has the 20700B listed and reviewed. Compare the discharge curves at 5A or 7A between the VTC5A and 20700B. First 1/2 Ah, VTC5A kills the B, then after that, the B makes the VTC5A look like something is flat out bad about it.

The 20700A should not have that bad start the 20700B has, and hold up probably better than the 20700B -- again, we'll see.

Thank you very much for the review HKJ,

HKJ, if you have the time I would like to ask you one important unrelated question please, well important to me anyhow, a question about a tester you suggested to someone
Your comment was about what you considered to be a very good tester and something that you felt everyone should have one of, so being that I knew of you and had always relied on your knowledge and reviews prior to any purchase I was about to make that would be power related I went out and bought one,
This tool you suggested in that short comment I read would be the ZTS MBT-1, Multi-Battery tester, by the way there is also the chance that I did not fully understand the question, and actually bought something that would not do me personally much good overall, I don’t know.

Well I have hunted everywhere and still I have know idea why you would have thought this was an important tool?
To me all I see is Green is great, yellow you should charge and, red you really need to charge, that’s it to my eyes and not much other information.

It seems to me that I can get more info out of my cheap DMM, so I would like to respectfully ask what is it that I am not obviously understanding about this ZTS besides price…?

I am really hoping you could give me a link so I can answer my question,

Thank you HKJ,
I have wanted to ask you why you suggested this tester for quit sometime now, because it’s nice looking but very expensive for what I see as info, it does covers a wide range of batteries but as far as informative to me, not so much, what am I missing please?/
Best Regards

A voltmeter is great for LiIon batteries, but do not work very well for lithium (CR123), Alkaline and NiMH batteries. For these chemistries you need to place a load on the battery while testing. The ZTS tester do that and also has a build-in table to translate the voltage to approximate energy level in the battery.
Especially if you uses CR123 in series you want to know that they are at the same energy level (They can be nasty if reverse charged).

Thank you HKJ, that does make more sense actually and especially the NiMH’s that I do understand now, I didn’t even know they had a load on the readings so that’s why my question was so all over the place,

Lith Ion is my primary power, generally, but there’s times when I’m wondering about some alkaline cell or button cell or 10180’s it does actually cover about everything and this is the tester I grab, but most interesting is along with it being set up with a load for NiMH which is something that I didn’t know at all, that’s part of my problem, I just didn’t know what it was capable of and or why, you would think for what I paid for this gizmo they’d have just a little bit more explanation, somewhere even, I guess it’s a word of mouth thing,
It’s a good tester but really more tester than I might normally need except now when I’m thinking NiMH’s, that is something and I really didn’t know about the reading being under load, so that right there explains the cost.
Thank you HKJ, I am glad I bought it and more so now that I understand it a bit more, it is a great tester and covers about every battery I know of but it’s absolutely the best when I have 10-20 lith Ions I need to check quickly And I use a lot of NiMH’s so I get it and not so expensive when you understand what you bought… haha…
Thank you so much for your time sir, greatly appreciated
G…