Best charge rate for 30Q Battery?

that is good to know, but the heat generated @4A charging 30Q rather disconcerting though.

I normally just charge my 18650s and 26650s at 500mA. I’m rarely in any type of rush so I just throw them on the charger earlier in the day if I know I’m going to want fully charged batteries that night. I also figure that it’s easier on both the batteries and the charger. So, when I do charge at 1A or higher it feels super fast to me.

Ditto for me and overnight charging while rotating cells.

especially since they will age out before we wear them out.
that said i also charge all 18650 at 1a and 26650 at 2a.
i have plenty of spares so no rush.

Bought my very first batch of 30Q batteries. Put them on the LiitoKala Lii-500 for "NOR Test", more than 6 hours later, they are all terminated on between 3.6 and 3.8V, when I was expecting them to terminate close to 4.2V. Just want to make sure this is not normal???

If the “End” display is blinking, then they are still charging back up. And if so, what you’re seeing is the current charging voltage, not final. Once the “End” display stops blinking, this will be an indication that the re-charging has finished and you should see voltage close to 4.22.

I have SC4 charger and my 30Q charged up to 4.20 evenly.

I didn’t realise the “End” blinking display means it has not finished. Crappppppppppp! Now I got to do it all over again. Back in the charger all of them go. :person_facepalming:

But you already got your result (capacity), so all you need to do is just top them off at this point. No need to run the whole NOR Test again.

For an example how different charge/discharge currents can affect battery life, look here: https://batteryworkshop.msfc.nasa.gov/presentations/Perf_Safe_Test_Panasonic_Li-Ion_NCR_18650_Cells_JRead.pdf

Unfortunately it isn’t for 30Qs but gives a rough image how does it look .

I keep my cells around 3,90V and charge with 0.5A if I can plan in advance. If a fast charge is reqired, I use 2 amps. In extreme situations I can charge with 4Afrom hobby charger.

It’s interesting, but like you stated, it’s for an NCR cell which was not designed to handle high charge/discharge current. It would be nice to see how a high current INR cell such as the 30Q would do on such a test.

Not as extensive as the Pana tests but there are quite a few at the end of this Samsung INR18650-30Q datasheet
Cycle life - charge@4A discharge@15A, see page 8/17
Cycle life - charge@4A discharge@22A, see page 9/17

I put them back on charge right before I went to bed last night, and woke up to the charger saying they are on 19xx mAh with a solid END on display this time. I am going to re-do the NOR test again, but won’t take them out this time all 4 slots display a solid END.

I was a bit too impatient last night, as I wanted to try them out on the Zanflare F1. On an old Panasonic 18650B (which I believe to be unprotected), I wasn’t able to engage turbo mode. Or rather, it seems double clicking it into turbo mode does not seem to output double the light output. I know I am sidetracking on the topic, does anyone know the max discharge current rate on the green Panasonic 18650B?

According to this datasheet (note that the PDF says “tentative”, so it may not be final…)

http://www.batteryonestop.com/baotongusa/products/datasheets/li-ion/SANYO-NCR18650B-3400mAh.pdf

the Sanyo NCR18650B has max continuous discharge current of 4.875A.

I wonder if the Panasonic NCR18650B is the same as the Sanyo NCR18650B…

Re: LiitoKala Li-500 Engineer’s ‘NOR’ test, (also refer to HKJ’s review for more info), it does a Charge (to Full 4.20v), then Discharge (to approximately 2.80-2.84v cut-off voltage), then does a Charge (to Full).

The display shows an “END” when the Discharge portion of the test has been completed, and if I’m not mistaken, the time display (eg. 6 hours something) is the total time it took to discharge the battery from Full to the Cut-off voltage.

Note that when the “END” is shown, the Lii-500 charger will be charging the battery back to Full, so if the voltage is not yet near 4.20v, then the charger is still charging up the batteries (even when the “END” indicator has been shown), afaik, there will be no indication that it has finished charging to full (last stage of the NOR test), other than the voltage has risen to 4.20v (I think it’s mentioned that the Lii-500’s voltage display won’t update/change anymore after finishing final charging phase? (I could be wrong though…)

Also note that the discharge rate, if I remember correctly is set to 0.5A or 0.25A, depending on the Charge rate selection (1000ma & 700mA Charge rate selected = 500mA Discharge rate). So the total discharging time will be longer if 0.5A charge rate is selected (ie. 0.25A discharge rate)

Yup, my understanding is for the NORmal test it is a 3 step process.

1) Charge cells completely to 4.2V
2) Run at constant .25A until discharged, measuring capacity (Don’t remember the V cutoff here)
3) Charge fully again

If in doubt whether it has finished, note the voltage and check again in 5 minutes.

In step 1, if you set the charge rate to either 0.7A or 1A, then in step 2 the discharge rate will be 0.5A.

When it has finished charging to full, the word “END” stops blinking. That’s your indication that the entire Nor Test has completed.

Just don’t set your expectations too high. Turbo on this light is theoretically giving you double the lumens, but to a human eye that is not going to look twice as bright. That’s just not how it works.

Most reviews I’ve seen on this light state there isn’t a whole lot of visual difference between high and turbo. But you should still be able to see some difference. Using a higher drain cell, such as 30Q, may in fact help.

Finally got the 4 30Q fully charged, took 6 hours to discharge 3000mA, and probably another 3 hours to charge since I selected the highest charging current on the Liitokola 500. Popped them into the Zanflare F1, and you are right that it doesn’t seem to be double the brightness to the naked eye, but certainly looks noticeably brighter. Tested the current drain at turbo, and was showing 3.30A. I can’t remember what it was when I had the Panasonic NCR18650B in it, but I think might be less than 2A.

Thanks, learned something new. =)