Test/review of Nitecore 18650 2900mAh NL1829LTHP (Black-yellow) 2018

Nitecore 18650 2900mAh NL1829LTHP (Black-yellow) 2018







Official specifications:

  • Capacity: 2900mAh

  • Voltage: 3.6V

  • Current: 8A

  • Low temperature resistant to –40°C



This is a protected 18650 cell that can be used at lower temperatures.












THe normal test shows a good quality cell that can handle up to 5A, the protection trips if discharge for some time at 7A.

















The test below is done in a freezer with free air around the battery, all equipment is outside the freezer.



This is a 1A discharge at –20°C, the batteries fairly fast increase their temperature with 5°C and this improves the performance.
Note: Temperature curve is behind the internal battery temperature, i.e. the red curve will react way faster than the blue curve.



At 2A discharge the voltage drops to nearly 3V, but recovers significantly when the battery heats up.



The 3A discharge nearly hit the termination voltage, before it recovers. The batteries are above 0°C when the discharge is done.



Conclusion

The battery is a good quality LiIon battery and it sort of works in the cold. The “sort of” is because it need to heat itself up to get some performance.




Notes and links

The battery was supplied by a Nitecore for review.

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
Graphical comparison to 18650 and other batteries
Table with all tested LiIon batteries

Nice. :slight_smile:

I wonder if drivers could use temperature sensors to adjust their low voltage cutoff.
For example 3V when it’s hot but dropping to 2.8V when it’s freezing….

Thanks so much for doing these tests! Do you have any idea how normal cells perform in the same environments for comparison? Is there a way to show the Wh in the cold tests to see how much capacity is lost?

I do not have any normal cells yet, I am looking for some good candidates to test (I have played a bit with some rewrapped cells).

The Wh is recorde in my logfile:

A cell 1A: 7.24Wh
A cell 2A: 6.98Wh
A cell 3A: 6.86Wh

So that shows about a 27% loss across the board. Not terrible. Looking forward to seeing how standard cells compare.

I’d love to see how SDI 30Q, LG HG2, Sony VTC6 perform under these conditions.

Thank you for the review!!!

That’s disappointing considering they’re actually labeling it as an 8A battery.

I guess this battery (and probably all high quality 18650 batteries) would benefit from a light that has a boost driver more than anything. Trying to get 3A from a 1000 lumens light (that uses a linear driver) might not be possible from a battery that drops down to 2.8-3.0V at startup. Either way this is a good example why it’s important to warm your batteries if possible before using if you store the light in your car during the harsh winters.

What kind of cell is it under the wrapping?

dts71, more than probably it is a Panasonic NCR18650F (datasheet @ DatasheetsPDF.com).

Thanks!