Panasonic NCR18650A (with PCB) from FocalPrice

They are, but not by manufacturer.

The latest batch of batteries I got from BIC appeared to be really bad. Blue Ultrafires rated at 2400 mAh were 220 in real. And 3600 protected UFs only 880 mAh. I'm not buying another battery from BIC. I guess FocalPrice green Panasonics are genuine but maybe with untuned circuits.

Yes you are right, I did not get you.

There isn't any cell manufacturer as far as I know selling protected cells, they are always unprotected, they are protected by the companies who re-label.

The similarities here is is ULTRAFIRE, not BIC. You can buy UF batteries from ebay, Manafont, DX etc and most likely you'll get the same junk.

The first batch I had from them (talking about 2400 ones) were way better. They now sell uberly inexpensive but apperantly junk cells under UF brand. I have always avoided UF cells but were surprised I had good luck before.

FocalPrice has really good prices if bought over 3 pieces. I really wonder how my ones will measure. As the OP says, they will more likely be genuine. Maybe I'll get their 2900mA Panasonics too.

I feel they are genuine just from the measurements given by ada_potato if we take as a true value the 3100mAh of the panasonic, compared to his trustfire flames gives us the trustfire flames are 2254mAh which sounds to be true on the old batches of them.

I have just seen this same panasonics at CNQG, the price is a lot more expensive, but at least they have published its resistance, being ≤45mΩ.

Here you got the link:

http://www.cnqualitygoods.com/goods.php?id=1495

I bought two of these cells at CNQ and will add two discharge curves later when I'm home.

They published something that is absurd, they cannot be under 100mOhm. The cell alone has 80-90mOhm and "standard" mosfets will add 25-38mOhm, from 4.5V to 2.5V

45mOhm could be the resistance of just the protection pcb.

But you are right, it's useless to claim this would be the total resistance of the protected cell.

From my tests, I believe the unprotected 2900mah panasonics to be genuine. They do seem to bulge out very slightly in the middle, though.

Flashlights are only a realy small niche for li-ion batteries. Most of them are build for laptops and nowadays for e-bikes. They need unprotected and Panasonic, Sanyo, Sony, LG etc. built them.

AW, Redilast, Xtar and other brands build a protection and wrapped.

I think the Focal, BIC Sanyo and Panasonic batteries are genuine (the MarsFire have only the wrong mAh in the titel and the description). Manafont sell them, too (they do not name mAh):

http://www.manafont.com/product_info.php/sanyo-protected-18650-high-capacity-rechargeable-battery-1pcset-p-9322

@ada-potato:

2 weeks aren't slow for a asian shop - it's fast. With dealextreme or kaidomain you offen have to wait 4 weeks.

Here is the 2A discharge curve for the first cell:

The charger monitor programm unfortunately crashed while discharging the second cell. So there is just a picture of the charger display. I twas discharged with 2A too:

The cells did match pretty good. But I think you have to discharge them down to 2,5V to get better mAh results.

I'm digging the clear re-wrap.

I like that too. It's cool to clearly see the used cell.

Looks good - May pickup few.

How is the wrapper compared to TF flames?

That discharge does not look right for a fully charged NCR18650A cell, at 3 volt I would expect around 2600 mAh with 2A discharge.

That is what I got for all NCR18650A batteries I has tested. The problem can be either the battery, the charger or the discharger.

I know your excellent battery tests. :)

I expected the difference of roughly 500mAh to be the result of not discharging them to 2.8v but to 3v.

But it might be a combination of the charger not charging them to 100% and showing a little to low results in discharging. So take the above discharge with a grain of salt.

I will get a better charger and we'll see. You can't do anything wrong with an iCharger 206B, right?

As you can see on my 3V bar chart the capacity must be around 2600mAh at 3 volt discharge, this is 500mAh less than the full 3100 mAh rated capacity.

You could check the charger with a known NCR18650A battery (if you have one) or with a voltmeter and ammeter.

iCharger is good, but you might still have to check the calibration.

I've got two NCR18650A from intl-outdoor.com but did not discharge those with 2A yet.

Just bought an iCharger 206B with calibration to <4mV.

Did not like my old hobby charger as it's monitor program crashed sometimes and it terminated the charge with an connection error all the time.

My set of batteries arrived yesterday. The good part I found was that they were genuine batteries with clear wrap and apperantly a PCB. The Kapton (or similar) tape and a bar under it runs from tail to head. The bad thing about these batteries were that they had stickers all around it. Had to remove the stickers with some penetrating oil to let them in some tightly fit bodies.

Anyway, I charged one with my XTAR WP2 II charger and made a discharge test with my Accucel 6 hobby charger @ 1A, the max current I could set. I must state here that I uses magnets for connection but they were between the clippers so the clipper could touch the battery directly. Therefore, having a small amount of connection resistance added to the circuit I set my Accucel 6 to NiMH discharge mode and down to a voltage of 2.3V.

The cell measured 3034mAh and the final voltage the charger reads were 2.3V. I didn't have a DMM with me but tried a second discharge cycle at 0.1A and the voltage was back at 3V.

My conclusion,

1. They are really above 3000 mAh, built well and has strong metal tabs at the both poles.

2. The circuit didn't seem to have cut at 3V on my sample

3. The circuit didn't seem to have cut at 2.5V either, but with some inline resistance the real voltage on the cell could be higher.

4. I still don't know if the circuit really works.

- I will try some further tests tonight, and this time I'll try to measure the real voltage on the cell.