How trustworthy are Sofirn batteries?

Just eye-balling that discharge curve, it looks like at least 15 watts of heat would be generated inside the cell when draining at 20 amps. I’m surprised it only reached 70C. It might get hotter if it was inside a sealed flashlight.

I have nothing against Sofirn batteries. They seem to be decent cells, but not for high-drain lights. I use one of their 18650 cells in an old Niwalker light, but it’s probably only drawing about 3 amps. Sofirn lists it as a high-discharge battery, but it’s certainly not. Neither does it meet their 3000mAh capacity. At around 2800mAh, it’s not bad. Good cell for a 1000 lumen light, but not much more.

There’s certainly better options out there but they are decent as a bundled cell.

The Sofirn 3000mAh 18650 black matches the Sanyo NCR18650GA up to 10A. I’m not sure what you tested but these ones were 2987mAh at 0.2C that’s pretty decent. The Sanyo NCR18650GA is rated at 3500mAh but only achieves 3300mAh

That is a pretty old test (older gen cell) done on the non 4-wire test station, it does not reflect current 25R cell performance. Check the following reviews (25R rewraps) for the latter:

May I ask how trustworthy or reliable is your CBA? I know Mooch uses one, but the similarities between Mooch's setup and a stock CBA end up as soon as you finish uttering the name. Some known top brand high current cell test graphs we could compare to those of Henrik or Mooch would help to discern how your setup does versus theirs.

If all that voltage drop I see on the 20A curve would translate into cell heat I am sure your temperature figures would be somewhat higher.

:-)

The one I have is black, with gold lettering. It says 3000mAh on the label. I tested it at 2791mAh, using a low drain of 250mA. That’s nowhere near what my Sanyo GA’s are. So, it’s definitely not a GA cell, unless it’s a recycled cell they’re using.

I think Shockli 26650 5500mAh 30A and LiitoKala Lii 26650 5000mAh 50A are great cells.
Shockli 21700 4550mAh 30A, seems also to be doing well in tests.

This thread is about Sofirn.

I don’t have a type k thermocouple yet so the temp could definitely be a little higher.

I got the pro version which is calibrated to be quite accurate according to Mooch but with of course the mentioned voltage drop. Mooch’s cba is only drawing 10% of the load to keep it as accurate as possible.

I really only purchased mine to confirm the cells I sell are genuine

We should all remember that Sofirn doesn’t actually make batteries. All of their cells are rewraps from other companies so we have to take each battery model on a case-by-case basis. Some will be better than others and they may change cells under the wrap over time.

Ohh, I thought it was somewhat into high drain cells since other brands are mentioned throughout the thread. I gotta learn to read closer what’s the main topic before posting. My bad :person_facepalming:

Yup. That’s one of the risks with buying cells from a re-wrapper. You never really know what you’re getting, even when you’ve tested previous samples.

But, hey, Sofirn includes these cells for “free”. You can’t really expect too much from them.

Concerning cell rewrappers you should start thinking and believing higher (in case you're not doing so already). Believe in honest cell rewrappers without bait and switch or other product degrading practices. Sofirn is not gifting their batteries, and neither is forcing you to buy them.

I've seen some pictures of unwrapped Sofirn cells and it looks like they do not remove OEM wraps, they just add theirs above (see: What's under the wrapper (Sofirn + Thorfire 18650s)). This is nice and I hope for them to continue doing so. It is our right to know what exactly we are buying.

:-)

P.S.: What you think matters, what you believe defines your experience.

From Convoy AliExpress store for the new M21A

I can confirm the Sofirn 21700 has no OEM wrap underneath

Here’s my test of the Sofirn 18650 3000mAh

Here’s the Sofirn vs the NCR18650GA

I purchased a bulk lot of 100pcs and the above test is from that lot. I have another cell the same from 1 year ago and it performed much much worse. They’ve changed cells within the last 6 –8 months

Current cell - 65.8mm with white OEM wrap
Old cell - 66.3mm with pink OEM wrap

Measurements are taken excluding the button top

Who’s qoute is this? It is completely false.

Simon from Convoy

Do you know where he said this and if someone has corrected him yet?

Go onto his AliExpress store and look at the description on his new 21700 models

Okay, I think he was talking about battery diameter and that double wrapped cells won’t fit in his particular flashlights.

He is not saying anything about their quality, etc… We know Vapcell, Sofirn and Lishen 21700 cells are really good quality.

I don’t know what cells have single wrappers and what cells have double wrappers so I can’t comment on that part.

You might want to shrink your pictures like this, they are really huge.

Yours were larger lol

I’ve reduced the size