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
In post 80 I linked some pictures directly from HKJ’s website. I had to use the advanced post editor and have no idea how to make them show up smaller. Sorry.
How to use the advanced post editor to insert images scaled to fit.-
General tab, Dimensions: input 100% in the width (x-axis) field. This prevents aspect ratio issues.
Advanced tab, Style: input max-width: n%, where n is the amount of relative width to the available thread post box width.
As an example the following emoji is set at 25% max-width, so it should appear huge and pixelated:
:-)
On my Advanced tab is says Dimensions: _ x_ - like width times height. I put 100% in the first box, nothing in the second box and unchecked the “constrain preportions”. It worked! I would not have thought to try that. Thanks.
Sofirn 26650 5500mAh - Red Line
Sofirn 26650 5000mAh HD - Black Line
5A - CBA 0.01v drop
10A - CBA 0.02v drop
15A - CBA 0.03v drop
20A - CBA 0.04v drop
I’m surprised how close they perform. You’d think they were the same cell minus some capacity. The button top of the HD cell would be adding resistance so I wonder if that’s it’s limitation.
Well, you can certainly set the proportional size in General tab -> Dimensions. In doing so, the image will fill that much screen width in any case. As an example, this ROFL emoji at 30%:
What I said concerning the Advanced tab -> Style, just made up my mind better. The max-width property can be used to limit the span of a low resolution image to avoid it becoming too large in big screens and looking awful.
As an example, the following gif is set with 672 × 420 pixels of resolution (336 × 210 actual) and max-width: 100% property. Thus it should fill the whole forum box or close in small devices, but remain no larger than 672 × 420 in larger screens:
As I see there's a problem with the aspect ratio when I rotate my smartphone screen, it does reduce its max-width but not the height. This is undesirable. 
I was told of this property by a zak.wilson on a related thread, but it really does not work as intended without a max-height adjustment.
:-)
This is odd because Sofirn measured a big difference in output with the SP70. Their regular 26650 battery made 5500 lumen and the HD battery made 7000 lumen.
If you cannot measure or see such difference then it doesn't exists. At least for :-) you, which already is enough.
Those cells are overrated. You know you can get better ones somewhere else and cheap, too. Maybe they buy in bulk from some lesser name provider and either they already get the cells binned and label wrapped accordingly (5000mAh for the lower performing, lower graded cells and 5500mAh for the high ones) or they do in house binning and rewrapping (could be, but don't think so).
≈200mAh of capacity difference for ≈4500mAh cells is less than 5%. The discharge curves' shape matches perfectly. Same OEM cell, just different grade.
I’m not sure what you mean here. None of the big 4 companies make 26650 so they all come from “lesser” providers. Are you dividing these “lesser” providers into two groups, “lesser” and “more lesser”?
Getting “better” ones is no so easy for people in certain countries which is why Sofirn sourced the HD cells in the first place.
As far as choosing between “lesser” and “more lesser” I’m not sure. The test above on the Sofirn 5500mah makes it look quite good (like a high drain 4500mah cell). I was told by Sofirn as well as other users that the non-HD 5000 and 5500 were not capable of high amp draws on FET driven lights. Maybe they recently upgraded all their 26650 cells?
Funtastic, have you measured any Of the “better” 26650 cells like Liitokala cyan or black or maybe the Keeppower 6000/Shockli 5500? (I like the Aspire 4300) I’m curious how it would compare to the Sofirn cells on your test equipment. A real apples to apples comparison.
@JasonWW, the reason Simon says not to use Lishen 21700s(PLB 21700s 4500mAh), is that they are thicker than standard 21700 cells, and so, they don’t fit in the thin Convoy tubes.