I thought about those emoli cells on ebay, then the other BLF'er PM'd me with that very useful information from emoli. I think 10 years is just too old for me to chance... maybe some day I might take a gamble. But not right now.
Funny you mentioned this because I am retiring some 26650 cells I bought in NOV 2009. They self discharge very fast, and are down to about 1/3 their original storage capacity. So I think these have seen their day. Looking back, they never really held a charge the way a healthy Lithium-based cell chemistry should at / above ~4.15V. (Panasonic CGR18650 cells are my baseline for comparison, and will remain pegged at ~4.15V for several months at least). So I think these 26650s had a high internal resistance from day-1, it was masked partially by my moderate current draw applications.
Looking back at my Battery space order history these old cells were described as:
I've got the same BatterySpace 4AH IMR 26650. I barely used it, never deep cycled it, and only charged it ~4 times. I can honestly say that in direct comparison to that cell, the 10 yr. old Moli cells outperform it, driving my single cell lights to a higher current when half spent than it can on a full charge. I think the saving grace of the Moli cells is that they are truly high quality cells, made by arguably the best (or one of the best two) power tool LiMn cell manufacturer( s ), were never used at all, and were stored properly. Cheap cells degrade on their own over time much faster than quality cells. In my mind, I'd rather have 10 yr old Molis in mint condition than brand new TrustFires any day. At $6 each, I think I gambled and one. I just hope the next six are the same as the first three.
Me too, although I topped them off much more than that. I used them very carefully knowing I paid $15 each. I was never really impressed with these 26650 cells. Capacity was originally in the ~3900mah ball park so they did OK in that regard... but that was the only thing they did well. Current delivery was so-so, and self-discharge characteristics were terrible. I hope these newer ones are better. We'll see. So I am looking forward to your impressions too on your latest moli batch. I haven't ruled them out completely yet either, and the lighthound cell is still on my radar.
Yeah I agree... an older high quality cell can easily out-perform a new low quality one. Thats why this thread is so important for those of us into the larger 26650 size. Theres just not much real data out there (as compared to 18650).
I just ordered 3 of the moli from same seller. Almost did about 3 weeks ago when I had a chance to snipe them at like $15 but hadn't heard anything about them so I shied away.
I Have a MNKE 26650 400mah that I overdischarge up to 1.8v and wont charge in my other charger except on my ML-102 V2, After a few hours its now full charged to 4.2v.
Do I have to worry about anything that happened to this battery?
Actually an error on my part, Used this to power my 2xD operated Fan and forgot to turn it off, The Fan stopped working and when I checked the voltage its at 1.8v. I used a stock driver from one of my lights thinking this could act as my over discharge protection circuit but I made a mistake almost causing killing a barely used battery. Currently using a protected 18650 batts in the Fan.
Found some discharge graphs to compare to N.Shock's ICR.. no time on these graphs though, but if converting correctly looks like a bit more run time.. Either way looks good:
You know, I'm not sure on that. I only use the magnets for charging purposes, but I read somewhere that IOS shipped their JM05 / King Kong combo with extra magnets - here's a picture from Foy's review:
These look wider and flatter than the rare earth ones I recommended. However, I can tell you that the r.e. ones are pretty hard to move; I can't remove it from my battery without using needle nose pliers.