A lot of products seem to be going through periodic cycles of unavailability due to the pandemic disrupting production and shipping. With lithium ion batteries, I suppose increasing EV production rates may also be a factor.
Doing a quick check, it looks like both Lithium Ion Wholesale and Illumination Supply/Illumn have at least some in stock, mainly the Sanyo NCR18650GA.
Thanks for all the responses. I can solder, have for many years.
From solder pencil to a pair of solder guns in a dueling pistol box kit.
Now looking more, I also see the out of stock on flat top variety.
If I had to, I would try to modify battery holder which has protrusions
to only accept button tops. Most of my devices which use 18650 size,
seem to accept flat or button top OK. I did find one variation of 18650
and got a pair for the headlamp, The problem caused by getting rid of
bogus (like 9000 mah) 18650 batteries that came with a few devices.
Now only using quality lithium batteries.
Quality 18650 button-tops have been scarce for years. They were my cell of choice for my vaping mods—either LG Hg2’s or Samsung 30q’s. Easy enough to find if you wanted to risk buying from questionable retailers—not so easy if you wanted to be sure you had the real thing. In my case, I didn’t NEED the button-top, it was just more comfortable with the shorter throw. I eventually decided it was easier to adjust to using flat-tops than it was to try to find button-tops. YMMV
Illumination Supply has some GAs and Mountain Electronics has few different ones —Man cells are pricey these days —- I’ve been buying recycle packs on average 70 cents a cell for Panasonic As and some nice LGs that are close to 30Qs