I don’t understand this battery.
US $12.66 21％ Off | Vapcell Original 14500 AA 1.5V 1800mah battery button top USB Rechargeable li ion Batteries free shipping
Looks like some hybrid of 1,5V AA build on Li-Ion cell - can be charged with USB, which is nice, but its protection triggers as low as 1,5-2A.
Yeah, I got a bunch of them. Usually 14430 cells with conversion board to make up the other 7mm, to provide a rock-solid 1.5V that doesn’t drop down with load or SOC.
Problem is they drop dead with zero notice, so if you got one in a light, it’ll be full power and then… nothing.
I got both those that have a ’micro connector to charge, and those you just apply 5V directly to the cell.
They all work fine, but are current-limited, naturally, so only use them in 1.5V low-stress lights. Best for stuff that needs 1.5V and when 1.2V from NiMH isn’t enough.
HKJ did a technical review of thes battery (Vapcell P1418A) here:
As also mentioned by others, it's a lithium-ion battery internally (which would be 4.20v when fully-charged), but with an electronic circuit to convert it to a steady 1.5volt (similar to ordinary AA alkaline batteries).
This battery may be useful for devices that prefer good operation when the voltage is near a steady 1.5v.
Although as mentioned by the 2 posts above, this can be good or bad.
good:
- steady 1.5v for the entire capacity of the battery
(to understand: normal new AA Alkaline batteries will usually start off at around 1.60v, then voltage steadily declines as the capacity gets drained to below 1.0v -- depending on the device used, some device may stop working at 1.0v, some may stop working at 0.8v, or some devices may not work very well (eg. screen display gets dimmer when it's just reaching say 1.2v, etc.)
In the case of the 1.5v steady battery, then the performance stays the same (not vary with declining voltage of a regular AA battery)
may not be good:
- since the voltage is steady 1.5v and when the internal li-ion battery voltage has dropped to near empty, the electronic circuit will shut off to 0.0 volts immediately when the internal voltage threshold has been reached
- due to the above, many devices that "estimate" battery capacity via voltage (eg. with a normal AA battery:1.6-1.5v may be 100%, then say 1.2v may be 50%, then 1.0v may be 10%, something like that) Now since the 1.5v li-ion AA battery is steady 1.5v, the device will just display "100%" since the voltage is the same. But in actual, the capacity is declining - just that we don't know because of the internal electronic circuit that's converting the li-ion battery's voltage (which would be something like (4.2v to 3.0v) into 1.5v.
- the power drain may not be as high, may cut off at around 2 Amps of power drain.
AA Alkaline may be able to provide 2 Amps of power but with much decreased capacity
some better AA NiMh may be able to provide 2 Amps of power with just slightly decreased capacity
but since the li-ion 1.5v AA battery (the conversion circuit) may not be able to handle 2 Amps, it shuts off (so the device won't function)...
Yeh, that’s one reason I only use those cells in low-voltage lights (eg, ES1, alkie/NiMH only) where I’m inside and don’t need the light in any “critical” situations.
Otherwise it’s 14500 in Li-ion or LFP all the way. Rarely use NiMH in AA-lights.
This battery is just like any another AA battery with USB charger port. It is 4.2V lithium battery with buck converter set to 1.5V output voltage. Nothing special at all. You can find similar batteries from another brands.