Which model exactly and where to buy thanks
We're very glad to have you here, alofthobbies!
Until LG/Samsung/Molicel etc manufacture these batteries, its really a bad investment.
Based on what? I disagree. Take the LiitoKala 26650-50A for example, sold under several different brands, not made by a major manufacturer, rock solid performance and reliability, have been upgraded couple times. I got a ton of these, some several years old now. Even got older 26650 off brand cells that still are working fine.
I meant all name brands, as far as I know, the 26800 is only available in one single off brand right now . The major battery vendors dont even carry it.
There is a kind of trend where major battery manufacturers do not "jump on" production of batteries that aren't of high demand in commercial/industrial applications . the sizes the major manufacturers have almost never (I am pretty sure) made are 26650, 14500, 16340, etc, because they have not been used in power tool, laptops, solar panels, cars, EV, etc... I doubt Samsung/molicel,Murata will ever make a 26800 or 26650. I mean unless they gain heavy popularity among power tool manufacturers, solar panel manufacturers, or something of the like in the coming years. It has always been up to predominantly Chinese manufacturers to make the "odd" sized Li-Ion batteries we happen to use
Let’s hope the 26800 stays around for a good while. Seems it’s main use is power packs. I’m looking forward to longer run times as I run most of my lights on high.
What is they never become available in high current ?
As is it’s a 20 amp cell. It has significant advantages over 26650 cells, needing only a new tube or an extension. Not a bad investment to those wanting the most out of a single cell light.
It’s a bit of a controversial cell the 26800…some welcome it for good reason, some despise it for fair reason. One thing I like about ‘common sizes’ is the ability to use a cell in multiple lights, but in reality my OCD permits me to make sure every light I have has a cell, some have spares. Do many 26650 lights on the market require constant current 20A cells? I’ve so far been fine with 15A on 26650 lights I have.
I got a few single 26650 lights that can pull 15-30 amps (triple LED's, quad LED's, XHP70.2 boost, etc.). I'd prefer using 30A batteries - in general, the higher the amp rating, the lower the resistance. As an example, in a single SST-40 high amp driven light, a 30A class cell may pull 9 amps while a 15A rated cell maybe can pull 7.5 amps. And the 30A cell is under less stress, less heat to do so, if it's a good cell of course.
I was going to suggest the magnetic clips also. Typically we use a hobby charger here as we like the control, but when It ’m charging loose cells like 18650 I have some of the Xtar chargers. I wonder if Xtar would be willing to make a version of their chargers for this cell size? I can always ask them. I could have one of my guys here look at making a 3D printable clip that we might be able to swap the guts from a popular charger into… Just an idea. I have a couple of guys here that are pretty good with CAD, just limited time to draw up things like this.
Looking at shipping options for our international customers. We do not ship many cells internationally as shipping from the USA is not cheap. We are looking into some options that might lower this expense and meet shipping requirements.
Fake goods - Sadly this is not limited to just battery cells, I have found many copy products out on the market, it is buyer beware, especially when it comes to popular items on Ebay or Amazon, etc. There is a ton of abuse on SD cards and 18650 cells around the globe. This is why we did a lot of testing and sample orders to find reliable partners we could source the cells from. We have used our sources for several years now and not had any issues. I hear from others with similar businesses that have purchased a large batch of counterfeit cells. It sucks! I know one of the manufacturers we use installs 18650 packs in some of their products, the cells they were using early on seemed must have been counterfeit as the useful life on them was about 18 months. They thought they were sourcing good Samsung cells. Even though they were buying in VERY large quantities they were still forced to deal with the shady battery market.
The sad thing is almost no cell manufacturer will sell direct to us as we are too small. Honestly the way the manufacturers have set up their distribution channels pretty much guarantees they will have lots of issues with fake products in the market. Sounds like molicel is trying to figure out a solution to this issue. Good to hear. If you have some links, please share them, would be interested in knowing more. Our sources are big enough to buy direct from the manufacturers, and honest enough to not cheat.
Servicing older radios - Sorry, we do not. While we do radio repairs and service it is for a single manufacturer and that alone keeps us very busy as the radios are very complex systems now with tandem RF system, aircraft telemetry and more mixing, range and channels then you can shake a stick at. For example, we sell a transmitter that is less than $80, yet it has 24 channels. We have never had this kind of power in a radio system before. The technical support issues keeps us on our toes. We do have a vintage radio section on our forum that may be of interest to you. Lots of folks will upgrade the vintage radios to our modern 2.4G solution. No more frequency issues.
Hope this all helps!
s. I have a huge weakness for flashlights too… So I do my best not to read too many threads here. Could get expensive fast. 
I’m partial to the Xtar ANT MC1 Plus charger; simple, cheap, reliable. I cut one open this morning for modification. It’s slider is soldered onto the pcb and too short. If 3d printed housing and a longer slider added this would be my choice of chargers. XTAR SC1 another 1st choice for all the same reasons. Wires and magnets for the more expensive chargers.
Thanks for the response! That is great to hear, and you said something i forgot to mention (and Battery Mooch's best suggestion to reSellers to fight against fakes) is that testing random samples from the batches of batteries as they come in. It is believed (not proven) that the large reputable resellers who got scammed by bad (fake) batteries and then unknowingly sold them to their customers, were never testing their shipments of newly received batteries to make sure they were of good quality. They are doing this now though.
https://www.facebook.com/batterymooch/
I think ^ this is the best way to contact Mooch, and probably the best way to get an idea of what he is about.
If nothing else, he could probably give up to date information on some things happening in the battery distribution world, as i think he has been looking into it recently.
It sounds like you have been doing your due diligence, having a solid distributor to buy from who has enough buying power to buy direct. Makes me personally feel better knowing there is another trustworthy vendor for us. I have pretty much switched to only buying Molicel recently because of the better chance for quality, newer batched cells.
And just for transparency, we all know Mooch does not hold back from letting us know if a battery is bad/tests poorly/ or is blatantly overrated - It is nice to see that the QB2600 tested well through his testing regime (as it did with reputable members here on BLF too!) .
Also, we know Mooch doesn't do "pulse" rating tests as he believes there is no industry-wide consistent definition of what a "pulse" is, therefor he only tests for Constant Discharge Current. But that is for vaporizer's, flashlights we know can be tested differently (turbo for 10 seconds/ 30 seconds/60 seconds, etc.. and the ability of a battery to handle that particular current load). It sounds like Texas Shooter has more info on this rating for the QB26800 (30 second Turbo Amperage ability), which is great! Thanks TS!
Just read Mooch's review - yes, excellent! Glad he decided to review it. The capacity is outstanding. Thanks Artiet59!
I got 3 26800's now, just ordered 2 more from Aloft. I swapped to bigger magnets, about 1/2", on my wiring rig to charge them using the MC3000 and it's working better now.
Aloft has a huge selection that look pretty good, full specs posted on them, link for just the disc shaped ones:
https://alofthobbies.com/accessories/magnets/disc.html
Can you post the “wiring rig” for charging 26800 using the MC3000? Thanks! Would also like to do that once I get hold of some 26800 batteries…
Think I posted this before:
I changed the magnets to wider ones, about 13 mm, and instead of using the copper, flattened out the soldered ends. Any battery will do, wrapped in kapton tape so as not to make electrical contact. The battery acts as a way to hold the wire ends in place. I'm still using the 20350 cell pictured, but actually an 18650, or even 21700 would be better because the spring will make the connections tighter. Also I might be using thicker wire now.
The wider magnets are working out much better. With the SkyRC MC3000 charger, it behaves different if you don't have a good circuit - think it all depends on resistance. Little additional resistance makes a difference, same is true of charging old Pana 18650 3400's compared to Samsung 30T's - the 30T's have very low internal resistance, and when you start the charge cycle, the voltage rises very little, maybe 0.04V but a high resistance cell will rise 0.12V or more.
I need to use a bigger cell and take some pics in use.
I’ve seen people use a wooden peg cut to length or anything round and non conductive. No need to sacrifice a battery if you have other stuff on hand.
Yea, what I got is a pain to work with. Just bought 3/4" and 1" dowels of pine. Figure I can make a conductive spacer of the 1" to convert a 2 cell 26650 to 1 cell 26800.