26800 Lithium-ion battery

Is it easy to solder a magnet to the end of a copper wire? Doesn’t it lose its magnetic properties when you heat it?

Wow! this is incredible @ AloftHobbies! I think i ordered these 2 days ago?? From CA -> CT, really awesome!

except now i have to wait 3 weeks for the battery tubes to com in from BG lol.

EDIT : it will give me some time to figure out how im going to charge them lol. im thinking aligator clips & magnets on the xtar vc4s

Looks exactly like mine from a ways back, only I got a Snicker. :laughing:

That's what happened to the smaller magnets I used earlier - not totally lost but reduced magnetism. The larger ones seem to hold up better. I can pick up a 26800 cell by the wire magnet.

Went out and bought a 1" pine dowel, in the process of rigging up 2 copper discs with the wire/magnet soldered to each. Cut the dowel to ~60 mm long. I'll take pics when all done.

(man my chargers are dusty, my apologies) this is where I'm at right now, not ideal, but I'm not leaving the house for the rest of night so ill keep an eye on it. I will be picking up bigger magnets as TomE suggested, so i can solder wire to them. Would make it feel less like a bad science experiment and more like a charging solution lol. its charging slow at .5a, although it started on at 2 amps, but I'm sure the TINY magnets are to blame (5mmx2mm)

Battery charge check in- 3 hours later (@ .5amp charging) QB26800 is at 3.8v and 2055mah (additional to level it was shipped) charged, according to my xtar vc4s. Whoa. Gonna take a bit, pretty awesome though!

Here's my setup as of today. Wood dowel with 1" copper discs epoxied on the ends. It's not the cleanest setup, and not sure if the solder on the magnets will hold well.

It rises about 0.15V in the MC3000, a little high but not as bas as it was:

16 AWG, magnets are a little over 1/2 inch:

Batt+ has to be in the center to make good contact in the MC3000 bay:

Soldering is suspect. The Batt- came off and re-soldered, but the battery became weaker.

Ohhh, that's what you meant with a wooden dowel, great idea! Now Im thinking about it, I have some dummy 14500/AA "cells" (plastic and metal)... maybe I can make a similar setup with those. Going to try that, and if not I have plenty of wood in the workshop! Thanks TomE!

Edit: battery check (8 hours in to charge): 4.2v and 4550 mah! It should be done soon, then onto the next one

I had so much trust in Aloft that when my box arrived I ate the peanut butter M&Ms before I even took out the batteries. :)

Both of mine were at 3.5v and using the little magnetic Olight charger they took about 10 and 11 hours to charge up fully (with the charger plugged into a capable wall wart so hopefully giving all of the 750ma that it's supposed to). Going forward I'll probably just charge them in the light itself.

Thinking about the charger rig, though, why not forego the magnets entirely and just solder copper discs on each end of the wires, then use a mini bar clamp to snug the discs on the cell and the dummy block in the charger bay as you are now. Or maybe magnets with a countersunk hole that you could poke a bolt through and attach the wire to it in various ways.

I got a Snickers. :smiley:

Serious question— can’t they just be charged in the light (ft03 for me). Would that work and it would be faster than like the o-light magnetic charger - right?

yes

Don’t use dummy cells, they are meant to pass current through them if it’s what I think you have. The dowel is just meant to expand the sliders and keep good pressure on the contacts but the contacts dont connect like a dummy cell.

A few reasons for not using the built in charger.

  1. Built in charger is not that good. This happens, but on these lights I get a finished battery at 4.19-4.20v. So with these lights not an issue.
  2. I’m using it, but have a spare on the charger. With 21700 and bigger I’ve never drained a cell even on a long night of traffic control.
  3. Charging ports fail and become water/crap magnets. This one is my sin. I sometimes work in lousy weather and often glue the charging ports closed. I’m so bad that I often toss a new duty style light in the pool for two days. Strip it and look for water. Some of these Astrolux lights fit the duty bill, just not the tactical one.
  4. I prefer my favorite charger that I way over payed for but it has the following 20 features. This is me some of the time.

I made this for my charger :

Not pretty but it works.

The highest setting I use on the MC3000 is 2.8 amps so that's what I'm using on these - goes pretty quick

Still not the safest setup. I make sure the battery is connected first to the dowel, then the dowel inserted in the charger. The red and black wire magnets tend to always find each other...

LOL - When I was a kid, most things I ordered came with a little gift of some sort, I liked that tradition and wanted to keep it going… The candy is something we used to do around Halloween when we could source the candy, but then I found that Costco has them year round. When I restock at Costco they always ask what the heck we do with so much candy. I usually tell them it is my wife… :smiling_imp: Other places may give a discount code, or something along those lines, but I prefer an actual gift of some sort. Biggest problem is keeping the employees from eating them all, or they melt in the summer time…

So while trying to find a similar size cell to find a cell holder. I found this List of battery sizes - Wikipedia and they now list the 26800 cell about 3/4 the way down. “Gaining popularity since 2019, the format for e-bikes and transport. Optimal ratio of discharge currents, life cycle and cost.”

yea that would be the problem i suppose I will try soo to make something similar.

Nice work to u/Khas too!

2 x 26800 arrived from a lot of hobbies today. I love this format, its huge! Was going to order 4 but that costs more than ordering 2 times.