26800 Lithium-ion battery

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.

just saw this, thanks for the heads up. I do have dummy cells, they're 14500/AA, I bought them for that purpose to use in a 9xAA light , so you're right I didn't think of that, they will pass current through them. But would a battery too? Either way, I'll use the dowel to be safe.

On another note-

ordered (2) more QB26800 today, and a vtc6, and shopping has gone down! Thanks aloft hobbies for taking a look Into this! I paid $5.90 ship for (3) cells today, even if it takes a little longer that's ok. I appreciate it!

I got an extremely melted mess of a Reese's peanut butter cup. I had to throw it away

Shipping sweets along with the product is not very common over here but it happens from time to time. Something I always recommend for occasions like this is Haribo's Goldbären. They also sell them in 10g mini packs for gifting. :))

If you like gummies, see if you can get Black Forest brand. Very good.

I ate mine anyways...

That’s no excuse for throwing away chocolate/peanut goodness. Toss them next time into the freezer.

Ummm, refrigerator?

Ach… beat me to it.

Well, it was mashed flat and flowing outside the wrapper and all over everything. Was quite the mess to clean up. I suppose i could have put the whole box in the fridge but wanted to get the batteries out to check them out. I emailed them and asked them not to waste put chocolate treats in packages in July.

I did get the incentive to run to the store to purchase a whole bag of peanut butter cups... i love 'em. Yes, they are better kept in the fridge