2021. Battery Shortage /Finding reliable seller

Well you showed me yours. So I’ll show you mine. Not talking about lying, or so.
December 2020 I paid €19.80 for four 30Q-BT, today these are listed for €31.80.

Question: for what you need 200 30Q’s? My bunny-rabbit runs on ordinary Duraleaks :wink:

Tesla long-range battery packs contain 4,416 21700 batteries. Some cars use 18650s and older Teslas used around 7000 18650s PER CAR. So no, I don’t think we should blame power tools for the shortage.

So 30Q button top is almost 8 Euro now! OMG :frowning:

In fact I ordered 500 so far from NKON (but not any more I’m afraid)… I am selling some modded lights and IR illuminators.

Oh that is nothing pal… My friends that do DIY ebikes ordered much more than me like 5-10x more…

I would also order at least additional 500 at 2020. but I did not knew that this “Shortage” can happen in this field…

Oh, but we’re going green, blah blah blah! Sustainable energy, blah blah blah! Solar and wind power, blah blah blah! Good for the environment, blah blah blah!

Please don’t sniff my hair.

Not sure where you are in Europe, but Fogstar are a very reputable U.K. company. The guy who runs it is very definite about safety and quality. Have a read of some of it.

Thanks for info.

UK orders have one small problem called “Brexit”.

But if we compare price on most popular battery on BLF Samsung 30Q Samsung 30Q 18650 Lithium-ion Batteries | Fogstar UK

8 GBP = 9.5EUR=10.8$! For plain flat top battery without S&H. Even more expensive than NKON.NL

Yeah man, don’t get me started on the ridiculousness of Brexit, it’s seriously screwed things up and I’m not just talking batteries, I’m talking food rotting in fields because the labour forces can’t come and live here to work, lack of truckers because they’re now held up at the borders for so long it’s not worth them bothering etc. It’s a mess, orders from anywhere in Europe to the U.K. are similarly affected.

They were about $8 per battery. I love how their price drops back to "normal" when they are out of stock.

Thanks for sharing that.

The Liitokala Lii-31S is being sold by a local online seller and it’s fairly inexpensive here (around the equivalent of US$4/pc ).

I’ve only tried a few. The AC IR I measured with the YR1030 resistance tester is similar to the one on the video, around 15-16mOhms (in comparison, a genuine 30Q gets around 12-13mOhms AC IR using the YR1030 resistance tester).

Unfortunately I don’t have a setup to discharge at high amps. But using the SkyRC MC3000 to discharge the Lii-31S does yield around 3000mAh capacity, from my testing.

Interesting to know from the above video review that the Lii-31S was able to successfully complete discharge test at 15A and got 2852mAh with 2.70v cut-off voltage, and battery temperature reaches maximum 77 degrees Celsius.

(The 20A discharge test from the video resulted in the Lii-31S battery getting over 80 degrees Celsius by the time 1500+mAh has already been discharged)

~

Would be interested if HKJ could test the Lii-31S, so would be able to compare the voltage sag graph vis-a-vis the more well-known LG HG2 / Samsung 30Q batteries.

“Interesting to know from the above video review that the Lii-31S was able to successfully complete discharge test at 15A and got 2852mAh with 2.70v cut-off voltage, and battery temperature reaches maximum 77 degrees Celsius.”

While I am waiting for slow boat from China with possibly fake Samsung INR 30Q batteries I am open to different options. This one seems to have potential and yes it would be great if HKJ could test this Lii one…

About Samsung 30Q. Shouldn’t that battery have around 35mΩ resistance? If so than Lii-31S with 15-16 mΩ resistance should be better?

Hi all, piggybacking on this thread since it’s close enough to my questions.

I’m a bit of noob when it comes to 18650s. I’ve been using Samsung 30Q/35E batteries exclusively since that’s what my devices have been coming with. I’m using them in DC fans, SC31 Pros and EDC18s.

I’d like to buy more 18650s, but at $8/battery, the Samsung battery prices have gotten above my budget. Could someone suggest a safe alternative and reputable sellers? Emphasis on safe — I’ll be carrying these a lot in aircraft and some of the aircraft don’t have cabin-accessible baggage compartments.

https://www.aliexpress.com/store/910787034?spm=a2g0o.detail.100005.1.2f331c40T5VYz0

Daweikala Battery-a Store

I ordered 70pcs Samsung INR 30Q’s from them.

They sell fake cells!

- SOC of batteries varies a lot from 3.3-3.9V

- 10 pcs were DOA!

- Different weight than original

  • Different battery cylinder than original

Firstly I got money refund because I waited them for more than 2 months and they did not came. I told to seller if I eventually receive them that I will refund his money. So batteries finally came “but of course they are fake”. So seller contacted me about refund and I deeply refuse to refund the money for freaking fake cell :person_facepalming:

Guys… About Liitokala Lii-31S

We really need global available and good non fake battery that could replace Samsung INR 30Q.

Liitokala Lii-31S
That battery claims that it has higher current capability and better capacity than Samsung INR 30Q which is claimed to have 3000mah with 0.8A discharge rate up to 2,5V.

I think the best test I could find for this is this you tube test:
Liitokala Lii-31S 3100мАч - полный тест с неожиданными результатами - YouTube (watch that since 3:35 minute)

He did discharge test with 10A current Draw with cutoff at 3.17 battery soc, and he got 2044Mah capacity with such test. I think that are same if not better results than Samsung INR 30Q?

Guys what do you think?

I am not here to promote Litokala in any way and I did not buy any product from them since they sold me shity smart charger that broke after several uses. But it seems this battery could be actually good replacement for Samsung INR 30Q?

Any practical experience guys with these? Even HKJ did not tested them yet…

The demand for Lithium ion batteries have been increasing over the years. And this is due to the boom of electric vehicles. So, globally, the market is facing a shortage of Li ion batteries and will continue to face in the future too. But there are ways to tackle this shortage. One of them being, replacement of these batteries with hydrogen batteries in cars and there are many other alternatives to lithium batteries.

Liitokala has a tendency to change the battery inside being rewrapped.

Since there is a local seller here for the Liitokala Lii-31S, I have ordered a few at a time and always do capacity test (and other checks, like jotting down their weight, height, diameter, AC IR values), when I first receive the batteries. This gives me a data point for next time.

Anyway, what I noticed about the Lii-31S is that the capacity is fairly correct. I think the first 8 pieces I got (not all ordered at the same time, usually a pair at a time), have around 2850-3000mAh capacity (using SkyRC MC3000 discharge from 4.20v to 2.50v at –0.50A discharge current). The battery weight ranges from around 45.7 to 46.3 grams, based on my notes. AC IR (using YR1030 battery resistance tester), gets around 15-16 mOhms AC IR, which is relatively good result, and is likely the same battery that the above Youtube video tested.

But more recently, I got another pair of Lii-31S from the same local seller, and while the wrapping still looks the same, the AC IR is a fair bit higher: 20-21mOhms AC IR with YR1030 resistance tester). This already gave me some suspicions. The weight is now lighted too: 44.8-44.9 grams. When I did a capacity test, I got around 2750+ mAh. But the main thing is that it’s not as ‘high-drain’ as the previous Lii-31S I got before. Capacity is slightly less (I could still live with that, my MC3000 seems to read a slightly lower on my recent testing), but when I do a ceiling bounce test when placing the earlier Lii-31S and the newer Lii-31S on the same (more power hungry) flashlight. The earlier Lii-31S is brighter (reads higher ceiling bounce lux).

I’ve also tried out other Liitokala batteries and have noticed some of them do change a bit, probably changing the internal batteries, but usually the difference may not be that big (as per my capacity / dimensions / AC IR testing), but for this Lii-31S, it seems to be a fairly bigger change…

Thanks on valuable info d_t_a !

That sucks! Especially for people who expects product consistency… I will certainly not order them now…. Thanks :+1:

The Epoch cells at 18650batterystore are pretty good. The $6.50 black and red wrapped ones were tested and are rebranded Samsung 30Qs. The white wrapped Epoch cells are cheaper and are also pretty good.

They last very long time, (assuming they are good quality cells), it is the cycles that matter not their age, i still use batteries that are 12+ years old, in some devices, and they are going strong, i just do not use those devices a lot, and charge maybe 10 times a year, or less. they may lost some capacity, but i can not notice it while using devices, it has to be very small. Now that is when you charge fully, and discharge to 2.7-2.8v. if you go 40-80 cycle, like electric cars do, (charge no more than 80, discharge no less than 40) they will last thousands of cycles.

That’s why I have zero problem with my lights that aren’t screamers. They can handle practically any cell without overheating, and things like headlamps and older dropins pushing maybe 500lm (compare with 1000lm or even 1500lm and see how much of a visual difference there is) that aren’t high-strung can still handle my ancient panny-A laptop pulls.

Any tips for sellers of high capacity 18650 like 35e?

USA to Australia is too heavy on shipping

Any legit Aliexpress sellers please?

I have my new charger which can test capacity :slight_smile: