Test/Review of Olight 18650 "3600mAh" protected (ORB-186P36) with NCR18650GA

Batteries and Chargers Rechargeable Batteries
1

Olight make a “3600mAh” protected 18650 with NCR18650GA cell.

Its PCB is on the positive pole. This eliminates the connector strip running from positive to PCB on negative pole on conventional protected batteries.
It does not make the battery shorter: 68.5mm

The capacity claim is interesting because according to manufacturer’s specification the NCR18650GA has:

- Rated Capacity 3300mAh (0.67A discharge at 20°C),

- Capacity (Minimum) 3350mAh (0.67A discharge at 25°C),

  • Capacity (Typical) 3450mAh (Reference only).

Let’s do a discharge test and compare with NCR18650GA and Soshine 3400mAh PCB (with NCR18650BF cell):

Not bad, but not impressive either. As expected, capacity is nowhere near 3600mAh.
During 5A discharge the PCB cuts off quite early.
At room temperature and fully charged it cuts off at 6.4A.
IMO this is not really “FOR HIGH-DRAIN DEVICES”.

Capacity, energy and average voltage, discharged to 2.50V, average over 2 tested samples, charged CC/CV/TC 1.0A/4.200V/30mA:
table(table#posts).
|A|Ah|Wh|V|
|1.0|3.315|11.862|3.578|
|3.0|3.290|11.210|3.407|
|5.0|1.447|5.064|3.501|

What’s under the wrapper?

Sanyo NCR18650GA, indeed.
I didn’t remove the cap containing the PCB. It would require brute force and probably destroy something.

I purchased the test samples at gearbest.com on 2015-07-23. They arrived 6 weeks later.

2

light-wolff thanks for posting the results. I used to only buy protected cells, but nowdays I go for non protected for performance reasons. Data like you present assists with buying decisions. Thanks again.

3

I thought they were using the elusive NCR18650G, to have it labelled as 3600mAh.

4

It’s heat printed (or lasered?) on the red wrapper, barely readable, as usual for Sanyo: NCR18650GA.

5

Thanks for another informative test.
As usual the protection does lower the voltage under load, about 0.1V at 3A. I can live with that. :slight_smile:

.

The NCR18650G might not have met the demands after it was ready for the market and seems to have been pulled. Shortly after, Panasonic/Sanyo flooded the world with GA, BD, BE, BF and BL (did I miss one?).

Panasonic is shareholder of Tesla and delivers the cells. I believe this is why the different cells emerged:
The carmaker’s rapid production scale-up has prompted Panasonic to expand capacity, by reopening previously idled plants, while simultaneously committing to build entirely new production lines.

I think Panasonic hurrily fiddled with different chemistries, the amount of silicon in the anode, and cells with and without PTC to find the best for the Electronic Vehicle demand: the highest capacity and cycle life at a certain current in spite of the bad temperature conditions.

So the G is practically gone and the NCR18650GA seems to be the best of the bunch at 3A, as is suggested by light-wolffs 2nd chart in the 30Q thread.

6

Agree.

It is bad Olight is faking capacity and calling it high drain when it clearly isn’t at all.

So for now i will doubt Olight claims on there cells until they change tactics, for me proven spec fakers don’t get my business.

7

No, I think the list is complete :wink:
Disregarding the G, AFAIK BF was the first cell with Silicon. BL is just BF without PTC.
BD and BE I don’t know much about chemistry.

8

Interesting i didn’t know that, but i have been wondering about what is the difference on those very similar cells.

9

As long as Orbtronic 3600mAh (real NCR18650G) is “out of stock” - it means no 3600mAh is available.

10

Well, the NCR18650G never actually had 3600mAh, only about 3400mAh.
.
In November 2013 I tested a Keeppower “3600mAh” protected battery also based on NCR18650G:

.
Direct comparison of NCR18650G-based protected Keeppower 3600mAh with the Olight 3600mAh from above:

11

I am just going by official Panasonic datasheet
NCR18650G 3600mAh
NCR18650GA 3500mAh
So in this case, if Olight is using 3500mAh it should rate their batteries 3500mAh.
It is all about transparency.
Once you start cheating on your customers there is no return.

12

Thanks light-wolff, for pointing out & showing that the “G” isn’t a 3600mha cell, i always though it was.

And SpaceCowboy, why do you say that the official Panasonic datasheet says the Sanyo GA is 3500mha when

The datasheet says:

- Rated Capacity: 3300mAh (0.67A discharge at 20°C)

- Capacity (Minimum): 3350mAh (0.67A discharge at 25°C )

  • Capacity (Typical) 3450mAh (Reference only)

http://www.hurt.com.pl/prods/bat/\_li_ion/ncr18650ga.pdf

???
SpaceCowboy can you post a link to a Sanyo NCR18650GA datasheet that claims 3500mha for the GA?

13

I wouldn’t like to get into any discussion.

All cells sold are rounded to the upper number.
NCR18650B is older cell and it is sold as 3400mAh not 3350mAh.
NCR18650G the same, GA the same.
Also all cells are not tested under same condition.
Just one of them (that will greatly impact capacity) is temperature.
If you test the same cell outside in Sweden at 9 C and in Florida at 30 C guess which cell will provide much higher capacity?
At 40 C you would see some really interesting results (well over rated capacity)

Also testing one cell after one cycle and after 5-6 cycles is not the same.
Protected vs bare cells results are not the same either.

But I’ll still stick with 3100, 3400, 3500, 3600mAh as a general rule.

14

i have a datasheet of panasonic ncr18650b, it is not 3400mah as well…

- Rated Capacity (Minimum): 3200mAh 0.65A discharge at 20℃

- Nominal Capacity (Minimum): 3250mAh 0.65A discharge at 25℃

  • Nominal Capacity (Typical): 3350mAh Reference only

comparing whit datasheet posted by cajampa

- Rated Capacity: 3300mAh (0.67A discharge at 20°C)

- Capacity (Minimum): 3350mAh (0.67A discharge at 25°C )

  • Capacity (Typical) 3450mAh (Reference only)

if people say ncr18650b is 3400mah, it is easy to understand why ncr18650ga declared as 3500mah
i guess that is something like general rules

15

Exactly