18650 TrustFire Flames 2400 mAh Battery Test

i ran a data log of a discharge and charge cycle last night but i stuffed up and unit didnt save i think i need more time to figure out the data logging with this icharger lols

today im trying again with 2 x TFF in series with a balance set up this is a picture for refernce and is not the actual picture of the voltage of the batteries im discharging.

sofar

the starting voltage under load was cell #1 is 3.814 cell #2 is 3.816

voltage now is cell #1 is 3.543 cell number #2 is 3.528 amount of mAh taken out @ 1 amp load is 1562 mAh

remember these batteries where used not fully charged and they are under a load of 1 amp and becuase they in in series the mAh is combined as one battery so the mAh will only be equal to one battery e.g 2400, but if it was in parrallel it would be double e.g 4800 mAh.

if the batteries where fully charged the voltage would be higher and the the mAh would be higher, but 1562 mah with in 0.3 volt is not bad and by doing this in series with balance leads i can monitor each cell,s voltage internal resistance

Internal resistance of cell #1 is 149 cell #2 is 162 milliohms

but you have to take into account these are well used cells and the resistance of my soldering, the battery holder and the cheap balance leads ive used

start of the discharge @ 1amp to 3v

end of the disharge @ 1 amp to 3v (remember these can go down to 2.75v)

graph for cell #1

i need more time to play with data logging

resting voltage of the cell,s was 3.7v so ill start a discharge now in lilo mode to 2.75 volt per cell @ 0.5 amp

I can only offer anecdotal evidence but Flames are not my favorite. They're great for the price I guess but they pull the lowest amps of all my batteries and seem to discharge the fastest. I will also add an equally unscientific opinion about AW. I have a couple of AW/IC 18650/2900 mAh and other than a little better run time and great wrap, I'm not impressed. Especially at $18.75 each.

I like the Xtar 18700, the Reverend's unprotected Panasonics and Solarforce protected.

notbatterysmartFoy

end of discharge in lilo mode (li-ion) from 3v to 2.75v at 0.5 amp

short and sweet ? i did run the charger for about 5 mins in the wrong mode at first but it did not take out much mAh

ill start a balance charge cycle now in lipo mode to 4.2v @ 0.5 amp

you could be on to some thing there foy i pull lower readings then every one else even when using the same batteries my single 18650 lights could be under driven as thats what i expect.

im going to pull of a couple of pcb,s as see if that makes a diffrence and if its limitting current flow and so i can check if mine have one mosfet or two.

im goign to try some redlist,s bit on the ouch side $ wise ill give them a run with xtar or hi-max and see how they go.

I don't like Flames that much but they're not as bad as what I've read about those red UltraFire "3000" mAh 18650s. Seems they were involved in more than one venting-with-flame incident. I have two that came as part of some long ago purchased package and I've hardly used them at all. Probably are okay but I have so many others, they never get used.

Have you had any experience with those red UFs or know why they have a somewhat bad reputation?

Foy

i have personaly not tryed the red UF,s but i have read they are not that good and take less then the claimed 3000 mAh i might buy a cheap pair of ebay for a laugh.

i have tryed other UF,s while they take around 60% less then claimed mAh rating the pcb,s worked well low cut off voltage worked well every time i tested it and they give higher amp draw test,s then my TFF batteries but they sag more.

since the low voltage cut off works well even though they only take 900 mAh out of there claimed 2400 mAh i have kept them, well the good ones and given them to my old man since he is less likely to keep an eye on things like me.

ill admit im still pritty new to 18650 and ive only tryed a few cheap type,s but the flames seam to do what's claimed with mAh and work well in multible cell set ups and provide long run times, i will buy more diffrent cell's to see if its my single cell lights that draw low or my cell's so i have some thing to compair to.

im still getting use to these high resistance 18650 cells as a used and abused lipo to me is just about worn out with the internal resistance of 16 milliohm per cell and these 18650 cells are from 100 to 200 milliohm when new per cell.

I have over 30 18650 protected flames and they all average about 3.5 amps on high the 2 unprotected ones I have kick out 4.5 amps. I am very happy with the performance of these for the price.

do you use moded DMM leads ?

When I get home the charge test should be done

2 x TFF balance charge data tables for 8.4v 0.5 amp charge, these are a bit low, i know these test higher when i charger them one by one, remember these are used cell,s

start of the charge cycle

end of the charge cycle

some squiggly lines

these are used cells i might even go as far as saying they have had a bit of a hammering with long constant runs and high amp charge and discharge test when i first got them but to take 2250 mAh from 3.5v to 4.2v is not bad for used cell,s and i know the take more mAh when charged one by one then group balance charges.

I have a newer model Turnigy 8150 and it no longer has/comes with USB or temp sensor, so no data log. If I remember gen1.3 did a tail cap amp pull measurement and found the Tenergy out performed the Xtars. I did all my discharge readings at 2.0ma to 3.0v and Tngys tested 2700-2800ma. These are being sold by a liquidator with a limited quanity hence the good price. By the time exhaustive test are run these will most likely be sold out. What is your reason for the resistance readings? Are you looking for matched cells for pack use? BTW thanks for the graphs..... the icharger rocks!

Foy,

Since there seems to be a large following that like the TF flames, I guess the question is, are the only ones you purchased those from the DD sale? Just wondering if you happened to have bought a fake pair (or multiple pairs). I am looking at this from a disinterested outside party, but it seems to me that the TF Flames bought from some dealers, there seems to be more of a variety of opinions on them while those bought from more reputable sites the views are far more favorable. That would seem to me there are fakes being sold from the less reputable dealers (?).

Just putting that out there, still looking to purchase my first 18650 light.

jonhobart -

I got mine from Manafont, in April I think. There's nothing horribly wrong with them, I've just bought cheaper batteries that seem to perform better. I must stress however, this is all just casual observation . . . I have no actual proof other than higher tail cap amps, which can hardly be used by itself to judge a battery.

I think maybe we should buy batteries based on looks alone and I think the Xtar 18700 is the best looking, therefore,

itisthebestFoy

10-4 Foy. Manafont was where I was leaning toward buying my TF Flames from because of the iffy quality people get from DX and other sources. Seems like some sources get more TF Flames with problems than others, putting 2 and 2 together, I figured those places bought fake TF's. My thinking is that I'd rather spend a little extra and get them from a place that has a good reputation and likely does not sell fakes. This is also why I am leery from buying batteries from Ebay.

im looking for resistance reading's for a few reason's i belive it has to alot ot to with how much current the battery will give or not give, the resting voltage of the cells the life of the cell and for mutli cell use,s and how the cell,s charge, hold charge and discharge and any one that can give a resistance reading must be using a half decent charger so there is no quess work in how the cell,s perform

im doing test 4 of a 18650 trustfireflame battery now ill post up the results once the icharger has done its stuff.

while waiting for the next charge cycle i decided to kill a good 18650 trustfireflame battery to see what the pcb is in it and to see if it made a diffrence with current draw.

you can see it has two mosfet's installed and on a under driven P60 UF 3 mode drop in and TF C8 i have with out the pcb (IC) there was aproxx 0.07 amp (70 milliamp) increase in current draw lol about whats i expected

as a casual observation as the voltage drops on a battery or batteries the current draw increases ive noticed so on bad performing 18650,s i have brought off ebay they suffer from bad voltage sag once put under load, this makes them read higher when doing current draw test (tail cap readings) say compaired to my TFF this does not make the bad performing ebay cells better in my book.

people have commented on my TR-3T6 thread my trustfires read higher then say the sanyo batteries and so on due to voltage sag, they dont sag much to me compaired to others but i can agree with this to an extent.

but if a cheap battery pulls a higher current draw does this mean its becuase its suffering from voltage sag, it can not maintain the voltage under load so the current draw goes up. (this is not a question i know the answer)

so this means if a battery reads lower on a draw test then another battery, so the battery that reads lower of the current draw test is actualy holding its voltage better to the driver or led and a battery that read,s higher is not able to hold the voltage to the driver or led.

so is getting low current readings better then high current readings as its means the battery is coping under load much better its handling the stress so reading lower.

this is just an casual observation and there is many factors that will affect this, like internal reistance of the battery, moded or unmoded DDM leads, direct drive torches or regulated torchers or torches with buck or buck + boost, the charger, how the battery is chargered and the end user and some batteries simple can give more juice then others while holding voltage there is alot of factors in this and this is just a very casual observation.

i think most people will not be able to tell if a battery sags bad under load or if the battery is realy good or not with out a decent hobby charger and some testing equipment and will just regurutate whats they have read and will follow the masses as some people will recomend a 6 buck ebay battery or batteries but can not give an answer on the true mAh or any data on the battery at all.

i say these flames are half decent and are great for mutli cell lights and offer good run times for the price and the ones i get from here seam good to me for the price and take a decent amount of mAh and like i said great for multi cell lights, im not saying they are the best but they are not the worst and i will compair them to some high end cell,s over the next few weeks and ill have some more TFF from manafont to test as well to see if theya re still on par.

any way i hope these tables have been helpful to some people as its takes around 10 hours to do a discharge and charge cycle im upto 4 now and ive killed one of my best TFF batteries to provide infomation, maybe ill do more next weekend as it time consuming.

This is un-scientific but my flames charge in half the time of my xtars.

ok i finshed the 4th charge cycle of an used trustfire flame battery, this is another well used battery with the internal resistance of 249 milliohm's but you have to take into account this is a used cell and the resistance of my soldering, the the rare earth magnets, leads and connectors ive used but ill say this one cell ive abused going from the IR as none where that high when i first got them and some cells have had a flogging with my fiddling.

table of the start of the charge cycle

table of the end of the charge cycle

i did opean the draw and disconnected the battery from the charger and ended it early by mistake but as you can see it was pritty close to finishing any way, but going from the data logging tables the batteries do hover around 4.19 for a long time so i could of short charged the total mAh from 5 to 250 mAh so maybe i should not of posted this table, but not to bad realy 2193 mAh from 3.5 volt to 4.2 volt dont you think as thats 0.7 volt to take 2193 mAh.

where did you get them from as reports are the xtar 2600 are around 2400 to under 2500 and the flames are 2200 to under 2500 depending on witch post you read so charger time should be close unless they are fakes.