Test / Review: LG 18650 C2 2800mAh (Orange)

LG 18650 C2 2800mAh (Orange)


I could not find any specifications on this cell.





This battery can be charged up to 4.3 volt.







The batteries has a high voltage, even at high loads. The capacity is below the specified capacity.











These are unprotected cells.



Most LiIon chargers can only charge to 4.2 volt, a possibility to get 4.3 volt is a hobby charger with adjustable charge voltage (Like iCharger).



LG 18650 C2 2800mAh (Orange) at 4.2 volt



Reducing the charger voltage to 4.2 volt reduces the capacity with about 200 mAh.

















Conclusion

LG does make very good cells and the higher output voltage when loaded can be interesting for some applications. But it requires a special charger.



Notes and links

I have only added the 4.3 volt test to the bar charts, but both 4.2 and 4.3 volt can be found in the 18650 comparator, this makes it possible to compare voltage at different loads and charge conditions.

The batteries was supplied by cpf user "Candle Lamp" for review.

How is the test done and how to read the charts
How is a protected LiIon battery constructed
More about button top and flat top batteries

Is it just me, or there's something fishy about the fact that Samsung, LG and Sanyo all three have 4.3V 2800mAh / 4.35V 3000mAh batteries? Do they cross-license manufacturing technologies, or there's something else causing such, uhm, similarity?

Thanks again for another awesome review HKJ!

Well the Li-ion industry is very competitive. Basically all these companies ran into a wall once they hit 2600mAH for a 18650 cell using the traditional LiCo chemistry. They could no longer find a way to increase the cells capacity, without using a hybrid cathode. So Sanyo, LG, Samsung and even a few of the larger Chinese Li-ion cell companies, experimented with hybrid cathodes that enabled them to increase the cells charge voltage, which resulted in increased cell capacity. Panasonic took a slightly different approach, and stuck with the 4.20v max charge voltage, and adopted some other cathode materials like nickel and I believe also some Aluminum. This enabled a lower nominal voltage of 3.6v, as well as a lower cutoff voltage of 2.5v, vs the traditional 2.75v for most LiCo cells. I doubt they cross licensed anything, they just stumbled upon a similar solution to the same problem, which resulted in them being able to break the 2600mAH barrier. Each company's cells behave slightly differently, due to their cathode and anode formulas. For example the Sanyo 4.3/4.35v cells, do poorly at higher currents compared to the Samsung cells. It could also be that some insider information was shared, or one company got a hold of some samples from another company, and analyzed the chemical composition, but that is just a slight possibility...

On a different note, it seems interesting that all of these LG cells are quite a bit below their stated capacity... I mean 2634mAH is not that impressive for a 4.3v cell. You could get that kind of capacity out of slightly overcharging a 2600mAH cell to 4.25v or so.