18650 Size High Capacity NiMh Battery Available

18650 Size High Capacity NiMh Battery Available

Vectrex pointed out that he’d seen an 18650 sized High Capacity NiMh Battery. It turns out that it’s manufactured by FDK (Fujitsu) – a very large and respected company, based in Japan and manufacturing there and in China.

He feels that with the new charger everyone’s been buying, it would be easy to keep it charged and he wants to experiment with it. I’ve been thinking that it might be interesting to stick 4 of them into something like a Clone of the “King” and you’d have enough voltage and plenty of capacity to do some interesting things.

What do you think?

Regards,

Bob

You couldn't just stick them in the King, you would have to wire the king for series first. And 4 would probably be to much voltage. Either way I still want a couple. :D

Are they LSD, or am I expecting too much? Might be interested if they are, since it could be fun to use them in a P60 host with the right sort of drop-in.

I’ve seen other brands around, but probably not the specific ones you are talking about. Gotta link?

They are not high capacity, not higher than 18650. They may have 4000mAh but at low voltage which gives 4,0x1,2=4,8Wh. Panasonic 3100mAh 18650 cell has 3,1x3,6=11,16Wh. It’s over 2 times more!

True, but they still are much safer. I would definitely be in for a couple at a good price. :D

Haven’t seen any reports of high quality Li-Ion’s acting dangerously when being properly used, so that’s not a reason to have 2.5x less capacity.

True, but would you be willing to run a lion until it shuts off? I personally would not, I use all brand name cells scavenged from battery packs along with a few unrpotected 2900s and 3100s. I baby the lions but my eneloops I am willing to torture.

Yes, like I do with laptops, mobile phones, tablets, mp3 players and all other devices that use Li-Ions.

I take it you use protected? Either way fair enough. I personally will not run li-ions until they die but I will scavenge cells and use those in multicell applications. :D

Protected 3100mAh batteries (IOS ones) in multi-cell lights, unprotected ones (mostly Sanyo 2600mAh) in single-cell ones.

Okay, that makes sense. I try to be more careful with my scavenged ones after what happened with my DRY.

What happened to your dry?

I usually run mine till about 20% capacity, if not all the way down. But if I’m bored ill change that battery even if it’s at 80%.

Here.

I found 18650 size NiMH-batteries in a 12 year old laptop last year, (can't remember the brand name, they are at my work adress). So they have been around for a while...

Such consumer devices to do not let you run down a battery beyond a certain point, so it’s not really an example of doing what scaru asked you if you would do.

A better and more relevant example would be running your unprotected Sanyo cells down until they are barely capable of powering your lights anymore (that is, those light that don’t have low voltage protection built into them anyway). You wouldn’t do it. At least you wouldn’t do it if you planned on continuing to use those cells anyway, unless you like to live on the edge.

Sure, I endeavour not to over-discharge my NiMH cells either. But the point here is that they don’t become volatile even if you do, which does indeed make them inherently safer. You seem to be arguing (albeit somewhat indirectly) that this isn’t the case, and I’m not sure why.

A very good point, a while back I took apart a iphone and measured the voltage of the battery when it was "fully" charged it was at 4.1 volts. I seriously doubt they discharge them very far either. I tend to abuse all of my batteries and take risks with them (hence my DRY incident) but I would never intentionally run an unprotected battery until it shut off, especially in multicell applications.

By only charging the cell to 4.1V and not discharging it below 20%, you can increase the life of the cell by and order of magnitude. This is what quality consumer devices and electric vehicles do.

Sure, this sort of thing is even true with NiMH.

You speak about HR4/3AU cells? Doesn’t Sanyo sold parts of the battery business to FDK a few years ago (2009 or 2010)?
Then FDK would have bought a lot of knowledge with it and it could be interesting.

That's correct Buwuve.

Here are some links. IMPORTANT: I had sent these links in a PM and I just tried transferring them here BUT THEY SEEM ONLY TO WORK IF YOU COPY AND PASTE THEM INTO YOUR BROWSER ADDRESS BOX:

http://www.fdk.com/company_e/gaiyo-e.html

http://www.fdk.com/battery/nimh_e/index.html

http://www.fdk.com/battery/lithium_e/index.html

http://www.fdk.com/company_e/sei_j_point-e.html

http://www.fdk.com/company_e/sei_w_point-e.html

http://www.fdk.com/company_e/syoukai-e.html

http://www.fdk.com/company_e/han_w_point-e.html
(notice that they have 2 sales office in Germany)

By the way, I can easily obtain these at wholesale if there is enough interest. I'm already getting samples for a couple of members and myself but I didn't think there would be enough interest to order the MOQ.

Regards,

Bob