When HKJ and Mooch talk about the inconsistency of Chinese battery manufacturers they are absolutely right. However, in this case I’m a little surprised because it is several cells that went bad quickly.
Golisi 4300mAh 26650.NEW= 4310mAh.In less than 9 months it lost just over 25%. Tested today at 3255mAh. That capacity loss is absolutely noticeable when using the light, NI40. It would get dimmer a lot quicker that’s what prompted me to do the test.
The 3 X Aspire 4300mAh 26650 were no better.Two had very similar original capacity and in 10 months they have just under 3400mAh.The other one just died in my light the other night. I thought it might have shorted because of the wrapping. When I rechecked the wrapping it was okay. Lesson learned I will never get these cells again.4 Duds!
The cells were never abused. Never below 3.55 volts except for capacity test on my opus.
Hopefully the 2 X Vapecell G53 that I got last February will fare better. So far so good.
So it’s a crapshoot with these cells. Never had issues like this with my KP 16340,18350 OR Aspire 18350 that are almost four and a half years old and still have over 900 milliamp capacity. Just over three hundred Cycles.
Maybe I just got unlucky although these Aspire and Golisi 26650 were ordered from different places.
I had a Golisi before and gave it away with a light. I’ve also had an Aspire 26650 before. It must have performed and lasted a while or I would remember it.
They don’t have too many options when it comes to these cells. They all seem to be made in China. Sony makes a 26650 cell but I do not think it is a high drain, 30A plus. I know Samsung doesn’t make any, LG doesn’t make any and I do not think Sanyo/Panasonic make HIGH DRAIN 26650.
That’s it. I know I’m not alone. But again I’m surprised that four of them went bad this quickly.
What do you think of even very inconsistent build quality: these 14500 came in an order of 4, 2 where as specified but 1 is way shorter and 1 is way to long. put an Eneloop behind them to get the normal size of AA, the short one is actually doing fine the big one is seriously under-preforming but look at them, these are not even the same cell.
It’s hard to tell by your location Cochise334ever, but there are several high drain 26650 batteries available in the US. Just buy them from reputable stores, such as Liion, IMR, and 18650BatteryStore.
You can use that logic or analogy for any country! Reality is the cells are supposed to be the best high drains and I got four of them that were duds. So yes it can happen and I certainly did.
I haven’t heard of any of those brands and they probably just send their best cells or rewraps to HKJ. A strategy to judge Chinese batteries is to figure out their Chinese company name. If they have a website and have datasheets, they are likely legit. I recommend, power long (朗动力), HLY (华立源), or Sinowatt for 26650s. If you know Chinese, certain names also “sound” more legit.
Not sure why.you.have not heard of Aspire,Golisi or the older Ijoy 26650 HIGH DRAINS.Maybe you never had a modified light or ones that work best with 35/40amps CDR.Maybe new to the hobby?
Like I said, I have used these batteries before and they worked fine. I guess it was just a bad luck batch and this is also what you get with a lot of Chinese batteries,inconsistency. And yes the PLB-55A is the best cell overall. It just doesn’t push the amps like the ones mentioned in this thread.
I have a theory on the reason for the difference, but the distributor should not have mixed them.
When I ordered an ET D25A, I also ordered 2 of their ET-branded 14500s because I knew that light is a ‘minimum form factor’ design and some have had issues with cell length. Since I wanted to use cells w/ safety circuit, I expected ET’s own cells would be a good fit and wanted to be sure I had something on hand that would fit properly.
The cells I received were longer than an Eneloop (like the RH one in your photo), and do not fit properly. I couldn’t operate the light at all without over-torquing the head and seriously over-compressing the spring - to the point of ‘coil bind’. They still sit in a AA case today, unused. I since found 2 types of ‘protected’ 14500s which are a length appropriate for the light and am using those.
My eye caliper indicates that the LH cell in your photo would likely be a good fit for the D25A. I would speculate (and hope) that ET has corrected the problem and is now producing a new version of their 14500 of appropriate length for their product. If so, you’re seeing a much needed design change, not a ‘build quality’ issue. I still don’t think they should have mixed the types in the same order, but perhaps ET failed to differentiate them in their nomenclature / on their packaging (which would be bad practice) - in which case I’d fault ET and not your distributor.
To my understanding, these Chinese brands such as Golisi, vapcell （both in ShenZhen, Guangdong）etc are just rewrap brands. They are not the manufacturers and just purchase cells from different vendors and rewrap them. At the beginning, they normally rewrap good cells to establish reputation. After that they may change the cell for whatever reasons while the consumers will never know. Many vapcell rewrapped cells also have inconsistency issues. The solution is to stick withnthe original cells.
Yeah, I’m new to the hobby but I don’t see Aspire or Golisi being sold at all on Taobao. This probably indicates these brands have fallen out of favor or disappeared. The high end flashlight manufacturers I’ve seen pretty much only sell PLB or HLY 26650s.
After I found Lishen 21700s, that’s all I use for high drain batteries. All my 26650 flashlights fit 21700 as well.
Aspire and Ijoy are big brands of vaping equipment, see them as the likes of Fenix, Olight and Nightcore in flashlights, brands that sell batteries under their own name but don’t make them themselves. The vaping industry was long the motor of the ever more powerful batteries but nowadays they are slowly fading under pressure of anti-vaping laws worldwide.
Well no, the protected 14500’s are always longer than an AA, 2 of the 4 I received are the exact length as specified by them. There’s just 2 off them that are not as specified, one is much longer and of lesser quality and one is even shorter than an AA but this one works OK. The longer one fits in almost no light, of my lights only my Olight S15 can use it but runs much shorter with it than with the other 3, the shorter one is actually too short for some lights but very handy for lights that only fit short batteries, my Utorch UT01 is one of those and happy with it.
So in total I have 3 lengths of these 14500 in one order: 2 as they should be according their specification and just a bit longer as an AA, 1 shorter as an AA and one much longer as it was supposed to be.
That is true and I agree with that. Except for the last sentence. How do you stick with the original cell when you don’t know what you’re getting and these are rewraps?!
From what I recall, Aspire brand battery (at least the 18350) is made by Yong De Li (shortened sa YDL) New Energy.
Aspire seems to have discontinued selling batteries. I’m also not sure if YDL still manufactures batteries.
I haven’t heard of SinoWatt 26650 batteries yet, can you link or post a picture of them?
I’m just curious, PLB is considered one of the better 26650 batteries (especially the PLB-55A), but how is the reputation and feedback for HLY batteries (I notice that Astrolux used to bundle HLY 26650 battery for flashlights that have 26650 battery bundle price). I’ve tested a few HLY 26650 batteries, and they seem OK (the HLY 5000mAH 26650 performs basically similar to Liitokala 5000mAh 26650 batteries, with my non-professional testing…)
With regards to 14500 batteries - I notice they do come in many different lengths, like this one I took quite some time before
(in particular, notice the 2 pieces Sofirn 14500 batteries = one is much shorter than the other)
The GOLISI and Aspire 4300 26650's I think it was said here on BLF are the same cell, made by the same manufacturer. I got both, thinking the GOLISI's did better, but might have been the ASPIRE's were older :FACEPALM: . It's a crap shoot til we can get a handle on the sourcing, but Vapcells, which I think are all rewraps, is trying darn hard to get good sourcing, and always seem to donate batteries for testing - basically they are a good behaving vendor, or at least trying hard.
They made mistakes, but at least for me, has made good on refunds when they learned of bad cells.
My point is don’t buy rewrapped cells. For 18650 and 21700 it is pretty simply, just buy major brands, for 26650, just go with PLB. And buy from trustworthy vendors.
SinoWatt is one of several hundreds battery manufacturers in China, not sure its 26650 is comparable to PLB. Liion has a protected 18650 using SinoWatt cell and it is dirty cheap. Not sure about the quality though.
