Sweet. Just ordered four more. I’ve been refreshing the page a couple times a day for two weeks…nice surprise to just now find they have returned! Disappointed that the price is so much higher, but I think I can understand the reasons for that. I think they were like $5.60 last summer, $9.90 now. I guess that brings them in line with other good similarly sized cells, but also in line with major manufacturer cells where I’m not sure they quite belong on a par line. Happy to get more, though.
I never found any information that could confirm or deny about this cell or its origins. Maybe one day somebody will spill the beans. Hoped Simon might have some input.
Thanks for the heads up, ordered 2 cells for my convoy L8.
Last time I checked it was $8, a couple months ago when it went OOS, but I do recall seeing them for as low as $6.50. $9.90 isn’t a bad price for the performance but for $16 shipped each does make me think twice before ordering a bunch of these for future flashlights.
26650 fell out of favor because the various Chinese factories weren’t producing cells that offered much of anything (or often nothing) over good 18650 cells…so they were larger with no real benefit. In addition to that there just wasn’t the consistency in chemistry/assembly/performance with most 26650 cells. Vapcell sourced a couple nice ones, then those disappeared and now they have a less-nice one available (and the old black Shocklii where you can find those). Then came 21700 and put all that to rest. lol. These 26800 actually do put something on the table in terms of both high current delivery and outstanding capacity. Size ignored, I’d say they compete very well with the majority of 21700 cells (that is to say, the majority of our light/driver designs) and they blow 18650 out of the water. And they appear to be nicely consistent, so far, and for the limited test (singular) that we have for now. We’ll see if it holds…hope so.
Our current website can’t calculate shipping very accurately, I have adjusted the 26800 as it was charging too much for most people. We will probably lose money on our international orders, but that is OK, not too many of those
We have a new site in development, still a few weeks away, and it will do perfect shipping estimates. Just requires us to measure every single item we sell. We have about 1,000 more items to measure… ugh.
On the bright side we shipped out every battery order we had prior to 5:30 PST. You all should have them soon, and a little chocolate gift.
I’d like to thank Aloft Hobbies for giving us the heads up and taking time for us light junkies to get our fix. It’s also safe to ship chocolate this time of year for us Texans but that window is closing. I ordered two more, that’s about 20+ cells for myself. I’m hooked on the cell, many of us prefer single cell lights. When 20700/21700 came out I noted that this is like 1.5 18650’s in one cell. More capacity more amps in one cell. Now the 26800 is pretty much 1.5 21700’s I’m getting 7100 mah and the cell will push 20+ amps. The sweet spot for me is the complete grip given by an 80mm cell with just the right diameter. All the 26650 light I can convert are now 26800 powered. The main issue is only one manufacturer and it’s only made in one flavor. No high amp versions like other cells. I can note though that all my cells are nearly identical in capacity.
Aloft boxes are the only ones out of all the ones I’ve received over the years that included treats…where I just ate them right away and didn’t think twice about it. lol. You guys are a good outfit…could tell that from browsing the whole site at first…and I’ll double up on texas shooter’s Thank You!
Have fun with your calipers and rulers…gosh that sounds like quite a job!
Also, a certain pair of little twin girls has had a blast with your awesome condor logo stickers…fun!
I forgot to ask, a few of you have been picking up some of the other odd sized cells we offer. The most popular today was the tiny 10440 size. I’m wondering what the heck people are using those for? The capacity is sadly very low on these, but they are the smallest Li-ion I have seen. We stock them mostly to power receivers in small gliders, are they practical enough for a small flashlight?
Very small flashlights….some of which can actually blow your mind with the light they produce on these bitty cells! I don’t own any of those myself. The Lumintop GT Nano may be the most popular and/or impressive…here’s a photo of the handsome brass version. I’ve thought of picking up some of these for a little AAA light I have (which can also take the lithium) but that capacity does turn me off.
Slightly off topic, but while we’re discussing internal resistance, I just got some used LG HG2’s and Samsung 25R’s from a friend. A couple have an IR of ~40mΩ and the rest have an IR of ~100mΩ. They’re measuring 500-800mah below their rated capacity. Testing done on SkyRC MC3000. Are these cells toast?
We have found a lot of counterfeit cells on the market. Even larger OEM companies that are purchasing large quantities of 18650’s for their products run into counterfeit cells in their inventory despite no alterations to their sourcing for the cells. This has occurred with at least one of our main manufacturers. The Li-ion market is an odd one as the main producers of cells do not want loose cells to be sold to the public due to liability concerns and resulting lawsuits. This has opened the doors for counterfeiting in the supply chain of these cells.
Thanks for the info on the baby flashlights. Pretty cool.
I’m no expert, others would be better at assessing your cell’s health. For my part, 25R I measured 17.5 mΩ. This is on a 1 kHz sampling, not the static smart charger sampling. However, I’ve found that the capacity values given by the manufacturers are their classification and somewhat ballpark. Of course, they test them individually in their start-up procedure, but we don’t know what the acceptable range is. What is the cut-off? And do they scrap (if reputation is prioritized) or sold as seconds and these we see as counterfeits.
I’ve seen some variance in new cells, in the order of 200 mAh. In older cells I haven’t seen more than 400-500 difference. But I rotate my lights so I can’t presume anything yet.
Curious to know if you have come across counterfeit Sony/Muratas. I presume with the QR code on the can (under the semi-transparent wrapper) deters fakes. Such that I opted for these rather than the 30Qs.
We are very careful of where we buy our cells from. So far we have not had any counterfeit cells from our sources.
Both Sony and Panasonic have changed their packaging of some of their cells we sell and we have been accused of shipping bogus cells, but quickly the same people have emailed us back apologizing that the cells tested correctly, and simply were some of the first of the new style to be offered in the US mainland. (We do our best to keep our cells as fresh as possible, no selling 2 or 3 year old cells at our shop.) Sadly this is why we are occasionally run out of stock, sometimes demand really spikes. The 26800 is just such a case.
We have been selling the 26800 size for a couple of years, but only recently have they really taken off. (Or maybe that is when the flashlight customers found us.) I debated buying some for a while and our first inventory level was just 12 cells. Think it took 2 months to sell them. I like to hunt down the odd sized cells, they work well for our normal aviation customers special needs.
Typically in our glider hobby we are seeking cells with very high capacity and current limits were not an issue. But we started offering the higher amperage cells like the Sony VC6. This proved popular as many places were selling really old VC6 (or used) cells for high prices. We could sell brand new FRESH cells for less money at the time. The market was kind of silly back then, and shipping was more reasonable too.
Yeah, flashlight companies in China have only started to do 26800 lights and conversion tubes starting around last year. The interest in the flashlight community was woken around 2019 or so I think, when some enthusiasts noticed the size would work quite well for us.
