Battery and charger recommendation for gift bundles or selling to friends?

Batteries and Chargers Rechargeable Batteries
1

Hello guys. Sorry to ask a question that I’m sure has been asked about a million times before.
Then again; prices, availability and technology changes rapidly. So here goes anyway.

I’m looking for a good deal on three things:

1: 14500 batteries (either IMR/hybrid/protected)
2: 18650 batteries (either IMR/hybrid/protected)
3: A one or two battery (18650/14500) USB type charger (I know at least Xtar and Klarus have relatively cheap options)

This stuff is intended for resale to friends, collegues etc, and as gifts or family, together with different flashlights (that preferrably will have their own safety circuitry in addition)

So they ought to be relatively safe. Not interested in unreliable stuff that explodes or catches fire. You know.
(And yes I know that none of these things are 100% safe per se. By safe I mean reasonably safe.)
Yet, I would like to keep the costs down -meaning I do not want to pay double the amount of money to get 15% more capacity.

In the case of the batteries, it is preferable with a fair balance between possible amp draw and capacity.

All summed up I’m looking for safe batteries, safe and simple chargers with a good balance between performance and price.

Up to date suggestions appreciated. :slight_smile:

2

The $5.96 ml-102 v8 from fasttech is now a good charger (v7.1 was bad). Tested by HKJ and also serves as a usb power bank.

How many batteries are you looking to buy?

3

Really don’t know yet.
At first: Just a few. Less than 10 14500 and 10 18650’s.

After first revealing my flashlight hobby to a few of my collegues, I suspect I might need more. We’ll see…

…Oh and thanks for giving the first suggestion! Appreciated. :bigsmile:

4

For quality protection go for keeppower batteries. They seem to be the lowest cost who use seiko protection (with quality cells pana,sanyo,etc). Be aware keeppower’s 840mAh 14500 is sanyo but their 800mAh 14500 is a chinese “DLG” made cell. The DLG one seems to be decent quality but it’s not a top quality like pana,sanyo,lg,samsung,sony. If you were in the usa then evva from mtnelectronic would cost less than keeppower.

Evva is also available from their store on aliexpress but the shipping looks a bit high unless you get a large quantity.

5

Noted! Thanks. I already have a few of Keeppowers 18650’s for personal use. Pretty happy with them.

If I understand you right, Seiko produces quality battery safety circuits? (I only know them for their watches).

6

For a simple and versatile charger that is unlikely to cause you regret, I lean toward the Xtar MC1 (not the Plus version).

7

Seiko produces li-ion protection “IC” controller chips, widely regarded as top quality. The battery protection circuit also contains a few other components (power mosfet/switch, capacitors, resistors) but the controller chip is the brain. Anatomy of a Protected LiIon Battery (by HKJ)
Evva vs keeppower protection visual comparison

The protected batteries you often on chinese sites (fasttech,banggood,etc) with clear wrap over a big brand name cell (pana,sanyo,etc) have a protection circuit added by an un-named mystery company. All the teardowns I’ve seen seem to use the same chip. I suspect it’s a questionable quality chip at best. I have no failure statistics to back it up though.