I was curious to see if this deal was still active, but when I check it now (in incognito mode and logged out) it shows up as a ‘Welcome Deal’ (for $13,40/€13,82), but that is normally only for newly registered users.
I can’t check the price when I’m logged in, because it shows me the regular price, since I’ve already made use of this deal.
Anyone else who can see what the current “Early Bird Deal” is at the moment?
I’ve read some discussion about (magneticly) charging these big cells and found some interesting options on AE for connecting these batteries. These are not complete charging solutions, but merely ways to connect your big battery to a seperate charger.
First the ‘magnetic way’:
There are countless (variants/sizes) of these connectors to be found on AE. Most of the time as a male/female pair, but sometimes also individually. Basicly you only need the male variant, which works with one or more pogo pins. Just solder your own (charging) wire on the back, stick the magnet onto the battery and the pogo pin(s) keep contact. Just shop around the find the right one for the best price.
(One thing to note: one listing gave a max rating per pin of 12V/1,5A, so more pins=more throughput, but others had other/thicker pins, which could carry higher power, so check to be safe.)
A example of these connectors in a random shop:
The other option, albeit quite a bit more expensive than the option above, is the battery (tester) holder from Atorch, shown below. It supports up to 46950 and it’s basicly already wired; you just have to connect your charging wires to the V+ and V- contacts. A bit more expensive option, but maybe a bit more of an elegant option and it fits 46950’s ‘right out the box’.
Today I recieved my Liitokala 4695E (46950) battery, way quicker than was initially indicated.
The battery itself was packaged in an unmarked white cardboard box, inside of a bigger Liitokala branded box with some foam to keep it from shifting during shipping.
The battery arrived at 3,78V which is perfectly fine. I’ve also done a quick Internal Resistance measurement, but because that gave a really weird/unusual reading, I first want to do some more measurements, to be sure I post the correct values.
First some pictures:
Here you can see the extra ‘negative-tab’ on the possitive/+ side of the battery:
And now onto the a possible factory that produced this cell:
Below you can see a photo of the plastic cover that was on the battery, when it arrived. I initially totally missed the “clue” and almost had thrown away the plastic cover, but (fortunately) I spotted the 3 letters in time.
Here is the photo with the plastic cover that clearly shows ‘EVE’:
It could also simply be that these plastic covers were purchased from Eve and the cell was actually manufactured by someone else. I wouldn’t use that as proof just yet.
Good point, wasn’t thinking about that being an option too. (I assumed that the factory that produced the cell would have shipped them with their own plastic cap, before sending it to Liitokala.)
I have edited my post, so it just doesn’t state it as ‘it being obvious’ and leave more doubt in it.
So we now need a flashlight running 120 amps.
999,900lm, here we come!
2 new things to tell about the Liitokala 4695E: I have a first IR measurement for it and I took the wrapper of to look for markings underneath.
About the internal resistance:
I kept having trouble to accurately measure IR, measuring on the + and - side of the battery (“top/bottom”), because I couldn’t get my testing probes wide enough apart to have a proper straight angle onto the battery. I could only have them touch the battery from a sharp angle and I kept having extremely high readings of over 500mΩ.
I was at the point of ordering different test probes or fabricating different cables myself, until I realized the 4695E also has a negative tab/electrode at the side of the positive electrode.
The internal resistance of the battery measured this way, was only 1,72mΩ!
I also removed the wrapper/sleeve of the battery, to hopefully see some (more) markings that give an indication from which factory this battery comes from. Unfortunately there was only one marking, which was also partially ‘damaged’/incomplete:
You can see some letter/number codes, but unfortunately they are incomplete, so it’s very difficult to search Google with those codes. I’ve checked the inside of the battery sleeve, to see if part of the print had transferred onto that, but unfortunately not.
Besides this, there are no other markings visible.
Below some photos of the + and - terminal.
The positive side of the battery shows that the negative tab is part of the outer casing. I haven’t taken the black “insulation sticker” off, because it is stuck on pretty hard/good and I’m not sure that after removing it, I could get it to stick in place again. (Without glue.)
What I find more interesting, is the fact that at the negative side of the battery, there seems to be a white insulator(?) ring between the bottom of the cell and the ‘side-wall’/outer casing, when they normally (in my limited experience) are one seamless part. In this case it looks like there is an outer ‘sleeve’ over the original battery, possibly to enable the negative tab at the positive side of the battery?
Unfortunately there is no non-destructive way to see if that is indeed the case and if there are any markings underneath.
A classic move by mostly chinese companies to disguise the origin or type of components. We know that already from semiconductors, where the packages are lasered off. That doesn’t surprise me in the least.
Since there was no residue from the print on the shrink sleeve inside, I suspect that the printing was intentionally partially removed (with a plastic spatula or something).
The casing of the cell itself looks very high quality, so maybe it is indeed an EVE one.
Edit: I digged a little bit in the web and found these, which are listed as INR4695E, which is a type by EVE. They look extremely similar to your cell, maybe they are the same. And since Liitokala even calls these cells “4695E”, I think these are EVE INR4695E in just a Liitokala wrap. Maybe these are indeed 2nd grade ones, but who knows.
Two good finds! I was planning to do some investigation into 4695’s produced by EVE, but you beat me to it… 
Certainly the one on ambattery(.)com looks visually almost identical, except for that extra negative tab on the top of the Liitokala. Also a lot of specs looks identical to one of the spec. sheets Liitokala lists on AE.
Here the INR4695E from ‘ambattery’:
Here one of the spec sheets of Liitokala on AE:
Both also list the same specified weight of 415 ± 10 g.
Also, on one of the photos from ambattery you can see the same plastic caps (with EVE logo/name) as what came on the Liitokala battery.
Also good find of that photo from the spec sheet of the EVE INR4695E!
The specs do look a bit better than that of the cells mentioned above, but maybe that could be explained by the fact that those are maybe indeed 2nd/B grade cells.
Nonetheless interesting information, thanks!
I will try to do some more tests on this battery, but given the big size and specs of the battery, I’m currently limited by my equipment!
I’m already looking for more specialized/dedicated equipment, certainly in terms of discharging, but given the fact that I’ve spend waaaaaaay too much on flashlights/batteries/tools/equipment over the past 2 months, I try to find the most affordable options which will still give decent results.
I currently can discharge at max 1 amp, but with a 30Ah battery, that would mean a looong continous discharge cycle. (And also charging at a higher rate than 2 amp would be nice, with this battery.)
I would even say, they are just the same:
very unlikely that another cell from different manufacturer has the same specs as the Eve INR4695E, which are very specific to this cell shown here. The extra negative tab could be just some special design for a bulk order of a customer (maybe for BEV), maybe these are rejected cells or returned ones due to overproduction, who knows.
Those are exactly my thoughts.
As you mentioned: that 3,67V also stood out to me, since it’s a realy specific number that I also haven’t seen mentioned/listed as a nominal voltage.
I actually forgot to measure the weight of my battery, but I will do that tommorow.
Just adding this:
And for this the removed identification makes sense, if the customer does not want that this ID is given to 3rd parties then the manufacturer could have simply done this at the customer’s request, since these information could be considered as confidential.
If you weigh your battery, there could be some slight tolerances (± 10 grams or so).
Edit: When I think about it, the lower capacity specification compared to the INR4695E could also makes sense: if this is a cell specifically for a major customer, then it may have different (guaranteed) specifications than the standard manufactured cells, perhaps because of a slightly different discharge voltage specified by the customer or something similar, I don’t know. In any case, I am quite sure that we are dealing with a cell for electric cars.
This cell was produced in November 2022
Year: C = 2022
Month: from 1 to C, probably B so 11th month (or 5 so May ???)
To tell manufacturer you need to see first 3 symbols. Eve has a “04Q” code.
Example:
Very interesting information, thanks for that!
To go back in general on the 4695E I recieved:
It’s (more or less) spot on in terms of the listed weight; my kitchen scale (which goes down to 1 gram), gave 415 grams exactly. My cheap Chinese ‘precision scale’ (down to 0,1 grams), gave 416,7 grams, which is stil way within spec.
Height (with ‘terminal’) and diameter (with ‘insulating film’/wrapper) were also both within spec as Liitokala listed them in the spec sheet, posted a couple of messages above.
On the specs above, I see “Maximum discharge 4C”, but it doesn’t say it’s continuous discharge – and the other discharge number in the specs is the “Standard discharge”, which I surmise it’s the one that should be used to reach the stated 30Ah capacity.
Do we know for sure this battery can be discharged at 120A continuously?
(obviously not that important for flashlights, but could be for other applications).
I don’t know about you folks, but having the positive and the negative terminals on the same side of a Li-Ion cell with that much capacity, and with that low IR, and with so little spacing between them, scares the bejeesus out of me. If anything conductive gets in touch with them, it could easily provoke a fire or worse…
To better explain myself: I’m thinking about battery packs for large long-range drones. A 4S made out of these should be more than enough to power a 10-inch-propelled drone like this with more than enough mAh/Wh to go a loooong way, and the total weight at 4*715= 2.9Kg would still be within its carrying capacity. As a bonus, the extremely low IR should help avoid any voltage sags during demanding maneuvers, specially when the battery is approaching empty.
Granted, the same 30Ah capacity with more discharge current (300A) could be had by using 5P top 21700 cells (like the P50B), but the W/Kg would be lower (257 vs 265) and it would cost many times more, to say nothing of the almost certainly higher resulting internal resistance, and the added hassle for assembling the pack.
The exciting thing is, this is just the first 4695 cell I’ve seen that’s both fully specced, and available for small purchases. I wonder how much better are the ones coming down the pipe…
These cells aren’t intended for retail buyers (as well as 18650, 21700 and so on when they appeared).
This is a new arms race. Battery 120 amps or light running 120 amps. Thermal protection and powering down for the electronics before that battery rebels.
