What is the largest capacity 18650 and who makes the best one?
Where is the best place to buy them?
Thanks, MikieG
Panasonic NCR18650B 3400mah
They are sold with protection circuits under many brands, I bought from and would highly recommend buying from BLF’s own Kumabear (Bob). Great service and great prices.
How much $ per pair?
25 dollars per pair plus shipping.
Are they worth it over a $20/10 deal on 2600mah cells?
Depends on the purpose, if just for around the house use no. If for SAR or police work I would say yes. Also, the 2600 ones are less than that. Look here. (coming from China)
That depends on the quality of the 2600mah cells in question, lots of mah claims are almost completely fictional.
Also, a pair of protected Panasonic NCR18650B can be bought from fast-tech for around $18 with the discount code ‘BLF’.
Check this out…
I bought a few of these and preliminary testing shows that they are the real deal. They were all at 3.77V. Internal resistance was around 50 milliohms. Billy Gage has been in business since before the dinosaurs. Selling top notch cells for $2 a pop, no wonder…
http://www.bgmicro.com/ur18650f-2500mah-rechargeable-battery.aspx
I recommend fasttech Panasonics also. They come with a clear wrapper, so you can clearly see the cell. No fancy wrapper with the sellers name on it. I purchased two sets of the 3100mah protected. A pretty good deal for protected Panasonics with code (BLF) $14.60 a pair free ship.
How much extended run times could one expect from say 2600 - 3100 - 3400?
Really dude? Don't steal what Texaspyro said here.
What are you using them for? As in do you need absolute max run time or would a few mins less runtime be ok. Ie whenever you use them will you be able to carry spares or have easy access to charge them? If you can then you have to ask of you need max possible runtime. I can certain use this would be useful. But as a rule not a major issue for many uses.
If copying and pasteing are stealing to you, then this is the least of your problems.
Now continuing on with our discussion of 18650 cells and good or bad deals, what do you fellas think of that one?
For a linear driver it’s easy to do the maths on it. For example at a 1A draw a 2600mah cell should run for 2.6 hours, a 3100mah cell for 3.1 hours and a 3400mah cell for 3.4 hours.
However, in practice, when a buck or boost driver is used then the current pulled changes according to the voltage under load of the battery to keep the overall power input in watts the same. Under these circumstances Panasonic cells generally drop to a lower voltage under medium to high currents than the Sanyo 2600 cells, meaning that more current has to be drawn by the circuit to compensate.
This can mean that in practice at high current draws a Sanyo 2600mah cell can last for longer than a Panasonic 3100mah cell for example.
I carry light everywhere. But i work in the LE field so i just canned my old Streamlight Stinger XL.
I’m sure you didn’t mean to cause confusion, but try to use the ‘quote’ button next time, then copy and paste from the reply box. If you do that it’ll be easier for people to understand why you posted it.
If max runtime is important you may want to consider a 26650 powered light or a multi 18650 one.
Its out of respect for the original poster to a least give him credit for what was said.
I didn’t think you where trying to use his words as your own either. As you are the op of this thread looking for batteries and you found texaspyro’s thread.
Yup. Scaru already spanked me for that. I have surfed so much this morning that i could only find that post by looking in my history.
Fellas, please be patient with me and my ignorance. This is not the type of hardware i specialize in.
So much to learn!