Hello,
So I’m rebuild a battery pack for a fellow BLF’er. However when I first accepted the rebuild request, I did a quick google search for Milwaukee V18 teardown pictures and all the pictures I saw showed 10x18650’s. So I thought no problem. I have plenty of 25R’s on hand and I’ll use those.
Well I got the pack and it turns out it uses 5x 26700’s instead!
5x26700 Moli 26700A’s. These are 2900mAh, 40A rated 3.8v IMR cells and it doesn’t look like they have been produced in years.
Looking around it also looks like Sony and Panasonic have discontinued their production of 26650 cells years ago as well.
Then I can’t find any top tier Chinese manufacturers that make these either. I looked at Lishen, ATL, BAK, HYB and couldn’t find if they make any 26650/26700 3.7v high current cells. It’s funny because ATL and Lishen’s websites are both very broken, most pages don’t even load. How do companies worth likely over a billion dollars not have a functioning website?
Anyways so now that leaves me with other secondary options. Here are a few ideas I found.
1) I could use MNKE IMR 3500mAh 26650’s. They are 30A rated. I’ve used these before however and they didn’t have a good shelf life, within 2 years of not being used the internal resistance increased by 200-300%. If they are regularly used maybe things would be different? Or maybe its a bad batch?
2) I could use some other high current cell like the Sony US18650VTC5A. 35A rated, but only 2600mAh max. I’d need to use some kind of sleeves as spacers.
3) I found a seller in China that claims to have new Panasonic CGR26650A’s which were removed from new old stock Greenlee battery packs. And they tested the internal resistance (AC 1Khz) at 11 mili ohms which seems good to me. 40A rated, but are probably 5+ years old, which is fine if they were stored at a good voltage and are good cells. Downside is 2600mAh capacity and I’d need to remove and grind off the left over tab material and test each cell individually to make sure they are perfect.
What do you guys think, are there other options that I am missing? Ideally I want good quality cells with as close to the original capacity rating of 2900mAh and discharge rating of 40A as possible.