How trustworthy are Sofirn batteries?

Barkuti · 2020-11-07T04:17:04.000Z

TimMc:

I received four button top 18650’s in a BLF LT1.

Sofirn 18650 3000mAh Test #1 (2020-11-06)

…

Is 2A continuous charge ok for these when around 3.8V?

Likely some nice chinese OEM cell, likely from Far East Battery or BAK Power.

In my opinion worst thing which can happen if charging the cell at 2A is somewhat reduced lifespan, nothing more serious. Also, 2A can only be maintained until maximum charge voltage is reached, which due to current rate by rail resistance overhead will be attained earlier (less time at 2A and longer CV phase). To sum up, I wouldn't care.

TimMc:

Sofirn 26650 HD Battery 25A Button Top, Rewrapped PLB Cell

Highest discharge rating I've seen at PLB for their NMC cells is 3C here and there, with a restrained 2C nearly elsewhere. The official rating may seem low but I guess the chinese government, their main customer (for their EV buses fleet) doesn't likes to be lied.

The Sofirn rating, on the other hand, is a typical unofficial fabrication. The worst part is that they went too far, 25A is not a safe discharge rating for these cells. HKJ tested them from different rewrappers in the past (here, there, or the 55A cell over here) and it can clearly be seen that at 20A not only their end of discharge temperature gets on the limit, but their discharge curve also looks forced and already losing capacity. So, the bladesmith leaving the forge is… Sofirn.

TimMc · 2020-11-07T04:35:21.000Z

Barkuti:

Likely some nice chinese OEM cell, likely from Far East Battery or BAK Power.

In my opinion worst thing which can happen if charging the cell at 2A is somewhat reduced lifespan, nothing more serious.

Thanks! I’ll use the built-in charger for the BLF LT1 instead of my S4+.

JasonWW · 2020-11-07T04:59:38.000Z

niajef:

JasonWW:

niajef:

well their sp70 listing says “You are buying SP70 KIT with 26650 Batteries(rewrapped PLB cells), choose 5000K or 6500K.” i dont think thats vague at all, thats straight up telling us, yes we are sending you the flashlight with PLB cells wrapped with our name.

also, where are you seeing 4 listing in their own store? i see none, i only see them, and the blue ones you mentioned, in “E-battery store”

I used his link. It shows this picture.

Ah, I was looking at the yellow highlighted part.

Now I see the upper part. Yes, they are saying the cells it comes with are PLB rewrapped which should be the 25A HD ones. My bad.

Are those the cells it ships with or did they send the wrong ones?

I posted a link to their flashlight store. Thats where I see 4 different 26650.

(Gotta go for a while.)

That’s the thing, i dont know! because this sp70 listing on their site doesnt specify the capacity, it just says PLB wrapped. and on amazon, it only says capacity, 5500mah, does not say PLB. so theres no conflict with the two listing at all. it could very well be 5500mah PLB cells, they just missed a piece of information in each listing. and then they have their own separate battery listing for 5000mah PLB. god this is so confusing.

They definitely don’t have 5500mah PLB batteries.

Tell us what batteries came with your light.

Where did you buy from?

JasonWW · 2020-11-07T05:01:00.000Z

niajef:

im starting to think maybe sofirn has 2 batches of batteries, 1 that comes with flashlights, probably cheaper and worse in quality, and 1 thats being sold separately. cuz their 21700 lights come with 4000mah batteries, while separately sold ones are 4800mah. although 18650 doesnt fall under this pattern, both separately sold ones and ones that come with flashlight are 3000mah.

gah this is so complicated

They buy from several different suppliers.

niajef · 2020-11-07T05:05:35.000Z

JasonWW:

They definitely don’t have 5500mah PLB batteries.

Tell us what batteries came with your light.

Where did you buy from?

5500mah, they came with sp70 when i ordered them off of amazon

i wrote them an email just now, but its saturday morning in china already, they dont work on weekends, they should get back to me on sunday night. i will update here if they come back with a solid answer

JasonWW · 2020-11-07T05:11:34.000Z

Barkuti:

So, the bladesmith leaving the forge is… Sofirn.

I think their 25A HD cells are quite good regardless of the amperage over rating. I use them daily in my SP70. I would say they are comparable to my older black and blue Liitokala.

I have not tried their regular, non HD 5000mah and 5500mah. Based on the tests I’ve seen of them I believe they are fine for low amperage lights, but won’t give the highest output on FET driven lights. Decent I would say.

JasonWW · 2020-11-07T05:22:29.000Z

niajef:

JasonWW:

They definitely don’t have 5500mah PLB batteries.

Tell us what batteries came with your light.

Where did you buy from?

5500mah, they came with sp70 when i ordered them off of amazon

i wrote them an email just now, but its saturday morning in china already, they dont work on weekends, they should get back to me on sunday night. i will update here if they come back with a solid answer

Okay, I’m in the US so I may not be seeing the same exact ads on Amazon.
I see one listing for the SP70. Its from the Sofirn store and has 90 reviews.
They list it as coming with the 5500mAh cells and rated the lights output at 5500 lumen.

So I don’t see anything contradictory to what you received.

Keep in mind that when they bundle products together like a flashlight, batteries and charger to ship to Amazon they can choose whatever combination of parts they want. Then when it comes to sales on their own website they can bundle together whatever parts they want there. So it’s quite possible their website could list the HD batteries and Amazon could be selling it was the non HD batteries. This is perfectly normal.

niajef · 2020-11-07T05:32:23.000Z

JasonWW:

niajef:

JasonWW:

They definitely don’t have 5500mah PLB batteries.

Tell us what batteries came with your light.

Where did you buy from?

5500mah, they came with sp70 when i ordered them off of amazon

i wrote them an email just now, but its saturday morning in china already, they dont work on weekends, they should get back to me on sunday night. i will update here if they come back with a solid answer

Okay, I’m in the US so I may not be seeing the same exact ads on Amazon.
I see one listing for the SP70. Its from the Sofirn store and has 90 reviews.
They list it as coming with the 5500mAh cells and rated the lights output at 5500 lumen.

So I don’t see anything contradictory to what you received.

Keep in mind that when they bundle products together like a flashlight, batteries and charger to ship to Amazon they can choose whatever combination of parts they want. Then when it comes to sales on their own website they can bundle together whatever parts they want there. So it’s quite possible their website could list the HD batteries and Amazon could be selling it was the non HD batteries. This is perfectly normal.

yes, that’s what im suspecting right now, and that’s what i asked them. because it would kind of makes sense, and its sort of a marketing ploy, where they list only one battery option per size, so u would think they only have one type of this battery, and so if the light comes with batteries, it has to be those. when in fact, they just dont openly sell the shittier ones, and use them to couple with their flashlights.

and ya, it doesnt contradict with what i received, because the amazon listing shows 5500mah, and i received 5500mah, however, the weird circle of confusion and contradiction comes in when amazon sp70 says 5500mah, while sofirn sp70 says PL. now, theoretically, those should be the same batteries, which means mine is PLB, and that sofirn has 2 versions of PLB, 5000 and 5500, but they only sell 5000 separately on their site. alternatively, if mine is not PLB, then it means they only send the 5000 PLB with sp70 orders placed on their site, but everywhere else, amazon, BG, AE., they send the non PLB 5500mah. again, im leaning towards the latter, but we’ll see come sunday night.

niajef · 2020-11-07T07:44:08.000Z

Ok, confirmed, 5000mah 26650 is PLB, 5500mah is not, new orders of sp70 should come with 5000mah, but amazon still has old stock, thats why it came with old 5500mah.

Of course this is assuming they are telling me the truth, personally im willing to give them benefit of the doubt

Colonel_Light · 2020-11-18T00:24:23.000Z

Funtastic:

Here’s my discharge test of the PLB 26650 5000mAh 10A cell Sofirn now stock.

Thanks for the test of the PLB 26650 5000mAh 10A. I got a pair when they were on clearance at Sofirn’s website and only now have a Convoy M3 to use them with!

Lumeniac didn’t directly mention what cell he used for runtime tests in his M3 review, but assuming it was a Liitokala 26650 5000mAh, the runtimes should be just as good with a PLB.

niajef · 2020-11-18T00:57:53.000Z

that looks solid

d_t_a · 2020-11-18T04:20:03.000Z

JasonWW:

niajef:

i have similar findings with their 18650, all measured just a tad over the rated 3000, but their 26650, which is supposedly PLB re-wrapped, rated at 5500, one of them measured at 5480, which is close enough ill let it slide, but the other is 5331, a bit disappointed with that. the no brand 26650 that came with my ft03 was over 5500, but it was only rated 5000

Surely you are not referring to the PLB 5500mah cells relabeled by Shockli, etc… No one has ever said they are related. They are definitely not related. They use a local Chinese made cell. Some measure closer to 5000 and some closer to 5500 and they separate them into two groups and label them appropriately. They are quite generic and nothing special.

The PLB 5500mah on the other had is a top quality cell. One of the best in its capacity.

Actually, I don’t think the Sofirn 5000/5500mAh 26650 are always labeled correctly.

Some of the Sofirn “5500mAh” 26650 test a bit closer to 5000mAh, and the battery (the top portion) looks a bit different, indicating it’s likely a different battery.
Although the 5000mAh (based on capacity testing, not the wrapper label) 26650 seems to have a bit lower internal resistance (using a YR1030 battery resistance meter to test)…

dyoung1167 · 2022-11-25T20:33:57.000Z

i recently got an sp33 v3.0 and the battery is definitely labeled as 5500. Is this a lie? I’m looking to get a spare but if these are not properly labeled then I will look to get 2 if i will see a difference in turbo output as on another post someone mentioned they saw brighter turbo output from an older 21700 4000 sofirn than when a newer 5000 sofirn was used in the same light. to clear up my thread i have been on a bit of a sofirn splurge so i have 3 new lights, 2 using 21700 (c8f and lt1s) and sp33 26650 so…i’m wanting to get the most of the 2 flashlights as i don’t expect nor really want to get much if anything more out of the lantern but who knows. coud it be resistance problem that would cause less output? neither are throwers but i’m not super impressed with them as they both claim around 3500lm turbo output. An expert i’m certainly not but also these are my first lghts with a claim of higher than 1400 so i don’t really have a good personal reference to compare.

DBSAR · 2022-11-25T21:46:38.000Z

TimMc:

Funtastic:

Oh, if you’re charging them inside the LT1, they’ll be fine since it’s not 2A per battery, only 0.5A

Does the LT1 balance the cells when charging?

The LT1 has all four cells in parallel & connected to each other continuously, thus always in balance & at the same charge rate.

JasonWW · 2022-11-26T01:50:31.000Z

dyoung1167:

i recently got an sp33 v3.0 and the battery is definitely labeled as 5500. Is this a lie? I’m looking to get a spare but if these are not properly labeled then I will look to get 2 if i will see a difference in turbo output as on another post someone mentioned they saw brighter turbo output from an older 21700 4000 sofirn than when a newer 5000 sofirn was used in the same light. to clear up my thread i have been on a bit of a sofirn splurge so i have 3 new lights, 2 using 21700 (c8f and lt1s) and sp33 26650 so…i’m wanting to get the most of the 2 flashlights as i don’t expect nor really want to get much if anything more out of the lantern but who knows. coud it be resistance problem that would cause less output? neither are throwers but i’m not super impressed with them as they both claim around 3500lm turbo output. An expert i’m certainly not but also these are my first lghts with a claim of higher than 1400 so i don’t really have a good personal reference to compare.

It probably is 5500mAh. Keep in mind that the higher the capacity, the lower the amperage, generally speaking. So you need to clarify what your looking for. A very high capacity means it will output a smaller amount of power for a longer time going all the way down to around 2.7 volts. I never run my lights to that low of voltage. Once it hits 3.7v or 3.6v you’ve used the majority of the power and I recharge them. So high capacity is not that big a deal to me.
If your looking for high amperage in a FET based light you would want a lower capacity, high discharge battery. A cell like the Samsung 30T 21700 can output huge amps, but it sacrifices capacity to do it. A Samsung 50E sacrifices high amperage to give higher capacity/run time. Then the Samsung 40T is the in-between cell with a nice mix of amperage and capacity.
The battery manufacturers can mix the chemicals to give a cell the characteristics they want.
I tend to not run the high amperage cells because max output is only at high voltage, like 4.2v and the driver needs to be FET based to take advantage of the amperage. Once you use it a while and the voltage drops a little so does the max output level. Plus they tend to heat up really fast.
I use my Sofirn C8F with a high capacity Samsung 50E cell and my Sofirn SP8 I use the Sofirn 5000mAh to limit turbo and give longer run times. Turbo output is not as extreme compared to high amperage cells, but you can hardly see the difference with your eyes. The difference can be measured, though.

PiercingTheDarkness · 2022-11-26T08:18:00.000Z

The SP33 V3 measured over 3420 lumens when I tested mine with a Samsung 40T. It certainly won’t be achieving the rated lumens with the included battery, but it’s good enough.

dyoung1167 · 2022-12-02T04:41:10.000Z

I don’t remember asking you to make me think so hard hahahaha Thanks, now i have to get sober or something

JasonWW · 2022-12-02T06:42:01.000Z

dyoung1167:

I don’t remember asking you to make me think so hard hahahaha Thanks, now i have to get sober or something

Just remember that the Turbo output is for brief usage. Like a quick blast of light to see further, then you drop the output down to a more normal level for constant use. Don’t expect a constant 3,400 lumen output.
If you need a constant 3,400 lumen output you’d want a bigger light that maybe does 6,000+ Turbo and run it constantly at a lower level.
So I would not get too caught up with max numbers.

Even more to think about, the intensity of the beam is also a consideration. 1,000 lumen spread over a large area looks dim. 1,000 lumen focused in a small area looks bright. So you want the focused beam to be the size you want/need and then you can determine how powerful it needs to be. Luckily, there’s so many good lights on the market you can find what suits your needs.

As far as choosing batteries, I’d get some medium to high capacity cells. Sofirns 5500 are fine for most applications. Just stick to known, tested brands and try to avoid brands that have not been tested. Other good brands are Samsung, Sony, Sanyo, Panasonic, LG and Molicel. (Also buy from reputable sources because fake cells do exist)
If you want to see if a cell has been tested and it’s ratings are accurate, check out HKJ’s tests (use the links at the top of the page) or ask here.
https://lygte-info.dk/info/indexBatteriesAndChargers%20UK.html
.

dyoung1167 · 2022-12-02T13:39:46.000Z

tis what i’m getting at so i shall be getting a couple of those batts or similar. thanks

dyoung1167 · 2022-12-02T13:43:13.000Z

thanks, it seems i should go with a batt that does a bit of both as been mentioned, as i’m really just trying to get the most out my light but not really for any long time use.