Hi,
There seems to be no manufacturers datasheet for the panasonic ncr18650be and a lot of opinions exist as to whether this is a high current cell or not. Some say it’s a lower quality than the venerable panasonic 3400B while others say it’s better, so I decided to buy one and find out.
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To keep things fair the three cells are brand new with around 5 cycles on them to break them in.
I’ve shown the first 15 minutes which will be the most interest to lumen junkies.
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There are a lot of variables as to how much current flows in direct drive, I’ve found temperature has a massive effect on current as does cell age and parasitic resistances. Here are the results under as stable conditions as I could get. Ymmv.
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Edit: cell key is on the far right of graph.
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One thing I noticed was with a ~1 year old 3400B the max current was only around 3.5amps. This surprised me how much it had deteriorated though to be fair the 3400 isn’t classed a high discharge.
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So the 3200BE is definitely is higher output than the 3400B but how durable is it., who knows.
Where did you get your BD? Is it a bare cell? In other words do you know for sure it’s a BD? The reason I ask is because the Purple Efest 3100 20A and Keeppowers IMR3200 are BE’s, not BD’s.
Hi all three are bare cells, 18650B and BD are from banggood and the BE is from nkon.nl.
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Yes correct only 3.5 amps unfortunately.
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I did this test for my own knowledge because I read so many differing opinions about the BE cell. If have other batteries graphs too
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LG MH1
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HE2
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Sanyo BF and others
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Shall I put them up? I’ve never done graphs on a PC before and it takes me some time.
Your graph clearly shows the 3400B at 5.5A though… what am I missing?? Sorry! What I was missing was that you were talking about two different things! The one in the graph is a new one, a different cell from the 1 year old cell which will only make 3.5A. I was being really thick.
