I bought quite a lot NCR18650GA batteries with protection. Unfortunately they were so thick that they couldn’t fit Convoy C8 or Convoy M1.
I was wondering if there is double wrap that causes this thickness, so i removed wrap. Well, there wasn’t actually double wrap, there was Sanyo wrap under (not just bare cell without wrap as i got when i bought 3400mAh from same place, not sure is that really genuine either…).
As i searched from Internet i can see only NCR18650GA that has red wrap but without all this text, only that text SANYO you can see only in some angles actually (that does not exist in these batteries).
Can anyone confirm are there really genuine or not?
Does anyone have Keeppower 18650 3500mAh and Convoy C8 and does it fit?
Never seen any sanyo cells with that amount or any great amount of printing on the label, normally just a very hard to see tiny writing stamped into the heat shrink running down the side of the battery.
My ga’s also have some numbers printed in black on the negative terminal round the bottom and a faint code thing on the heatshrink and a letter ‘E’ iirc
Have you anyway to test the capacity of the cells ?, I had some I thought might be fake - although they looked nothing like yours - I tested the capacity and with the advice from helpful members on here I concluded mine were the real thing
All text i can find is “8A” and “22” on both sides of QR code and “C 68191W” near negative side.
Because i have conversation with supplier, i come back to this later. I don’t want any harm to supplier if these are genuine.
Exactly same except GA.
I was thinking that too, could it be? I was first confused because of that “Made in China” but looks like Panasonic is not anymore Japan only.
I tested 3658mAh at 0,2A discharge and 3283mAh at 1A discharge. I think that is normal and makes these look like genuine. But that wrap and negative side doesn’t.
The Sanyo variant is most known and is made in Japan. The Panasonic variant is made in China, and looks like a red variant of the 18650B. I’m looking for generic protected GA myself, as the Keeppower 3500 is quite expensive.
looks like a ga to me.
but thats a shoddy job on the protection.should be a strip of kapton tape under that strip along the side.edge looks ragged too.a short waiting to happen.
i would strip off that board and use the cell unprotected.
Im not that worried about protection strip since there is this original wrap behind. It looks good, just little bit dirty to me. Before (3100mAh and 3400mA) there was no wrap but kapton tape. But that is just my opinion.
I can’t remember where, but I’ve seen GA’s before with the B looking printing on the red wrapper. These cell manufacturers don’t put protection circuits on the cells. 3rd party people do. For example, Keeppower uses Sanyo cells, installs a circuit and wraps them with the black wrapper. Keeppower also will strip off the red Sanyo wrapper, insulated the strip with kapton tape, then wrap it with their black wrapper. Makes for a thinner cell not using two wrappers.
I would say your cells are genuine, but no telling who put the circuit on it or what brand circuit it is.
Liionwholesale sells the GA’s with a Seiko circuit. But since they are double wrapped (clear over the red), they won’t fit in a convoy either. I would pull off those circuits on the cells you’ve already dismantled and run them as unprotected as snakebite says.
Ban from Kaidomain replied to me recently telling me they are Sanyo re-wrapped NCR18650GA protected and their PCB can support 10A discharge.
In my dealings with Ban so far, there's nothing to suggest he's telling pork pies.
Also, I don't have any technical means of verifying how genuine these are anyway. The only measure for me is observing runtimes in general use...if they run out of juice too quick (unquantifiable I know) it generally would suggest that it's lower than the 3500mah capacity stated which would inturn make me suspicious that they're just re-wrapped something else. Thankfully this hasn't been the case for me so fumbs up for me !
I don't have a Convoy S2+ or Convoy C8 but can verify that they fit my Thorfire C8S no probs.
If Kaidomain protected NCR18650GA can really handle 10A, that is great. These i have can handle about 5.5A continuous discharge.
Here is image of protection PCB if someone is interested and also 8A discharge curve and thermal image in the end of test:
But those in Liion wholesale looks fantastic. Altough they are thick. There is just information on website that they do ship worldwide only bulk orders for couple hundred pcs.
I just got today new Convoy C8 and it does have wider tube because these batteries can fit quite nicely. Nice upgrade.
But all in all, i think these are really genuine. Just shame that there is no any information about cell production date.
More testing without PCB, 8A discharge was 3198mAh, and end temperature was 66 °C, i think that is quite normal result too?
I didn’t get any sensible answer from supplier, so that is why i want to warn others. I have ordered few times Panasonic protected batteries from this supplier and everytime i have had some problem, mostly that specs have not been like we have agreed. Also few very strange quality issues (rusted cell inside wrap, PCB faulty).
But because they won’t anymore even answer to me and we can’t get these problems solved, i would like to warn others too.
I think i try next time Kaidomain protected batteries as suggested here. Or i start to use Keeppowers, they have been good quality always.
I don’t have much experience about these IMR batteries they sell, mostly these protected ones. I ordered few IMR cells once that they told has protection, but suprise, there wasn’t. Answer was just something like that they are safe chemistry. Well yes, if it is really IMR cell, it is quite safe chemistry but it has nothing to do with discharge, overcharge or overcurrent protection as we discussed before ordering.
Now i have also 26650 protected Efan batteries, current handling is same ~5.5A constant. Capasity was also only 4000mAh and it was supposed to be 5500mAh. Very sad.
I would like to hear if anyone has ordered from this supplier and if there has been any problems?
I took a quick look, and Efan reminds me of Efest; pretty wrappings and cute carton boxes for the cells. But performance can be mediocre with mismatching cells…
