Just curious to see what 18650 batteries everyone has been buying and getting the best deals on to share with others.
I myself have been buying mostly these 2. No complaints at all. I got 4 more of the first link below that should be here today.
So post up your great deals and share your good 18650 battery deals with others.
I’ve got the same protected Panasonics NCR18650 3100mAh sleeping in storage mode waiting for its home in the Deft X.
Yeah, all six that I’ve got from FT are within 30mah with each other after I initially fully charged them for discharge capacity
testing. Very consistent at about 3030mAh average.
Yea both them I listed above seem to be awesome batteries. I’m guessing the grey 2900mah ones to be the best bang for your buck for the price per mah.
I also bought some of their Panasonic 3400mah protected batteries. They are awesome but more expensive.
The Samsung 3000mah protected ones I have 2 of. They seem to be a good battery value as well. But I do think Panasonic makes a better battery.
I’ll be getting the grey CGR (unprotecteds) 2900s for my 1X18650 lights.
Recently got these….seems like a good bargain:
I got fasttech’s 3,400 protected panasonics and have no complaints, got rated capacity and protection works! Just a bit more expensive but worth it IMO.
Kumabear from our site can do much better than that. I always get the Keeppower 3400mah protected 18650’s for $12.50ea from him. And my brother always gets the Panasonic 3100mah unprotected 18650’s from him for about $8 if I remember correct. He’s been out of commission (in hospital) for a while, but is back home as of last week and getting batteries out again. We’ve gotten batteries about 5 times from him - great batteries, awesome prices, quick delivery. & great guy to work with.
Can’t beat fasttech I don’t think. Best batteries for the price, and they ship almost anywhere.
Fasttech’s prices are for 2, not 1
Kumabear from our site can do much better than that. I always get the Keeppower 3400mah protected 18650’s for $12.50ea from him. And my brother always gets the Panasonic 3100mah unprotected 18650’s from him for about $8 if I remember correct. He’s been out of commission (in hospital) for a while, but is back home as of last week and getting batteries out again. We’ve gotten batteries about 5 times from him - great batteries, awesome prices, quick delivery. & great guy to work with.
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Are those prices for Panasonic for two or each? The Keeppower are not cheaper at $25 for a pair.
http://www.fasttech.com/products/0/10001980/1141104-panasonic-ncr18650b-protected-rechargeable-3400mah
Jerry
Ok. Yeah that would be a pretty good deal then. I still prefer dealing with a domestic source like Kumabear, but I have had good luck with fasttech too. So they would certainly be a great choice too.
Yeah I have bought from both as well.
I am curious if the Keeppower protection circuits are better then whatever is on the ones sold by fasttech. I know with some other batteries the Keeppower circuits have less voltage loss.
The Keeppower 3400mah protected batteries are AWESOME 18650’s. There output is actually comparable to AW IMR’s. I’ve tested them in many lights vs the IMR’s, panasonics 3100mah unprotected, and Eagletac 2500mah protected. The 3400 protected actually put out about 95+% the output of an IMR AW on a direct drive light. And I’ve seen them even beat the 3100 Panasonic unprotected on many direct drive lights. And they just smoke the eagletacs. Won’t even mention any “fires”.
Now that’s saying something when a quality protected battery with a huge capacity has low enough resistance to beat Panasonic unprotected cells and almost match a AW IMR.
Just checked again. Bob has them for $12.49ea and has the panasonic 3100 unprotected for $6.99. Can’t quite match fasttech on the price, but an awesome deal non the less.
Hey thanks guys for the great comments so far. Yes I have some of the KeepPower 3400mah protected batteries from Bob. They are very good batteries indeed. They do have better protection circuit boards at the bottom which are thicker as well and won’t dimple in like these Panasonics I listed from FastTech will when you put them in a flashlight. But the slight dimple on the pcb’s don’t hurt a thing. They only dimple in so far and is really only a cosmetic issue and doesn’t affect the performance of the battery.
There is no doubt that FastTech has been a true blessing for us who like great batteries at a great price. I haven’t seen anyone yet beat their battery prices. I just hope they keep up the good work they are doing and contintue to offer the super fast shipping.
http://www.fasttech.com/products/1420/10001980/1141104
these
with code blf
i bought 3 pairs so it was even cheaper
I’ve been very pleased with the unprotected samsung 2800mah cells I got from fasttech.
I now have some protected Samsung cells inbound. Looking at hkj’s graphs, they hold above 3.5v for much longer and I wanted to see what effect this seemed to have in my lights.
They should be here next week.
Their also half the price of the Panasonic cells which is nice.
I do love my keeppower 3400mah cells, and when another good deal comes up I’ll be getting more. I also hope to try some enerpower 26650 cells. They seem to kick arse even harder than king kongs
UR18650FM unprotected.
Hi Gords,
Are you charging them to 4.3v or just 4.2v? The Sanyo’s hold a higher voltage you know.
Marc.
I know, but the unprotected cells are 4.2v and the protection circuit tends to cut off at 4.2v rather than 4.3v 
I may dig out my hobby charger or one of my wall wart chargers and try.
Consensus is though, let them charge to 4.2v, enjoy the extended lifetime of the cells from not fully charging. :bigsmile:
Edit - I have samsungs, but I know what you mean :bigsmile:
I believe the Sanyo UR18650FM 2600’s are only 4.2v, not 4.3v. I have a couple of them from Fastech. They are nice. I also got 4 of the NCR18650PD’s 2900mAh. They are a very nice battery. Produced in June of 2012. They go along with my Keepower batteries that I got from Bob.
What about batteries from efest? I know they used to advertise here. Pricing seems very competitive. Here are some examples:
Are sky ray brand batts any good?