Test / Review: Sanyo 18650 2600mAh (Red)

Batteries and Chargers Rechargeable Batteries
1

Sanyo 18650 2600mAh (Red)



Official specifications:

  • Sanyo brand you can trust
  • Rechargebale 18650 battery
  • Extra big area flat conduction system design
  • Unprotected




This is an unprotected cell, it is also used in many 2600mAh protected batteries with a added protection circuit.










Comparing it to protected version, the largest difference is output voltage with 5A load, without protection the voltage is slightly higher. For actual values use my comparator.













There is two set of curves in the above chart and they do track very well.


Conclusion

There is not much to say about this cell, it is a very good cell, just remember that it is unprotected.



Notes and links

How is the test done and how to read the charts
How is a protected LiIon battery constructed
More about button top and flat top batteries

2

Thank you for the review, have been waiting for that. :)

3

Thanks for the many reviews!!

I dont understand the many charts and graphs but that doesnt matter to me!

4

Thanks,
so the 2,6 Sanyo is only 2,4, hmmm, could be an old stock?
btw What makes that bump toward the end at 0.1 & 0.5A?

5

As always thanks for a great review.

I’ve been looking at your comparator and to me this looks to be one of the best cells out there. High voltage under load, good capacity and good price on the protected ones. I like it.

6

I do not believe that it is old stock, all the Sanyo 2600 I have tested have about the same capacity.

It might be related to the way I charge, i.e. stop charging at 100mA current (But I do not know it).

I would expect that it has something to do with the LiIon chemistry, it is present on nearly all the LiIon batteries I have tested. You can use the comparator to do a quick check on many different batteries.

7

Remember that the protected version will have lower voltage under load, as you easily can see in the comparator.

Another way to get high voltage under load is a LG 3000mAh cell, but they you have to get a special 4.35 volt charger.

8

That’s a pretty poor result for Sanyo UR18650FM. I measured 2510mAh @10A

9

Thanks very much HKJ! Frontpage’d and Sticky’d.

10

Really? 10A?

11

That’s true, I forgot to mention that I mainly compared it to the offerings from Panasonic, the 2900 and 3100 cells. When comparing these cells, in protected versions, to each others I find the Sanyo cells to impress me the most.
But that might be due to the fact that I’m an incan guy at heart and love high voltage.

12

It gets really hot, unlike UR18650W2

13

Thanks for another good review.

14

These batteries are indeed excellent and give my torches their brightest glow.

15

HKJ, using a hobby charger, charging these at 2.6A, 1) I get in the range of 2350mAh and 2) the cells voltage immediately drops to around 4.11V when charging stops. I’m using a 106B+ ICharger and ambient temperature is around 30 deg C. I’ve measured internal resistance of between 89 and 91mili ohms.
3) If I continue recharging at 500mA instead of 2.6A, another >200mAh of energy is put into the cell and measured voltage is around 4.17V.
4) Of the two cells I have, when discharged down to 3.00V, one stays in the range of 3.06V while the other quickly bounces back up to around 3.2V when discharged at the same current.

Are these characteristics typical for good 18650 cells?

16

This is exactly as expected. A hobby charger uses 1/10 the charge current as termination current, when charging with 2.6A you have a termination current of 0.26A and when using 0.5A the termination current is 0.05A

I have done a few test with different termination currents.

The battery is supposed to bounce up when the load is removed, how much depends on the load current and the chemistry. I do not like the 3.06 volt bounce.

I am doing some test at the current time and will probably publish something within a week or two.

17

New place for date codes on UR18650FM? :~
“(click for bigger picture)”:http://shrani.si/f/2c/10P/XDtd1un/dsc00454.jpg

“Old” and new cells are from Fasttech. On old you can clearly see date code “Q42A”, on new nothing.

But on new cells you have “R08C” next to cell name. On old(and all other UR18650FM I have) there is “R1122”
So is “R08C” date code?

18

In 2013 I got 8 pieces of these generic protected 2600 FMs for my Skyray Kings. Yesterday I put one set of four pieces in my brand new Thrunite Mini TN30 with 4S battery configuration. They were fully charged when I went for an hour and a half walk. The next day, I checked the voltage of the cells to see what kind of deviation I have with these four year old cells with about 50 charge/discharge cycles. All four cells had the exact same value of 3.802 Volt. It’s so unrealistic cool… This gave me so much confidence in Sanyo. :slight_smile:

(I’m waiting for my Enerpower 3500 GAs to arrive for my Mini TN30)