What's the best 18650 deal now?

[kreisler]

What do you think guys? Is this for real?

They call it "2 x Panasonic TrustFire NCR18650 Rechargeable Battery 2900mAh PCB Protective", so is it Panasonic mimic or genuine TrustFire? :D

If it aint genuine Trustfire it maybe just that..

lol.

[ChangchungLeds]

Good FAKE pic…

BTW do you guys check this?

FastTech 3400mAh 18650 batteries?

What is everyones opinion of the protected 3400mAh 18650s from Fast Tech, they’re $19ish for two. http://www.fasttech.com/products/1420/10001980/1141104-panasonic-ncr18650b-protected-rechargeable-3400mah

[ChangchungLeds]

@vēer

Are those BuyInCoins Sanyos legit?

I buy 10 of them for me and some friends, their performance is just great…

Edit.

That is funny, I just check the voltage in mines sanyo and one of them is just dead, read 0.12v not protected, so, I think that is just dead, I try charging and three of my charger dosent charge it, I put another battery in parallel just to try to increase the voltage, I read 1.80v but the voltmeter dropp very fast, I put it in a old li-ion charger and it is charging now, I supposed… Just wait, I will let you know if exploid… Hahaha

[antonkochubey]

@Pulsar13

First discharge gave 2200mAh @ 1A.
Second discharge gave 2450mAh @1A.

As expected, the capacity is improving per charge. I’d expect this to reach around 2600(4.2V limit) after 2-3 more charges. So far so good, seem to be the real deal. The only con is, this is easily the longest battery I’ve owned, even longer than TF Flame 3000.

How that’s “as expected”? In my experience (and experience of few other people), Li-Ion’s don’t increase capacity with cycling.

…which is somewhat confirmed by 6x Samsung 2800mAh’s I got from FastTech recently, they all did ~2750mAh on first cycle, and obviously with 2nd cycle capacity didn’t changed at all.

[NickBose]

Haven’t been to this and CPF for a while. Now I’m back, getting a Niwalker MM15 soon.
So I’m resurrecting this old thread. Pls give me advice on best deals for mid ranged protected 18650!

[Rod911]

I am in the same boat.

Looking at stocking up on 20*18650 cells. I came to that number after doing an inventory of the lights that I have and the spare cells. I basically want to have spare cells for each individual light that I own.

I have been looking around AliExpress and per mAh, the best deal for protected cells seems to be the good old NCR18650A coming at around $0.0020 per mAh compared to:

- NCR18650B at $0.0025

• NCR18650BE at $0.0021

These cells will be used in lights that are driven at around 3A, so any of these cells are ok. However, I am a bit more inclined to go with the NCR18650BE, but cannot really give any sort of reason except, just because (??).

[Rod911]

Decided to go with 20 cells of NCR18650BE at $0.0020 per mAh. I found a different seller from AliExpress here that did cells a little bit cheaper than the seller where I got the previous comparison numbers.

Looking at my order history, I have ordered from that store way back in 2012 when they did a great deal on NCR18650A. Note that, I still have those NCR18650As to this day and they are still fine.