Interesting, thanks
I have been considering buying a couple from Illumn, especially since it says 1000 cycles instead of the 500 (iirc) of the 50L version.
I tend to not push cells much past 10A so if this can handle that no problem i’m good to go, and i like the high 5000mAh capacity.
Now i just need to find the cash to make the order, shipping to Canada is more than the batteries.
Shipping has become the number one block for our hobby. All this technology so “readily” available… but what is one willing to pay to get it?!
Just ordered from DigiKey, simple little $22 order… shipping was another $11! That essentially makes a $1.54 premium FET a $2.54 item. Crazy stuff.
Indeed, last time i checked it was something like $25 USD for shipping. $10 per battery is good but costs a lot to get it.
I have ordered parts from Cutter in Australia at that kind of shipping expense. Always divided the shipping by the number of pieces and tacked that on to see if it was worth it to me. If enough pieces spread the burden it can be. But some places today keep doubling the shipping for added items, killing any value of buying multiples.
A good example of this happened to me recently trying to buy X6 hosts ( sold in pairs at $22), they wanted to add each set of hosts shipping to exponentially raise the price! I bought one pair instead of the 5 pair I wanted. They lose money by gouging the shipping. Could easily package 10 small hosts in a single bundle and charge a simple shipping price, but noooooo… I priced 4 pairs, 8 X6 hosts, at $27 shipping. $11 each turns into $20 like that! And still need drivers and emitters that someone else will try to gouge shipping on.
Probably still worth it to me, but not going to pay like that on principle alone.
Yes but it would be a lot of links. Market research.
They obviously didn’t release a statement saying “we are transitioning to low cost, high capacity EV cells”. It’s just apparent if you know a little bit about the industry and look at recent decisions and investments made by Samsung SDI and statements they have released.
Here’s a few of them. Draw your own conclusions.
Samsung inked a 10 year, $33 billion contract with Posco Chemical to supply high nickel (over 91% nickel) cathodes, and high silicon anodes. Samsung plans to increase nickel content to 94% in coming years. Previously the highest nickel cathodes were 88%. This is a huge cost savings compared to cobalt and manganese, and higher capacity, but lower safety and so lower power output. Silicon can create higher capacity than is physically possible with graphite, but has problems with swelling and cycle life they are hoping to be able to minimize.
They are following CATL’s lead of making prismatic EV batteries through the stacking method vs the traditional winding. This maximizes energy density in a small package. The downside traditionally has been slower production due to the need for a seperate notching line, and high initial investment. Samsung has made these investments and has integrated stacking and notching into one line for increased efficiency. They are also working on dry electrolytes so they can skip the solvent drying phase of production in the hope of speeding up the process and putting more cells out faster.
Samsung has agreed to a partnership (just this week actually) with GM to build a $3.8 billion plant in the US that will be exclusively supplying batteries for GM’s EVs.
They’re also breaking ground later this year on a new $2.5 billion plant in Kokomo, Indiana, in partnership with the Dutch automaker Stellanis, on another new battery plant to initially produce 23 gigawatt hours of prismatic cells a year, hoping to ramp up to 33gwh shortly after. Again, exclusively for the EV market.
They are also producing Tesla’s huge 4680(46800) cells and also will release a 46900 and 461200(is that the right way to list a cell that’s 120mm long? No idea), again exclusively for the EV market.
They’re also building a second battery plant in Malaysia, a $1.3 billion factory for mass production of their “PRiMX” line of 21700’s. I don’t believe details are clear on the specs of these “PRiMX” 21700 cells yet, which are currently being manufactured and tested in China, but it’s somewhat of a red flag that Samsung refuses to put the Samsung name on these 21700s and decided to create the PRiMX label for them instead.
They are also partnering with BMW (their single biggest customer) to add a 3rd $1.5 billion EV battery plant in Göd, Hungary, on top of the two EV battery plants they already have in the city, with the 3rd plant to produce cells exclusively for BMW.
In the 15 years Samsung has been making lithium ion batteries they claim they’ve made 7 billion cells, of all types, total. They’re currently making >1 billion a year and all the plants mentioned above aren’t even open yet. Their strategy has always been quality over quantity, refusing to compromise on price. And in that time they went from the biggest manufacturer to barely making the top 10, losing market share to companies with 1/10th the resources and 1/1000th the industry experience just because they could supply EVs faster and cheaper. With that strategy starting to look like maybe not the best one for the long term they appear to be making some changes lately.
Neat!
I don’t generally use many amps, but I definitely appreciate high energy capacity and a long life span (in cycles and/or years). It’s cool being able to buy a battery and then have it just keep working for literally decades. I have a bunch 10+ years old which still work great, and the tech has only gotten better since then.
Plus, LEDs last a virtually unlimited amount of time when used in a torch at moderate power levels. So I wouldn’t be surprised if my favorite EDC light still works fine in 40 years, perhaps even with the same battery.
I’m still waiting to see if those lithium-wood cells ever make it to the market though. Supposedly, they can hold like 7X as much energy as li-ion, meaning we could have 14500 or 18350 cells with ~7000 mAh, or 18650 cells with ~20,000 mAh. Imagine having a small light, like the SP10 Pro or similar, which can last twice as long as today’s 18650 lights.
And lights can still feasibly get up to about 2X the efficiency of what we’re using today, so double the runtime again by using more efficient LEDs and drivers. In another decade or two, we might have lights which last as much as 15X longer per charge, compared to what people use today.
Check the listing again. Free shipping now.
ROFLMAO!
I have 2 hosts en-route with the pretty high shipping.
Not sure if someone has linked to Mooch’s battery test report for the LG M50LT here:
Based on his report, it’s a very good performing cell, below are excerpts quoted from his report:
“This cell outperforms both the Samsung 50S and BAK N21700CG-50 at 5A. At 10A the Samsung 50S beats this cell by a few percent but the M50LT still performs a touch better than N21700CG-50. This makes the LG M50LT one of the best performing 21700’s we can buy. I have not tested its cycle life yet though.”
"So while you can run this cell at 14.4A if at room temp or cooler I recommend staying at 10A or lower to help improve performance (reduce voltage sag), extend cell life, and reduce the risk of the cell getting too warm.
The top contact of this cell is recessed more than most cells so these cells cannot be directly stacked in a vaping device. The top contact metal is also thinner than most cells and the “legs” coming down from it are narrow so I recommend not using this cell where there is a lot of pressure on the top contact.
The two cells I tested delivered 4843mAh and 4850mAh. This is fantastic consistency and is typical of cells from the big manufacturers. The cells I tested didn’t meet LG’s 4923mAh typical capacity rating but they were over the 4770mAh minimum rating."
Well, that is just confusing. The cell I pictured does over 25A to an SFH55. I haven’t done extensive testing with it but I wasn’t seeing immediate massive drops any more than the 40T was, in fact for the first 30-60 seconds I tested (didn’t go much more than that really) each cell held output fairly well considering the enormity involved.
Damn, i need to buy some.
me: googling lithium wood cell
1th results
Source: The promise of batteries that come from trees (2023-01-04)
There are a lot of promising developments in battery tech lately, like over the past ~8 years or so. That’s just one example.
Some focus on the internal structure of the materials… like instead of using sheets or coils of material, some researchers used something more like gunpowder or a 3D checkerboard structure. This didn’t increase the energy density, but it dramatically increased the amount of Amps when charging or discharging. Like, instead of a 20A cell being considered high-power, these things could handle more like 2000A. And they could be charged very quickly too, like within minutes, without the usual detrimental effects that has on cell life.
But I don’t personally have much need for higher Amps. I’m more interested in higher energy density and longer cell life in years.
So some other researchers have been developing cells based on wood. These had about 7X as much energy density as today’s li-ion cells, so instead of a 3,000 mAh cell, the same physical size could be 21,000 mAh. But the early research also found that it could only be recharged a few times. So, last I heard, they were working on increasing that. I think they got it up to about 200 charge cycles, but that was several years ago.
Anyway, a typical 18650 cell contains about as much energy as a single potato chip*. Each holds roughly 10 calories (kcal). But perhaps sometime, maybe even this decade, we might see 18650 cells which are worth 7 potato chips. 
* Note: Don’t eat batteries. Spicy doesn’t always mean delicious.
Thats the thing, there has been a lot more battery research in the last 15 years than there was for decades. There are promising leads almost every other week, i used to follow MIT technology review and read about some of them.
But most never make it out of the lab, few even make it to the prototype stage.
Raises hand. 
Me. I’m interested in 2000 Amps.
Please don’t make em Habanero Orange!
