4000mah?

OldNick

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Sep 3, 2006
Messages
130
Location
Western Australia
Can we actually buy cheap 18650's that even _approach_ 4000mAH?

I recently bought some "4000 mAH" 18650 cells. They were on the fleabay price scale. When one died quite fast I did a discharge to 3V /charge to full cycle on my smart charger and found that the charge cycle stopped at 1450 mAH.

I emailed the vendor who swore that they were 4000 mAH and the manufacturer had tested them.

My take is that 4000 mAH cells (2500 claims are more real) are ATM the realm of high-price-leading edge stuff and that this is BS.

I am sick of this new "global culture" where stuff is not stretched, but then re-stretched to complete to TOTAL BS.

It may cost us 20-30%...but....trust?
 

ven

Flashaholic
Joined
Oct 17, 2013
Messages
22,533
Location
Manchester UK
Tbh Nick, these days decent cells are pretty cheap(or are compared to what they were a few years back). Of course where you live can make the cost jump some. There are no 4000mah 18650 cells, and would think very unlikely ever to be(thanks to 21700 etc cells coming onto the market). Max is around 3500mah(actually measure closer to 3300mah) with the sanyo GA 3500 10a cells. I have seen the odd 3600mah, but not sure the exact measured mah. The Sony vtc6 and 30Q are 3000 mah which come close, but suffer less sag under higher loads.

Stick with known manufacturers, Sony, Samsung,Sanyo,LG and Panasonic. Some of these are wrapped by Fenix, nitecore, KeepPower etc etc etc. So a trusted seller is key to finding good quality (real) cells out there.
 

DIWdiver

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Jan 27, 2010
Messages
2,725
Location
Connecticut, USA
Guess what?

People LIE!

Can you imagine it? Someone actually tells you, swears on a bible, puts it in writing, on a WEB SITE!, says he has test results backing up his claims, and you find out the hard way it isn't true.

People will sell you swamp land, snake oil, the Brooklyn Bridge, and 4000 mAh 186540s, or even 9000 mAh 18650s (yes, these are actually advertised).

It's not really clear who first said "there's a sucker born every minute", but nobody even thinks about the second half of that sentence, "and there's someone waiting to take advantage of every one of them."

Major corporations don't get to be major corporations by lying to people. They get there by delivering what they promise. When LG makes a cell and publishes specs, you can trust that. If LG started lying about specs, they would quickly fall from graces and become a laughable brand. Same goes for Sanyo, Sony, Panasonic, etc. But xxFire? (substitute anything you want for "xx"). Do they have a reputation to protect? No! They have a reputation to hide from.

Being an educated consumer means knowing which brands to trust and which ones to doubt. If you buy without knowing, you run a risk of being taken advantage of. If you buy based on price or specs without knowing, you are almost certainly going to be taken advantage of.

BTW, from respected brands, the current max is 3600 mAh for an 18650. ven suggests that this might be optimistic, that 3000- 3300 might be more realistic. I think it's likely that 3600 is available under ideal conditions, while 3000 - 3300 might be more likely under real usage. Of course, this is with a new battery. Capacity decreases with age.
 

HKJ

Flashaholic
Joined
Mar 26, 2008
Messages
9,715
Location
Copenhagen, Denmark
An easy way to check many batteries is my table: https://lygte-info.dk/info/batteryIndex.html
Find the battery at check the mAh at 3A , if it is more than 10% below rated value, something is probably wrong (For small batteries use the value at 0.2A).

More advanced users can sort and filter in the table to find the best batteries for their application.
 

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