18650 Fake Li-Ion Cells

[justanothercanuck]

I can't trust a battery with the word "fire" in the brand name.  I've heard of problems with TrustFire and UltraFire in the E-cig community.  If you want a good 18650, go with AW brand IMR's or possibly look for Sanyo/Panasonic MNKE's.

[dexters_lab]

I have some other ultrafire on their way, these just your normal blue shrinkwrapped and unprotected cells so we will see what they are like.

I also have some cells that are supposed to be panasonic cells that should be a minimum of 3200mah

Will test them when they arrive

[nukie]

Problem with these cheap cells is that they perform well when new but degrade quickly due to the containment from foreign matters in the metals. I bought many Chinese cells, some are pretty good, mostly quite bad. Avoid LiFEPO4 at all cost even if the reviews are great. The best 18650 LiFePO4 is A123 or cells from K2 Energy.

[BravoV]

When it comes to 18650 cell, the only safe bet is on Panasonic cell or 2nd best is Samsung cell, only genuine one of course. Also currently there are a lot of Panasonic cells now are came with protection circuitry installed by 3rd parties, abit pricier, but it performs pretty good imo.

[microbug]

Orbtronic seem to have a decent reputation and do genuine Panasonic (& other brands) Li-Ion cells. They offer some with protection installed.
I don't know how true it is, but I heard that Ultrafire, Trustfire etc. are often made from recovered laptop cells. You can sometimes see this when the bare cell has sanded off spots - these are where the cell was spot welded to other cells in the pack. The other thing often reported is a tiny Li-Poly cell inside an 18650 case with a lot of dubious filler (white powder) surrounding it. Either way they are very dangerous. The issue is you can't trust the manufacturing - the cells could be internally damaged. I wouldn't be surprised if they explode during charging. I regularly see other people on forums mention that they use *fire brand batteries, and it bugs me.

[dexters_lab]

Have just taken delivery of two xtar batteries, they are protected and apparently panasonic cells. I need up update my test rig to test my cells properly before i can confirm they are good.

[tom66]

Apparently Tesla (car company) are getting 18650 cells, 3.6V/3.1Ah from Panasonic at around $3~4 each. But they are extremely bare bones, unprotected, etc. Wonder if Panasonic would sell those bare cells to anyone not putting them in a pack.

[nukie]

They are also not making them quick enough causing a spike in demand forcing many power tools companies to Samsung cells which is as good.

[amyk]

Apparently Tesla (car company) are getting 18650 cells, 3.6V/3.1Ah from Panasonic at around $3~4 each. But they are extremely bare bones, unprotected, etc. Wonder if Panasonic would sell those bare cells to anyone not putting them in a pack.

Officially they don't, but the fact that you can buy them, presumably genuine, suggests otherwise... (or some no-name company has been producing some incredibly good fakes, which is just as well.)

[BravoV]

Genuine Panasonic or Samsung cells are available in retail where the "refreshing" laptop's battery pack is huge business like my place here, and the highest capacity 18650 Panasonic 3.4AH cell (NCR18650B) is available for sale in retail market about $14/pcs. 

[Neilm]

Apparently Tesla (car company) are getting 18650 cells, 3.6V/3.1Ah from Panasonic at around $3~4 each. But they are extremely bare bones, unprotected, etc. Wonder if Panasonic would sell those bare cells to anyone not putting them in a pack.

If Tesla are making the pack themselves and have the accreditation then there would be no issue. The cells will have there own internal protection but don't need to have anything else. However, they will only supply to accredited pack assemblers.

[poorchava]

You cant get legitimate Li-Ion cells from amazon or ebay. Full stop. No "my friend this or that" or "but herp-derp fire" they are all grey-market.  I tried to get bare cells from a distributor and they absolutely will not sell to non-licensed pack makers, even calling representing a US Army organization. The only way to get prime-spec  lg/sanyo/etc cells it to tear apart battery packs from the OEM (NOT ebay/amazon/3rd party vendors that list it as "compatible" or "equivalent".  I wanted some 2900mAh cells for a flashlight battery pack. I found a 6-cell 65 watt-hour net-book battery pack from toshibadirect on sale, and cracked it open. Inside were 6 nice sanyo 2900mAH cells, just like I wanted.

You absolutely get what you pay for, so if you buy a $20 laptop battery pack, its going to have 6 $3 cells and its going to be shit, no surprise there.  The only consumer marketed cells Ive seen that have been legit were 'AW' brand if you buy directly from AW.   They are highly pirated though on ebay. So no safe bets there.

I will be buying these shortly: [url]http://www.bto.pl/B2CProdukt.aspx?id_artykulu=42324]http://www.bto.pl/B2CProdukt.aspx?id_artykulu=42324] [url]http://www.bto.pl/B2CProdukt.aspx?id_artykulu=42324[/url] (actually these, which include PCM http://www.bto.pl/B2CProdukt.aspx?id_artykulu=43537.

I'm gonna check whether they are genuine. The price is 45 PLN apiece for bare cell, which is about 11€. Does that seem real?

Update: I received the batteries. They are not manufactured by BTO.pl but by an OEM company KeepPower. Despite the crappy name and the company being chinese, those batteries are legit. I have tested those and they pumped out 3200mAh until the UVLO kicked in. People in this forum http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?341580-Test-Review-of-Keeppower-18650-3400mAh-(Black) also made a review and results are consistent. Cell inside is Panasinic NCR18650 and protection IC is supposedly made by Sanyo.


Curiosity: recently I found several mentions about Panasonic releasing the NCR18650G cell, which has rated capacity of 3600mAh, which is another industry record for the 18650 form factor.