Batteries: 18650 or 26650? Low or High discharge?

[tursiops]

they are now landfill..

Hey, please don't dispose of your Li batteries in landfill! They should not go in the normal trash.

I like XTAR products and my favorite charger is the VC4. It's the one I take when I travel

I carry the XTAR VC2 Plus; small, high and low charging rates, cool display, and holds the 32650 battery for my PV32.
http://www.xtardirect.com/products/vc2-plus-master-charger?variant=6460470337

 

[StefinSB]

Another plug for mountain electronics. I found these LG cells awesome for flashlights: http://www.mtnelectronics.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=59_88&product_id=191

I would avoid surefire, trustfire, etc. batteries for anything where you depend on your light working.

 

[Hatul]

Hey, please don't dispose of your Li batteries in landfill! They should not go in the normal trash.


I carry the XTAR VC2 Plus; small, high and low charging rates, cool display, and holds the 32650 battery for my PV32.
http://www.xtardirect.com/products/vc2-plus-master-charger?variant=6460470337

Another neat charger is the XTAR VP2. This one has two channels and charges up to 18650 batteries (not the bigger ones). It only does Li cells (not NiMH like the VC chargers). It displays the voltage of the cell in a digital display and allows charging at three rates, set manually.
http://www.xtardirect.com/products/xtar-vp2-charger?variant=559464345

 

[Zeagle Eagle]

I charge my 18650's with NITECORE D4 Digi charger it charges 18650 14500 18350 16340 Li-ion & Ni-MH. The charger was $23 bucks on eBay. It's small enough to fit in my suitcase.

 

[muzikbiz22]

Nitecore D2 does my 18650's, Eneloop AA & AAA,and NiMH C's.

 

[Zeagle Eagle]

The NiteCore D2 charges 2 batteries at a time and the D4 charges 4.

 

[KeithG]

I found a cheap source of 18650 batteries...from my laptop!

I have a few year old acer laptop whose battery pack was still functional, but only lasted 1 1/2 hours instead of the 4 hours when it was new. So i bought a new battery pack for $50.

I cracked open my old battery pack and found 6 18650 batteries. New 18650 batteries are about $11 cdn plus shipping. So next time i need new batteries i will simply buy a laptop batter pack.


Curious, i ripped the pack apart (batteries where spot welded together via thin metal strips), cleaned off the sticky tape and charged the batteries. All 6 batteries ran for more than 1 hour on high in my hog edge morph. i now have lots of spare 18650s for my dive lights.

they are crg18650 batteries.

A battery update after the last dive trip. The scavenged batteries from the laptop power supply worked totally fine.

Prior to the trip I had purchased an elcheapo china dive light (bad eBay habit). Several weeks before the trip I loaded one of the scavenged batteries into the elcheapo light to test it out. All worked well. A few days before the trip, the light did not work. The battery was dead. Seems the crappy light still drew current when it was turned off. WTF? My other lights did not do this, they had a shelf life of many (6+) months with a battery installed.

I was prepared to toss the battery as it had obviously been discharged to death. Nope - popped it into the charger and several hours later the battery was good to go. I also left one of the scavenged batteries in my charger over the weekend. It still works fine.

So far I have not experienced any reason not to use the scavenged batteries from a laptop power supply.

P.S. on the other hand, the elcheapo china light will never go underwater with me again. It cut out several times when the maximum power setting was applied. Worked fine after removing and re-installing the same battery. Just not something I can do underwater...

 

[TT_Vert]

I like XTAR products and my favorite charger is the VC4. It's the one I take when I travel.

VC4 Charger

Quick question on this if you don't mind. If your input from wall is only a 2.1A charger then if you are charging 4 batteries you are charging at 500mA correct?

 

[KeithG]

A battery update after the last dive trip. The scavenged batteries from the laptop power supply worked totally fine.

Prior to the trip I had purchased an elcheapo china dive light (bad eBay habit). Several weeks before the trip I loaded one of the scavenged batteries into the elcheapo light to test it out. All worked well. A few days before the trip, the light did not work. The battery was dead. Seems the crappy light still drew current when it was turned off. WTF? My other lights did not do this, they had a shelf life of many (6+) months with a battery installed.

I was prepared to toss the battery as it had obviously been discharged to death. Nope - popped it into the charger and several hours later the battery was good to go. I also left one of the scavenged batteries in my charger over the weekend. It still works fine.

So far I have not experienced any reason not to use the scavenged batteries from a laptop power supply.

P.S. on the other hand, the elcheapo china light will never go underwater with me again. It cut out several times when the maximum power setting was applied. Worked fine after removing and re-installing the same battery. Just not something I can do underwater...

And another update. Heading out on a dive trip and all of my scavenged 18650 batteries are holding up well. The batteries left in my Hog lights are still at full enough charge according to my charger. The batteries left in my backup ScubaLamp lights work fine but the charger needed about 30 minutes to top them up.

 

[The Chairman]

Look what I found:

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B01M7170PB/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1​

It holds 4 18650 batteries and is a smart charger for your phone or even to charge the batteries inside.