Can I use a battery without charging it first?

I bought a charger from GearBest that was shipped from their CA warehouse on 8/29 using Fedex (free shipping) and is scheduled to arrive on 9/7. I bought a Wizard Pro v3 and a couple NCR18650GA batteries from Illumn - those were shipped from CA on 8/30 using USPS first class mail and are scheduled to arrive on 9/2. Not sure how Fedex is slower than USPS first class mail.

EDIT: Just got an update from Fedex that my package has arrived in my state, but they are pushing the delivery back to 9/9! If it's in my state right now, it should be delivered by tomorrow at the latest. Are they just going to sit on it for a week since I bought the free shipping?

Anyway, I'll have the flashlight and batteries before I'll have the charger. Can I try to use the batteries before I charge them?

delerious said:

I bought a charger from GearBest that was shipped from their CA warehouse on 8/29 using Fedex (free shipping) and is scheduled to arrive on 9/7. I bought a Wizard Pro v3 and a couple NCR18650GA batteries from Illumn - those were shipped from CA on 8/30 using USPS first class mail and are scheduled to arrive on 9/2. Not sure how Fedex is slower than USPS first class mail...

Anyway, I'll have the flashlight and batteries before I'll have the charger. Can I try to use the batteries before I charge them?

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No

New 'NCR18650GA batteries' usually ship at 3.6 volts before they need to be charged. I try to recharge my batteries when they reach under 3.5 volts.

Sure you can, but I wouldn't do it for very long. Just to test out the light would keep it well above the minimum discharge of 2.5v. In general, it's good to recharge well above that. I like to recharge the cells at a minimum of 3.7 personally.

Wizard Pro V3? Out of the package and uncharged you may get about ten minutes of use before the light goes out. 100% charge that GA to 4.2v first.

Just got the charger today. What's the max charging current I can use for these batteries? I thought I read that most batteries can be charged at 1C, which in this case would be 3500mA. But mtnelectronics says the following:

Maximum Charge Current: 1375mA (1000mA recommended)

In ideal world, it wouldn't matter as Lithium-ion is a electromotive battery (depending on the motion of Lithium atoms), be it 0.2 Amp, or 3.5 Amps.

However, in reality, all batteries do have resistance, and it affects how low you can go with charging current without wasting the energy in the first place. 0.4 - 0.5 C, up to 1 C is usually the best for overcoming the internal resistance. If you go with 0.5 C charging of 3.5 Amps / hour battery (about 1,000 mA on the charger setting), it would take a good while, I had to wait for almost four hours to completely charge LG INR18650MJ1 battery in the XTAR VP2 Plus charger in 1 Amp charge mode.

You can use from 1 Amp, up to 3 Amps charging current, if it's what you're asking. As for 0.5 C charging, you would have to be patient, though.

I think it's best to stick with 0.5 C charging, now that I checked the NCR18650GA datasheet.

Dr. Mario said:

I think it's best to stick with 0.5 C charging, now that I checked the NCR18650GA datasheet.

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Is this the datasheet: http://www.nkon.nl/sk/k/ncr18650ga.pdf

It says 1475mA. My charger has a 1500mA setting, so can I use that instead of 1000mA?

delerious said:

Is this the datasheet: http://www.nkon.nl/sk/k/ncr18650ga.pdf

It says 1475mA. My charger has a 1500mA setting, so can I use that instead of 1000mA?

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Yes you can use the 1500ma rate if you require a quicker charge cycle.

You can go ahead and use 1.5 Amps settings, 25mA difference is no big deal.