Safe Lithium A123 & Emoli 18650 sizes now used in (Elephant) Wide Body Mags

Comparison Performance review here.

You can click on these thumbnails below. Elephant body can fit 4 wide 18650, or 7 wide AA (or 14670) cells.





Then length...from left to right below shows extender tubes that are 120mm, 60mm, 25mm (deep tailcap), 12mm (normal tailcap). Left model can easily fit 3 stacks of 7 AA (21 cells), and if deep tailcap is used on 60mm, you can also fit 3 stacks of 7.

If you bore out the deep tailcap you could fit 3 stacks of 4 x 18650, which if A123 safe high current Li-Ions are used gives some good combinations of 6s2p, 4s3p.

Re: Elephant Battery Combinations

Great info, thanks Lux!

Re: Elephant Battery Combinations

Here are the Black & Decker "VPX" packs that you can get at Walmart, Home Depot, Hardware stores, Amazon for about $18. Easy to pop off top and get two 18650 size A123 safe chemistry 1100mAh high amp output cells. (thumbnail)

Re: Elephant Battery Combinations

how do you charge these cells once you pull them out of the packs?

Re: Elephant Battery Combinations

Well it turns out that the A123 cells are quite resilient to charging abuse, and various methods....but I have a Hyperion 1210i charger that does the A123 3.3V chemistry.

My preference would be to get Emoli which are same 3.7V as normal Li-Ion, but they are not yet easily available like these. I will update this thread when I get the Makita cells to see if they are Konion, Sony, or Emoli brand cells. However, I believe all of them are using the same Nickel-Manganese cathode safe chemistry, which is different from the "Nano Iron-Phosphate" cathode used by Valence's Saphion & A123 brands, which is also safe but has a lower nominal voltage and capacity.

Re: Elephant Battery Combinations

I ordered this pack which has 10 of the 18650 Emoli cells in 2p5s, so that works out to only $6.40/cell. I'll take some photos.

Re: Elephant Battery Combinations

Interesting stuff Lux.

I didn't know those Makita had Emoli cells in them. Are the Emoli the same as any typical Li-Ion chemistry? The performance is very similar from my limited experience with modding my Makita. I found that their voltage drop under load is very similar.

I recently bought couple Dewalt 36V packs for stripping and found those cell to be able to dump their current w/o much of a voltage drop.

I'm now a little concern skimming thru rcgroup 1000+ post and chargin it on my old trusty Triton. What's your charging solution?

Just a note: my Elephant did not require any boring to the body nor the tailcap yet 4x 18650 still fits fine. :shrug:

Re: Elephant Battery Combinations

The PDf for emoli cells is different from the one I found.

These cells have 2400mAh, verses the emoli I found with 1400mah.

The max discharge of these cells is 4A. the Emoli Pdf I read shows a graph of 20A dicharge.

I will send you th PDF.

Re: Elephant Battery Combinations

Actually, the PDF I linked is yet another version of Emoli 2400mAh with a lower discharge rate. The ones in the Makita drill pack are like the Sony "V" model shown here, towards the bottom. Their "VT" model is like the larger 26mm x 65mm Emoli size.

I got confirmation from the guys in this post at RC Groups who have used them...and also it makes sense that Makita has both a 1500mAh 18V pack, and this 3000mAh 18V pack I ordered from Amazon. Because these are 3.6V nominal, 5 of them is the 18V....so the larger pack is just 2p5s. They can be pushed to 12-14A output.

Modamag, yeah the great thing about these is both the higher voltage & mAh (vs. A123), and being able to charge them just like a typical Li-Ion (or LiPo) that we have already been using. These will be unprotected, once removed from the pack, but like the A123, they can be abused on fast charging, and are not in the same category as Lithium Cobalt (i.e. AW's cells) which need to be balanced.

Re: Elephant Battery Combinations

Thanks Lux, some great info here!!


Karl

Re: Elephant Battery Combinations

Great Thread


Now who will check how many layers of 18650 Li-ions will fit with 4 in each layer using the diffrent extensions.

60mm
82mm
120mm




Im guessing the combos and utilities for this light would increase a lot if Lux made Li-ion or emoli Packs for this beast.
Or could describe what will fit and what will not.

Re: Elephant Battery Combinations

Regarding 18650 cells, after measuring and inserting:

• Standard elephant fits 4s1p (normal tailcap)
• With 60mm extension 4s2p (with bored tailcap* either normal or extended on left image)
• With 82mm extension 4s2p (with normal tailcap extrapolated)
• With 120mm extension 4s3p (bored tailcap* either normal or extended on left image)

Note: Normal tailcap actual length including threads is 23.5mm; & Extended is 42.7mm, although when both are screwed in, they are 12mm & 25mm beyond body, respectively)

I have 3 different tailcaps as shown in thumbnail images below. The 2p 60mm & 3p 120mm end up with cells protruding 3-5mm into body threads, so wall of tailcap needs to be bored out as shown in examples, so batteries will fit into it.

Images show the two tailcaps that already have a wider I.D. "lip" with batteries fitting in that 44.4mm lip. Also with my shrink over AW's shrink it is a tight fit into body (removing his silver label helps), and a couple minutes of very slight reaming of I.D. using KD Brake hone gives a nicer fit with my shrink.




Note: These are rough dimensions with my Deluxo Harbor Freight Digital Caliper (I am aware that 44.4mm inside threads + 1.5mm thread wall thickness does not equal 47mm of outside thread measurement oo: )

Re: Elephant Battery Combinations

Sweet :twothumbs


Thanks for taking the time Lux.
It is greatly apriciated.


My project will need 14-16V so definatively 4 cells in series is a go,but will it be possible to make 3 separate packs in series that will connect to eachother in Paralell.
Or would you have to wire them all together to achieve this?

Im not so steady with wiring paralell/series And solutions thereafter


Im probably going with the 2 layers inside the 60mm extension but it would be great to be able to put an extra stack in there for extra long runtimes.

What batteries would give most runtime in such a setup?
AW Li-ions are 2200mAh
A123 18650`s are 1100mAh but can withstand more draw without sagging the voltage...do i have this correct?

What do you think?
:thinking:
Regards,
Benny

Re: Elephant Battery Combinations

Well, personally....I find the best balance of all factors with the Emoli which I will know about when I get my Makita 10 cell pack from Amazon, and my trusty tamperproof #10 Torx wrench to remove their tamperproof screws.

My reasons are based upon:

• 1500 (or 1600mAh) higher capacity than 1100mAh A123 (although, admittedly not as high as AW's Li-Ions)
• Higher 3.6V (charged to 4.1V) with Emoli vs. 3 V (charged to 3.3V) with A123
• $6.50 per cell price from NEW Makita drill pack. (A123 18650 from B&D VPX are $10 & AW's are $12--but have PTC & reputation extra value)
• Proven 10-12Amp output as used for over a year by RC guys (see post above for link). vs. higher Amp output if needed for A123, but 5A limited output for AW's cell.
• Charge with ordinary Li-Ion/LiPo 3.7V charger (vs. A123 ideally should have a 3.3V special charging protocol)
• Ability to do FAST (15 min) charge (more needed by the RC guys)
• Wide tolerance of overcharge (but not over-discharge without PTC).
• No explosive/flames risk with this Nickel/Manganese in cathode.
• Not critical to balance charge (although the packs I made for my own Li-Ions had balance taps going to JST 5 pin connector which fits under tailcap)

As far as 2p, you really need to have cells setup like this, but imagine the middle of diagram is folded over into a quad pack.


(-)====(+)-(-)====(+)-(-)====(+)-(-)====(+)
.|.............|.....|.............|.....|..............|.....|...............|
(-)====(+)-(-)====(+)-(-)====(+)-(-)====(+)
.........................................^
......................................./...\
......................................|....|
................................Folded Back here

(+)-(-) shows connection between 2p1s to next 2p1s
| shows contact strips making 2p1s
.................................... My attempt to make nearly invisible spacing so diagram looks pretty.

Re: Elephant Battery Combinations

Im sorry i asked


My head is spinning right now,there is a reason there is a market for selling battery packs


Thank you so much for trying to reach me,but im afraid i am a lost cause.
Atleast someone else will benefit from the nice drawing you made,which probably took pretty much time :bow:





This is the part i think i got:

Emoli is probably best and cheapest Safest too. Comes in 18650 Size and are 4.1V fully charged.

Over discharging them =Draining to much below a certain Voltage is a no no and will damage battery pack? When do i know when to stop ?

It is possible to make a 2P pack consisting of two separate packs in series.
16.4V w 3200mA.?
And possibly 16.4V w 4800mA by adding another separate unit of batteries.

All which will fit either with the 60mm extension or by adding the 120mm extension to get use of all the Battery holders...

:candle:





Benny

Re: Elephant Battery Combinations

LuxLuthor - I posted this on another thread here where you had mentioned these but not sure if you saw my reply to your post so I want to ask where you found the info that Makita has Emoli's in them as I came across this info that indicates it's Milwaukee that has Emoli's not Makita - quote off one of those RCgroups: "Makita uses the Konion type cells in a 5S2P configuration supposedly only good for about 7C discharge" as opposed to the roughly 15C discharge you can supposedly get from Emoli's. I believe it is the Milwaukee packs that use real Emoli and I was seeing 3000mah rates being stated on them but less cells in a pack I think. I also saw these Li-Fe-PO4 Rechargeable: 18650 Cylindrical Cell 3.2V 1200 mAh, 15C (18A) Drain Rate at batteryspace.com for $6.95 ea. Seems these are close to the VPX A123's but not quite the same as I think the A123's can do up to 30C continuous and 52C burst

Re: Elephant Battery Combinations

matrixshaman, first there is still a fair amount of confusion about new "safe" Lithium Ion batteries. I can see more confusion when looking at this 2005 Emoli pdf which is still using Cobalt, and which has the higher 3.75V/2400mAh nominal that is typical of Lithium Cobalt cathode chemsitry. It has the part number ICR18650, where the "C" is cobalt. THIS IS NOT CONSIDERED THE NEW SAFE LITHIUM ION CHEMISTRY.

The new Nickel-Manganese cathode has part number IMR18650 where "M" is for Manganese. So the pdf link above is the older emoli brand, and is not using the new safe Nickel-Manganese cathode component. I should not have posted that link early in this thread, and just removed it.

Let me try to clarify what I know so far regarding the two broad categories of safe 18650 size Lithium Ion cells.I believe Makita uses the Sony "V" 18650 size cells, which are just like the Emoli safe Ni-Mn cathode material. It appears that the Konion & BionX are also using the Sony "V" (or the larger 26mm x 70mm "VT" model) but are also the same as the safe Emoli cells (note YouTube video).

The Milwaukee drill packs do indeed use Emoli Ni-Mn cells, but are the larger 26mm x 70mm size. Most of the confusion is coming from people confusing different brands of the two main safe chemistry cathode types, and/or confusing different sizes. I do not know if anyone has OBJECTIVELY tested the various MAXIMUM output Amp rates of different brands of Nickel-Manganese Emoli, Sony, Konion, BionX. It is possible that Emoli may output more Amps than Sony, Konion, BionX.

There is no question that the Nano-Iron-Phosphate brands output more Amps than Nickel-Manganese....but at the cost of lower capacity and voltage nominal ratings.

Re: Elephant Battery Combinations

Thanks for that info Lux - there is a lot to keep up on with all the battery technology and it's growing every day. I think we have many good things to look forward to for flashlight power thanks to the driving forces of laptops and electric vehicles.

Re: Elephant Battery Combinations

Here is the accurate pdf IMR-18650E model using the Manganese from Emoli.

This thread at RC Groups is trying to match up tool battery packs with cell types.

This thread indicates that Ryobi One is using actual Emoli IMR18650E cells, but I don't belive that is correct.

Re: Elephant Battery Combinations

LuxLuthor said:

Regarding 18650 cells, after measuring and inserting:

• Standard elephant fits 4s1p (normal tailcap)

... it is a tight fit into body ... reaming using KD Brake hone gives a nicer fit... oo: )

Click to expand...

Lol sorry Lux, but I just had to ask… where exactly do you insert it?


Standard elephant:

Normal tailcap... tight fit into body

… reaming using KD Brake hone gives a nicer fit:

After measuring and inserting:

LOL

[/hijack]