I wanted to buy some 16650 batteries and asked the seller if this really has the capacity of 2500mah. He told me to achieve that, I need a charger that can charger at 4.35v.
How do I know if a battery can be charged at 4.20v or 4.35v?
Are they protected cells, or naked cells without a protection circuit/PCBs?
Apparently, while PCBs can be configured to stop charging at 4.35v, many are set for the more typical 4.20v level, since that's what most of the li-ions we use charge up to.
Charging up a 16650 2500mAh 4.35v cell with a protection circuit set to 4.20v, means the cell won't be filled up, resulting in a loss of capacity 100mAh to 200mAh. Not a big deal for many of us.
I have a pair of Redilast labeled Sanyo v.1 16650s with PCBs and while they're a 2000mAh-2100mAh 4.30v cell, I can only charge them up to roughly 4.20v. No real bother.
Put another way, if you're buying protected cells, generally don't worry about charging them up to 4.35v, but if they're naked, then you need a 4.35v (3.8v nominal) charger, like my Xtar VP2 and Liitokala Lii 100s and 202s.
Chris