Best 18650 these days?

[Chicken Drumstick]

Let's see now, you're in a situation that requires light.

It's 3am and as dark as the Ace of Spades.

That situation might even be what some folks would consider critical.

You have a choice, a light that will start to dim, giving you warning that it's going out, so you can make sure you're not without any light, or you can have a light that just goes dark, with little/no warning.

Which would you choose?

Well I'd go for non protected cells for exactly that reason. The light won't just cut out on you unless the driver itself has low voltage protection built in. Ok, worse case you might over discharge battery, which means you need to either be very careful when you recharge it or it costs you a battery. But At £7/$7 a battery it isn't a big cost.

 

[Chicken Drumstick]

Also, I make no claims to being an expert on rechargeable batteries, but I have always understood that unprotected batteries are at increased risk of over charging/discharging.

My understanding has been that protected rechargeable batteries offer me an extra bit of protection, which I am happy to have.

I may be mistaken, but these are my simple understandings.

Not so much on charging. As that would be down to the charger to stop charing at the right voltage. I don't know of any protection circuits that would stop over charging. But you'd have to either being using the wrong charger or a faulty one.

Most protection circuits prevent over discharging. But they do so by acting like a trip switch. They will cut all power, turning the torch off. And the only way to reset would be to put them in a charger.

I did a runtime test recently with a Jetbeam light and supplied 18350 Jetbeam battery. Jetbeam claimed 55 min runtime, but the battery protection circuit cut power at 35mins. Turning the light off. Once I had reset the protection circuit the battery was reading 3.15v. Under load it would have been lower voltage.

Had it been a non protected battery the light would have stayed on a lot longer and you could have run the battery down to a static/resting voltage of 2.5-2.7v. Again voltage would be lower under load, but unless the torch has a boost driver, the reality is, the light would have just dimmed and the load of the battery would have significantly reduced.

But I can see why people like the idea of protected batteries. But it isn't 100% clean cut on the pros/cons. All IMO.

 

[RWT1405]

Well I'd go for non protected cells for exactly that reason. The light won't just cut out on you unless the driver itself has low voltage protection built in. Ok, worse case you might over discharge battery, which means you need to either be very careful when you recharge it or it costs you a battery. But At £7/$7 a battery it isn't a big cost.

Glad we could find agreement.

BTW, I've recently watched a few of your video reviews and I really enjoyed them.