Li-Ion batteries for Australian CPF members

I would like to pool our information about getting Li-Ion batteries to the Australian members on here.

Since the days of AW cells being available by post to AU without any problems, (a long time ago) today is another story and I believe its been like this for a while.

I have done a little research and found out from my local Post Office that we can not send any of these by air to overseas, these would be returned.

I have ordered some from a US dealer and whilst the order went through without any questions, I am yet to see if these will arrive.

Some of the Asian dealers based in China show on their order page that "can not be shipped to this location", being Australia.

In the meantime, another US dealer replied in a more detailed manner the situation; see below

"We can to ship to your country, but since lithium batteries are fully regulated dangerous goods, they have to be treated specially when shipped by air.
From a cost perspective, it generally does not make sense to ship less than an order of a few hundred batteries. Generally it does not make sense with quantities of less than at least 300-500 batteries.
If you're looking for that quantity, please let us know how many batteries you are looking to order, of what size, and your full address - and we can confirm whether we can ship to your specific location.
If you're not looking for that many, if you can find a freight forwarder in the USA that will ship to you then you can feel free to place the order with them as a ship to address.
Otherwise, thanks for your interest and good luck finding your batteries."

So the only option we have is to buy local, this means little choice and a high price.

Lets see if we can collect any information on how best to get our hands on the Li-Ions of our choice and at a reasonable price, without buying a box full.

Over to you......

Ebay and vape stores have been my primary sources, a couple of lights bought o'seas shipped here
with batteries in torch have been fine.
You cant always get premier brands but i have plenty of keepower, sony, samsung, vapcell etc in all sizes from
14500 and up to 26650.

An update on purchasing these batteries,

So far I have found two web dealers, both in the US, that ship to Australia without any drama.....simply place your order and then wait.

One is 18650batterystore.com and the other is Illumn.com. Ordered from both and now waiting for delivery.

Keen to know how your illumn order goes. I have been after the Keeppower 14500 1000mAhs, but can't find any local stockist.

The AU based torch stock the 800mAh and 840mAh at the Australian prices (high). I've bought 18650s and other 14500s from ebay as well since my goto Fasttech/Banggood/Gearbest all stopped shipping Li-ion cells to Australia.

On Illumn I did a test order, and shipping for 4 cells is USD$17.90 while shipping for 8 cells is USD$28. So I might wait to see if anyone else I know needs some as well.

I was impressed with my first order from supersports600 on eBay:

• 2x GA 18650
• 2x 30Q 18650

The cells arrived in hard plastic cases surrounded by foam and cardboard boxes. They also threw in some purple silicone sleeves for free!

I was less impressed with my second order:

• 2x IMR 18350

The cells were placed loose in a padded envelope with the hard plastic case opened up and pressed flat to reduce the thickness. This seems like a recipe for disaster if Australia Post accidentally crush the envelope...

So today I have received my order from Illumn which was for 6x KeepPower protected 18500 2000mAh cells.

These are for my 2x18500 FM 1794 E Turbo head C tail light.

The order was placed on the 20 June, sent on the 22 June and arrived on 8 July.

They were packaged very well in plastic containers (similar to the ones in TimMc's picture above)
and then in special cardboard boxes each box holding two batteries. Very well done I thought.
No wonder that the postage seems quite high but overall still cheaper than in AU.

I am impressed with the product, service and acceptable delivery time.

I get my Aussie li-ions from supersports600 on eBay. He has a great reputation and is also involved with Keeppower's protection circuit designs.

stephenk said:

I get my Aussie li-ions from supersports600 on eBay. He has a great reputation and is also involved with Keeppower's protection circuit designs.

Click to expand...

I actually ended up getting my Keeppower 14500 1000mAhs from supersport600 just last week as well. Didn't know about his involvement in the protection circuit designs. Have previously bought my 18650s from him, so was glad when he started stocking the 14500 1000mAhs.

Getting them from Illum the shipping wasn't cost effective.

There's a place called Lanplus in Melbourne (West Heidelberg) that stocks a few formats of Li-ions. They have a T-Power branded 14500 1000mAh but only in flattop. When our lockdown is over, I have to pickup some 18650s so might try them out.

stephenk said:

I get my Aussie li-ions from supersports600 on eBay. He has a great reputation and is also involved with Keeppower's protection circuit designs.

Click to expand...

I must agree with you on the 18650 protected cells from supersports600. I ended getting the Blazar Protected Panasonic Sanyo NCR18650 GA 3500mAh Lithium Batteries with raised button top, these are about the same length (67mm) as the old AW 18650 cells from long time ago when everything was made to these specs. They are only a fraction wider than the AW's but still fit all my old lights.......yes quite costly but worth it if you have older lights that take these cells in line in 2x18650 or 3x18650 formats.

I know from Cernobila that the supersports600 protected batteries are capable of powering up the WA1185 in ONE click - will the Keeppower 3500mAh / 10A cells have the SAME protection circuit built-in??

stephenk said:

I get my Aussie li-ions from supersports600 on eBay. He has a great reputation and is also involved with Keeppower's protection circuit designs.

Click to expand...