Recommended 18650 battery brands?

I just watched the video on repairing Jornada batteries and it looks fairly easy: just 2 18650 cells. I'm almost inspired but searching eBay/Amazon for 18650 cells...well, that uninspired me. Pretty much everything looks a little bit... dodgy. All wacky brand names and funny letters, all of which I've never heard of.

Any recommended 18650 brands from people who have done this?

I recently bought some LG model INR18650 MJ1 of 3,500 mA and according to the tests they do what they say.

Spanish website for more data and features:

https://www.reguerobaterias.es/p90040561_bateria-lg-18650-mj1-3-6-v-3500-mah.html#leermas

I just went through this recently with the rebuild for my MP900c.

On a recommendation, I used these: .

They seem to be working well.

These are the batteries I used in my video on battery replacement.
https://www.fogstar.co.uk

If you register with the site they usually offer 15% off on a Friday

Hey fantablium- great video btw! I watched it several times. I had checked that website out based on your video but for those of us outside the UK it seems to be a non-starter.

There are lots of junk, overspeced, and repackaged used batteries. So I think you should be looking for top-brands from a reliable industry seller (e.g. NOT ebay or Amazon). From both a safety and a performance perspective.

The flashlight forums have some views on 18650 battery brands, although the HPC use case may favour different models. I've been out of the battery enloop so don't have any particular recommendations. This might get you started:

https://www.candlepowerforums.com/threads/best-18650-these-days.481009/
https://lygte-info.dk/info/batteryIndex.html

doh! I thought you said "Frogstar" and could not find it anywhere.

Glad you liked the video

Shame you can't get batteries from them, I have had a lot of very poor experiences trying to get decent 18650's I wouldn't trust anything on Amazon or Ebay. I Used Fogstar after reading loads of good reviews and so far all the 18650's I have ordered have had the capacity as stated.

Good luck in your search, I now charge my J728 about every 2/3 weeks as it runs 15+ hours under normal use

Edited by fantablium 2023-08-10 6:30 PM

I think I did say "Frog Star" in the video

I have added a link to the description for anyone else looking for batteries

Dang, that's amazing. My MP900c definitely feels like a new device. I'm doing my sig3 soon and then the Jornada 720 is next!

I decided to give the batteries here a try
https://www.hpcfactor.com/forums/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=21055&start=0#M186365

I didn't solder, glue, or spot weld anything because I don't have much faith in Amazon batteries. Managed to get the plastic pack (from Jornada 728, not sure it is original) apart without breaking anything and it snaps together almost as tightly as before I opened it. I just used some AA battery springs at the ends and some metal tabs jammed in the middle to tighten things up.

I suspect the batteries are a bit old as they seem to rapidly drop to 80% and then hold steady: I have not done any stress testing but they seem to be lasting a really long time. I've been messing around with all sorts of software for several hours a day and I'm down to 50 percent after a cumulative 10 hours of use over several days. (By "use" I mean messing around with emulators, games, GAPI, and mp3 playing so it is probably a bit more stressful than normal use.)

I might solder AA battery springs to the tabs and glue the springs to the ends of the plastic...but the pack seems to be holding together just fine as I have carried it everywhere these last few days.

That's awesome!! I did my sig3 after that last post, need to do the jornada next. Kinda feels like magic having such long battery life on these devices doesn't it?

This is making me wonder if there is a slimmer battery of the right voltage/amp with the original capacity of like 1,500 mAh for the Jornada? Would be cool to be able to 3d print a new battery case specifically for a much thinner battery for portability reason if one wouldn't mind charging more often. My 690 actually came with one of those huge extended battery that seem like it could fit six 18650s!!! I can't imagine what such a capacity would do for the Jornada. Probably wouldn't need to charge it more than a monthly basis!

Anyway, that size extended battery does make thing rather cumbersome when it comes to carrying it in my purse and the like.

The 6xx range uses the same battery as the 7xx range so if you want a standard rather than extended battery have a look on ebay. I picked one up for ~£15 then put new 18650's in it and it lasts as long as the old extended battery would!

Just took apart my battery pack and examined the cells with a multimeter after a full charge: one battery is not charging fully and stopped at 4.03V. I got them in a pack of 4: 2 packs of 2. Sure enough, when I opened the unused pack and tested, one battery read 3.90V, the other 4.20. I put the 3.90V battery in an external charger and it too just barely reaches 4V after hours of charging.

It appears this set of 4 batteries is half bad. Avoid "NCR3400 mah." Gonna return them and try different batteries.