Can battery builders list their favorite 18650 cells and maybe why? With 4th of July approaching, there are tons of 18650 cell sales. I’m currently considering a 12s4p or 10s4p between Samsung 25R, Samsung 30Q, and LG HG2 but wanted to hear other’s experience with them.
30Q is the all round daddy of esk8. Great bang for your buck, sag is decent in 3p plus packs and mass production has prices in a great place.
25r are decent in larger packs (due to discharge) 7p plus? They aren’t terrible in general but for average packs a 30q will be smarter.
Hg2 similar to 25r.
Small packs? Move away from 18650 and look at 31T for example, great discharge on a 2p pack.
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I edited my original post but for a 12s4p or 10s4p build, you would pick 30Q over HG2 and 25R?
Also I’m curious as to why HG2 are usually priced the highest out of the 3.
30Q us by far the most common, it hits the perfect price/performance for esk8. 25R is basically an all-around slighty crappier 30Q (less capacity, less discharge, lower cycle life), but if you can get them for significantly cheaper than it can be worth it in larger packs where pure energy density and performance aren’t as important.
For really large packs 90+ cells (large MTB builds, ebikes, etc) you can get away with lower-discharge cells like NCR18650PF from Panasonic or the 35E from Samsung.
There are higher-performing cells than 30Q (VTC6 comes to mind) but they’re generally significantly more expensive.
HG2 experienced a shortage a while back, and the prices and production level haven’t fully recovered IIRC.
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Yeah, 30Q definitely for 4P. HG2 performs almost as well, but is significantly more expensive.
Below are two graphs, one for 30Q and one for 25R, both at 15A. The 30Q provides a significant increase in capacity, as well as maintaining a higher voltage the entire way.
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Gotcha! Yeah imrbatteries are currently having a sale where 30Q and HG2 are the same price so it made me curious which would be the better option.
VTC5A performs a little better than 30Q (lower initial voltage sag) but has less capacity (2600 vs 3000mah) so you’d be taking a ~15% range hit. Depends on the pricing - if the VTC5A was cheaper than 30Q and the range hit wasn’t an issue, I might go for the 5A. However I wouldn’t go that route if they cost more.
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By the way the vtc6 are available for 2.68€ a cell at nkon right now.
Don’t know the imr price for 30q or vtc5a right now, but might be worth a look as well
https://ru.nkon.nl/sony-us18650vtc6.html
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I know this topic is about 18650s but the 21700 Samsung 30Ts are my favorite ones because of their maximum current discharge and stable temperature
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yeah 30q’s on nkon are 2.49 euro ($2.89). lionwhole sale in the us are selling them for $4.1
Why are they more expensive if you buy more?
It’s just issues of the side, they forget ro change price.
Put them in the chart and you will see the lowest price when check out.
Ok. It’s like that for every single battery
Could you put a photo of 31T ?
he means 30T
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If you want an additional 3% discount on nkon, enter the coupon code esk8 3% off
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I recently bought a bunch of HG2’s during the last big sale that IMR had. Just bought an additional 12. I’m hoping these cells are solid in 12S6P. Another builder recently called them “firecrackers” when I mentioned my new build to them. Here’s to hoping they don’t live up to that nickname 
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Does nkon ship to US?
That’s something I don’t know. Give it a try?
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