18650 battery, how many hours to expect

[Rothman]

Hey guys/gals. I just wanted to post my experience with the 18650/3000mah batteries from trustfire. About two weeks ago, I made an all aluminum 18650 mod. I figured that this battery having a claimed 3000mah rating would be awesome for long trips and the like. I did lots of research and couldn't seem to find how long the battery would last (give or take).

In order to help other folks out there looking into an 18650 mod, I'm going to break this down in an easy to understand way. I should note, that I use standard resistance Joye 510 atomizers consistantly.

At the rate I vape (I vape quite a bit)----

A standard 510 battery lasts me about an hour and a half to two hours.

An eGo Battery (680mah) lasts me around 8 hours

the 18650 battery lasts me 4 whole days before there is a noticeable drop in vapor production




This is my experience. Feel free to post your experience with the 18650 as well as any other battery. I think that this thread could help a lot of other people wanting to get into modding.

 

[Drozd]

the red and black 3000mAh ultrafire battery is notoriously over rated... all testing points that it is in all reality more like a 2400mAh battery....

also if you take and figure the Amp draw of the atomizer you're using at which voltage..

you can divide the amp draw by the mah of the battery and get the C rate (of discharge) and divide 60 minutes by that C rate and multiply that by 60 to get the # of continuous seconds that battery should be good for...divide that by the average of how long you press the button and how often you hit the PV and it should give you a pretty close estimate...

for example if you were using a joye 510 atty for 3.7V on an AW 2600mAh 18650 battery..
you're looking at an amp draw of 1.61A...

1610mA/2600mAh = .62C....
60min/.62C= 96min....or 5806sec (continuous)
or 1161 5second long button presses
so if I hit it once every 5 minutes that's 288 button presses in 24 hours...or just over 4 days of hitting the PV for 5 sec, every 5 minutes, for 24 hours a day

 

[Rothman]

Wow... thanks for the breakdown. A little more technical than most including myself can understand but, rock on for your knowledge.

 

[mistinthewoods]

Truthfully, I quit caring about the specific "hours I can vape on a certain battery". I use the 18650, 14500, 16340, CR123 and I just ordered some CR2s & charger. These batteries range in mAh ratings from 700 to 2400. I find that they vary in charge life from battery to battery. I use four 18650s and they all seem to last for different lengths of time. They last longer than the 14500s but aren't consistent with each other. Besides everyone uses them differently so these factors make it impossible to say X battery will last X hours. It's different for everybody and every battery.

 

[Drozd]

Wow... thanks for the breakdown. A little more technical than most including myself can understand but, rock on for your knowledge.

it's not that technical...just basic math really...

take your voltage and divide by the resistance of the atty ..that'll give you the amp draw...

then divide the amp draw by the mAh rating of the battery and that'll give you the discharge rate

then divide 60min by the discharge rate and that'll tell you how many minutes you could hold down the button continuosly

multiply that by 60 and that'll convert to seconds...

divide that by the length of your average button press in seconds and that'll give you the number of times you can press the button per charge..

the end numbers will change totally depending on which atty you're using and the resistance of it (for example the use of a LR atty will cut those numbers significantly)

will also tell you if you're using batteries smaller than an 18650 if you're overstressing the battery if you compare the amp draw to the max drain rate of the battery (max drain rate is the mAh rating of the battery times the manufacturers C rating and divided by 1000 (and most batteries smaller than the 18650 with most atties ARE overstressing the battery(where the amp draw exceeds the max drain rate of the battery)))