After doing some reading, I'm paranoid about my unbranded 18650

[whatmonkey]

Hi All.

So I've recently received a Vamo V7 kit. This is the first setup I've had which has a replaceable battery.

I've read some of the 18650 horror stories, and I think I made a good choice by ordering a Samsung INR18650-25R + Klarus smart charger (which has not arrived yet). Edit: These were ordered AFTER receiving my kit with unbranded batery and charger, and have not yet arrived.

The battery which came with my kit is not visibly branded. It has a plain blue plastic covering, and has only this info printed on it: "ICR 18650 3.7V 2600mAh"

Now, I should stress that I'm not going to be pushing this very hard. It's exceptionally unlikely that it will ever see anything more taxing than the 1.5 Ohm Protank 3 head in it currently - and so far I have never vaped above 9.5 watts - will be switching to Aspire nautilus w/ 1.6/1.8 ohm BVC heads as soon as my shipment arrives.

It's been made plain to me that the charger that came with my kit is almost certainly unsafe crap - and I won't be using it after the other one arrives.

But - do I really need to junk this battery? This kit was ordered from vapel1fe.com, but I admit that I don't know much about them, nor how much control they have over what battery gets included with the kit. (None I'm guessing, based on how it was packaged.) I ordered from them only because they had a complete V7 kit available and I couldn't seem to dig one up elsewhere. Had I done a bit more research I might have gone a different route so I could start right off with a trustworthy battery and charger.

Am I taking my life in my own hands to keep it in rotation with the Samsung? I realize these batteries aren't all that expensive, but I hate to trash it if it's not needed.

Thanks!

 

[whatmonkey]

I apologize batterybro - I may have been unclear (or am misreading your reply) - I don't have the 25R yet, it's still shipping. I ordered it as a compliment to the battery that came with the V7 kit. (so I can have one fully charged at all times) The battery that came with the kit is the unbranded blue one that I'm referring to. (And no, absolutely no markings - just + - and the info I already posted.)

So I have no idea at all what the kit battery is - and that's why I'm a little bit worried.

I'm not terribly worried about the 25R that I ordered - got it from batteryjunction.com which I understand to be a reputable seller. (Though it looks like illumn.com is a big favorite here, so I may look to them in the future.)

 

[Niten13]

Th unbranded one is blue, with a white ring on the flat top? If it is then you already have a Samsung, they dont have any markings except for the sticker that says IMR 18650 2500mAh 3.7v

 

[whatmonkey]

Thanks for the quick reply. Never one to turn down a mystery, I ripped off the blue wrap. Googling the single number printed on the steel (aluminum?) shell gets me nothing. But it's marked with this: BFN14C18 Not sure if that will be meaningful to you or not. If it is, I'm certainly interested to hear about it.

In any case, I think the message I'm getting is that for my use case, it's unlikely I'm putting myself in harms way, so I'll keep this in addition to the Samsung when it arrives. Thanks for the help!

(If you actually still want to see pics I'm happy to provide them, but that seems less likely now.)

 

[whatmonkey]

Th unbranded one is blue, with a white ring on the flat top? If it is then you already have a Samsung, they dont have any markings except for the sticker that says IMR 18650 2500mAh 3.7v

Sorry, didn't spot your reply earlier!

It was blue with a black ring around the button.

You (and batterybro if interested) can see top and side pics of what it now looks like here:

imgur: the simple image sharer

Thanks!

 

[Mrs C]

Samsung 25 r is NOT IMR nor is it the ICR 2600 MAh op has. It's INR.

The 12 of them I have came from a reputable source.
They do have 3 lines of printing on the printing on the blue sleeve.

INR18650-25R
SAMSUNG SDI
(third line varies in the numerals)

I would never trust an unknown battery.
If you choose to use it make sure you re wrap the one in question properly before putting it back in use.

 

[whatmonkey]

Well this is certainly very interesting.

Just to be clear for everyone - I do not and have never believed this to be a 25R. I just don't know if it's trustworthy.

I think I could probably peel the black washer out without destroying it if I tried, but now that Mrs C has cautioned that I should rewrap the battery (which I can't imagine how I'm going to do) I'm a little reluctant to further disassemble what is currently (until my 25R arrives) my only battery. If you are that intrigued, I'll be happy to pull the black ring off after the 25R gets here.

 

[whatmonkey]

^^ Thanks for the explanation.

I'll go with electrical tape for the moment. I don't care how it looks, no one but me will see it anyhow. (Looking at how the bottom of the case is entirely seamless, this should have been obvious to me. )

 

[whatmonkey]

Rewrapped, thanks batterybro and Mrs C!

 

[SonHouse]

Personally I'd toss it, or if you don't have any spares, keep it on the shelf until you have good spares. The batteries included with most kits are generally bottom of the barrel mystery batteries. They can be fine, they can be garbage. The ones I've had haven't been truly terrible but they were on the lower end of adequate. The battery is the most critical component in the chain and you don't want to gamble on it.

 

[whatmonkey]

That looks better than I thought it would, rofl nice job.

Thanks! I actually had to do it over again though - it wouldn't fit in my Vamo.

If anything it looks a bit better now. I actually have decent electrical tape so I was able to stretch it pretty firmly to thin it out + overlap it less the second time, and now it fits fine.

 

[whatmonkey]

Personally I'd toss it, or if you don't have any spares, keep it on the shelf until you have good spares.

Thanks. The more I think about it that's where I'm leaning also. I'll get another Samsung in the near future (so I can rotate two batteries I trust), then retire the kit battery. While no one in this thread has jumped up and said I'm vaping a grenade, no one seems particularly enthused about it, either.