Longest lasting 18350 battery ?

[EddardinWinter]

The last place I'd search for batteries is Amazon.

Go with the AW Batteries : AW IMR 18350 3.7V 700mAh when they get back in stock at RTD Vapor. They are what I use. I went against my normal practice recently of only buying AW brand batteries and tried a couple of higher mAh'ed 18350 Efest batteries. They worked similar to the AW's for a couple of weeks and then both began to be unable to sustain their charge as good as new. They now sit in a drawer not worthy of being in my AW battery rotation.

If you need these now, Super T has them - Super T ~ Batteries

* Safety should be your first priority in choosing a battery. MAh ratings can be highly deceiving as there are no standards in the mAh ratings that manufacturers label their batteries. A lower mah battery of higher quality is better than a higher mAh battery of lower quality.

This is why you are my hero, Baditude. May you live forever!

 

[Traver]

Please show me where Efests have exploded and caused fires. Honestly because I haven't seen it. By making such a remark, I assume you've had issues with them?

I don't know much of anything about Efests batteries and for me that's enough reason not to buy them. The risk of anything dangerous happening at any one time is small but the consequences can be huge. That risk grows as the batteries age and because we use them every day.
For batteries I look for a company that is known for quality and a vendor with a good reputation.

 

[newconvert]

I don't know much of anything about Efests batteries and for me that's enough reason not to buy them. The risk of anything dangerous happening at any one time is small but the consequences can be huge. That risk grows as the batteries age and because we use them every day.
For batteries I look for a company that is known for quality and a vendor with a good reputation.

amen to that brother, so many times i see people putting safety behind price, not only do you get what you pay for, sometimes you get what you dont pay for!

 

[soba1]

Efest specs
AltSmoke.com - Efest IMR 18350 800mAh LiMN Recharageable Battery

AW specs
AW IMR 18350 700mAh LiMN Rechargeable Lithium Battery

AW's longer life span efest slightly higher mah

So after 300 charges cycles the performance of the efest may significantly decrease.
Youre probably looking at depending on how you use them a good year of performance
at least out of the AWs

 

[jmkiang]

I don't know much of anything about Efests batteries and for me that's enough reason not to buy them. The risk of anything dangerous happening at any one time is small but the consequences can be huge. That risk grows as the batteries age and because we use them every day.
For batteries I look for a company that is known for quality and a vendor with a good reputation.

Noted. I guess all noobs make mistakes.

I will be sure to pick up some AW's soon!

 

[razor4432]

Agree with others, batteries is the last thing I would want to go cheap on.

I second the AW IMR 18350, 700mah may not last long, that's why you buy a couple at a time

 

[sbdivemaster]

I've been using the AW IMR's (14500, 18350, 18490, 18650), some for over a year now. I recently went against my normal policy of only purchasing the AW's, and bought a couple of 14500 Efest IMRs for my daughter's AltSmoke BB and a couple of 18350 Efest IMR's for my Mini Provari.

After about a month's useage, both of us noted similar battery life as our AW's for the first three weeks, but after that the battery life has dropped severely from 6 - 7 hours down to 3 - 4 hours. My Efests are now collecting dust in a drawer, not worthy of being in my AW rotation.

If it was just one size battery, I could rationalize that I got some from a bad batch, but this was with two different battery sizes. I purchase all of my batteries from RTD Vapor, a trusted online battery vendor. We both use Nitecore Intellichargers, a high quality charger.

I have AW 18650 batteries that are over a year old that are still working nearly as good as new. I've never had a bad AW; makes me wonder why I chose to try Efests.

Just my experience.

Once again, the info I seek is provided by Baditude!

I got a couple of efest 18350's to go with my Vamo back in March. Towards the end of June, they began to only charge up 4.1, and the charge life was declining (about 100 charge cycles each). At this point, I can take a 4.1 charged battery, put it in the Vamo, set it to 7.0W, use a 1.8 carto, take a 4-6 second drag, and the battery will read 3.7 and slowly climb back up 3.9; second drag will pull it down to 3.5 and slowly climb back up to 3.7. After that, the Vamo will sometimes shut off mid drag, other times it will drop to 3.1 - 3.0 and then climb back up. Vamo shutting off sometimes, sometimes not. Totally unpredictable. At first I thought it was a bad battery, but since it was both batteries, I thought it was my Vamo. So, I got a SVD - exact same battery behavior.

I have now narrowed it down to bad batteries. Everyone I have asked says that they should get 300 charge cycles, and no one could give me any insight into the problem. I need new batteries anyway, so I ordered a pair of AW 18350's. Should arrive this week, and will see how they perform.

Anyway, I'm glad I found this post, as it confirms that there is a problem with the batteries - given they have almost the exact same symptoms that Baditude describes.