Which battery

[bruiser]

I'm going to buy a couple of new 18650 batteries. Should I buy the LG HG2, the Sony VTC5, or maybe something different?

Today I discovered a tiny tear in the wrapping of a Samsung battery. Less than 1/16 of an inch, but I can see the casing. I suppose it should be discarded.

 

[Darth Omerta]

You can rewrap batteries very easily and very cheap. My local B&M sells wraps for 15 cents.

Tutorial: Re-wrapping a battery

Please for your own safety do not use the battery until it has been rewrapped. I also would recommend storing it safely away from anything metal until you are ready to rewrap them. Safety first! When rewrapping remove all rings and anything metallic that could potentially come into contact with the cell. The entire casing is the negative terminal and only the top "pin" is positive. Contacting both surfaces with metal can cause a short and send the cell into thermal runaway.

As for you battery needs. What mod are you using? If regulated, what wattage do you usually vape at? Do you build your own coils or use prefabricated? Both cells you are asking about are very good in their own way, which one to choose depends on your needs with the setup you have.

 

[bruiser]

I'm still old school, using a SVD 2.0 Even more old school using eGo mega cartos at 1.7 ohms, usually at 13 or 14 watts. You might wonder why I'm still in the old days. Simply because I don't like the feel of the box type units in my hand, and I haven't found a tank I like. I must have a dozen or so different tanks in my collection. The SVD sure beats the Njoy I started out with in 2009. Heck, I've still got eGo, Lava Tubes, and other tube mods lying around, but it looks like they're going the way of the dinosaur, and I'll have to move to a box mod, if Congress doesn't override the FDA.

 

[Darth Omerta]

At such low wattage I would suggest you pick up the LG HG2 and take advantage of the 3000mAh. You'll get long life between charges as you will only be pulling 4.86A max.