Here’s the hottest news in cells lately… this high discharge 800mAh 16340 by Vapcell.

As always, click for bigger images!!!

Official Specs

Here’s a link to the official product page.

Price

My test cells came straight from the manufacturer, but my usual cell store has these in stock for $3.99 each. Here’s a link to liionwholesale.com, where you can purchase these cells.

Short Review

The capacity plus the current rating put these in their own category. They seem to test near enough to the claim that they’re easy to recommend.

Long Review

Package

I got two, so I got a plastic container suited for these 16340 cells. They were each in a cellophane baggie, too.

Build Quality

Good build quality, as expected. The wrapper is white, the lettering is gold, and there’s a scratch off proof-of-authenticity check, too.

These are button top cells. I do not believe they’re available in the flat top format, but that’d be a nice addition to the lineup.

Size

I measure these at 34.26mm long, and 16.62mm in diameter. A true 16340 cell, despite being button top.

Testing

I’ve tried to keep the scales similar to other cells of the same size, so over time the charts will be generally comparable.

Discharge tests

Capacity

The capacity doesn’t quite test up to 800mAh. I’d call 97% good enough though, and it could even be down to warmer room temp causing the disparity. So not a massive problem.

Energy

Bounce

“Bounce back” is what the cell voltage does when the cell rests after a discharge. After heavy discharge rates, the cell voltage bounces back higher when discharge is stopped. This corresponds to a discharge amount of less energy, and does mean that there’s energy left in the cell. So if I selected the cell with the highest bounce back voltage (ie the cell that was discharged at the highest current), then discharged it to 2.8V at 0.2A, I’d still find that there was a lot of energy still in the cell.

Here is why I think it so interesting about “Bounce.” A poorly performing cell will bounce back higher after high discharges. That’s because the IR is higher, and because the cell performs much worse under high loads. So a good performing cell will bounce back much less because it’s much more capable of high discharge. At high discharge on a capable cell, more of the energy makes its way out of the cell! Hence less bounce.

I more or less figured this out on my own, so I welcome discourse about this topic. Until I hear it’s wrong, I propose this as a new metric for cell quality!

Charge Test

Temperature

The cell doesn’t heat all that badly even at the rated 7A discharge. Could it handle more? Well based on temperature, probably, but it’s rated to 7A, so let’s stick to 7A.

Power, Constant

Internal Resistance

Most often (read: always), internal resistance is mentioned as a spot value. In truth, the IR changes over time. Due to cell age and cell heat among other things. A graph of IR is interesting because it can show, for example, when a cell begins to “die” – at which point the remaining energy will be “harder” to extract. This is when the IR spikes. In the graph below, that’s around 750-800mAh. These graphs are also useful for determining if a cell would be good for a hot-rod flashlight, for example.

Conclusion

This is a great cell. Buy it for capacity. Buy it for good discharge currents. Buy it because it has a pretty wrapper. Either way you’re going to end up with a nice 16340!

Notes

These cells were provided by Vapcell for review. I was not paid to write this review.

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