Vapcell G26 Lithium-ion Cell Review

The Vapcell G26 Lithium-ion Cell is an 18650 cell with a mid-level capacity, but high current capability. Read on for so much testing!

Official Specs

Here’s a link to the Vapcell G26 Lithium-ion Cell product page.

Price

Looks like these are going for around $8.

Short Review

These seem like good cells, but between my A and B cells, there was some variation at high current. Otherwise, no complaints.

Long Review

Package

The zipper pouch for these cells has a cell-matching red trim!

Build Quality

Size

Testing

I’ve tried to keep the scales similar, so over time the charts will be generally comparable.

Discharge tests

Above you can see how the high current (15/20A) of the A cell didn’t perform as well as the B cell.

Capacity

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 is 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

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

Good capacity and pretty good current. My only complaint is that the A cell and B cell aren’t of the same quality.

Notes

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