EFEST IMR18650V2 Battery discharge test

This battery is a winner. Infact it performs almost as the 2250mAh version.

On the pdf you will find the 1C (2000mA) and 2.5C (5000mA) test

Get the file here Efest IMR18650V2 Test

J.W.S 26650 0.96C (5A) test

That one failed.

Fail!    Low capacity; Capacity=1,218 Ah (23,4% rated)

Summary:

1. Initial No-Load Voltage: .

2. One Hour Discharge: Fail: Low capacity; Capacity=1,245 Ah (24,0% rated).

3. 10 Minute Rest: .

4. Lithium-ion Prequalify: .

5. Lithium-ion Charge: Capacity=1,291 Ah (24,8% rated).

6. One Hour Discharge: Fail: Low capacity; Capacity=1,218 Ah (23,4% rated).

7. 10 Minute Rest: .

8. Li-ion Prequalify: .

9. Li-ion 30% Charge: User requested stop; Capacity=503,3 mAh (9,7% rated).

__________________

Initial No-Load Voltage

Duration (h:m:s): 00:02:00

Cut-off voltage: -1,000 V

Exit condition: Maximum time reached.

One Hour Discharge

Duration (h:m:s): 00:14:56

Load current: 5,003 A

Cut-off voltage: 2,750 V

Battery discharged capacity: 1,245 Ah

Exit condition: Battery cut-off voltage reached.

10 Minute Rest

Duration (h:m:s): 00:10:00

Cut-off voltage: -1,000 V

Exit condition: Maximum time reached.

Lithium-ion Prequalify

Duration (h:m:s): 00:00:03

Charge current: 530,0 mA

Exit condition: MaxV

Lithium-ion Charge

Duration (h:m:s): 01:25:15

Charge current: 3,640 A

Charge voltage: 4,200 V

Battery charged capacity: 1,291 Ah

Exit condition: Final charge current reached.

Discharge/ Charge Cycle

Branching 1st time.

One Hour Discharge

Duration (h:m:s): 00:14:36

Load current: 5,003 A

Cut-off voltage: 2,750 V

Battery discharged capacity: 1,218 Ah

Exit condition: Battery cut-off voltage reached.

10 Minute Rest

Duration (h:m:s): 00:10:01

Cut-off voltage: -1,000 V

Exit condition: Maximum time reached.

Li-ion Prequalify

Duration (h:m:s): 00:00:03

Charge current: 529,5 mA

Exit condition: MaxV

Li-ion 30% Charge

Duration (h:m:s): 00:11:39

Charge current: 3,640 A

Charge voltage: 4,200 V

Battery charged capacity: 503,3 mAh

Exit condition: User requested to stop the analysis.

Samsung INR18650-15Q 3.33C (5A) Test

At 3.33C (5A) loads

At 1C (1500mA) loads

Samsung has this model which has a 18A discharge rate, At 3.33C (5Amps) it performs similar to the panasonic CGR18650CH but only for 17 minutes. It performs with around 96-93% capacity and the temperature is quite low (mostly because of the high discharge rate it didn't bother much). Here is some data at 5A loads

Pass!    Capacity=1,398 Ah (93,2% rated); Energy=4,663 Wh

Summary:
1. One Hour Discharge: Pass; Capacity=1,440 Ah (96,0% rated); Energy=4,805 Wh; IPV=3,787V; MPV=3,377V; EPV=2,756V; MPI=5,003 A.
2. Lithium-ion Charge: Capacity=1,416 Ah (94,4% rated); Energy=5,552 Wh.
3. One Hour Discharge: Pass; Capacity=1,398 Ah (93,2% rated); Energy=4,663 Wh; IPV=3,775V; MPV=3,377V; EPV=2,751V; MPI=5,003 A.
4. Li-ion 30% Charge: Capacity=450,2 mAh (30,0% rated); Energy=1,637 Wh.
__________________

One Hour Discharge
  Duration (h:m:s): 00:17:16
  Load current: 5,003 A
  Cut-off voltage: 2,750 V
  Battery discharged capacity: 1,440 Ah
  Battery discharged energy: 4,805 Wh
  Battery initial-point voltage: 3,787 V
  Battery mid-point voltage: 3,377 V
  Battery end-point voltage: 2,756 V
  Battery midpoint current: 5,003 A
  Exit condition: Battery cut-off voltage reached.

Lithium-ion Charge
  Duration (h:m:s): 01:37:24
  Charge current: 1,050 A
  Charge voltage: 4,200 V
  Battery charged capacity: 1,416 Ah
  Battery charged energy: 5,552 Wh
  Exit condition: Final charge current reached.


One Hour Discharge
  Duration (h:m:s): 00:16:46
  Load current: 5,003 A
  Cut-off voltage: 2,750 V
  Battery discharged capacity: 1,398 Ah
  Battery discharged energy: 4,663 Wh
  Battery initial-point voltage: 3,775 V
  Battery mid-point voltage: 3,377 V
  Battery end-point voltage: 2,751 V
  Battery midpoint current: 5,003 A
  Exit condition: Battery cut-off voltage reached.


Li-ion 30% Charge
  Duration (h:m:s): 00:25:50
  Charge current: 1,050 A
  Charge voltage: 4,200 V
  Battery charged capacity: 450,2 mAh
  Battery charged energy: 1,637 Wh
  Exit condition: Maximum charge reached.

And here data for 1C loads


Pass!    Capacity=1,420 Ah (94,7% rated); Energy=5,135 Wh

Summary:
1. One Hour Discharge: Pass; Capacity=1,468 Ah (97,9% rated); Energy=5,317 Wh; IPV=4,116V; MPV=3,342V; EPV=2,756V; MPI=1,496 A.
2. Lithium-ion Charge: Capacity=1,463 Ah (97,6% rated); Energy=5,720 Wh.
3. One Hour Discharge: Pass; Capacity=1,420 Ah (94,7% rated); Energy=5,135 Wh; IPV=4,073V; MPV=3,346V; EPV=2,753V; MPI=1,496 A.
4. Li-ion 30% Charge: Capacity=450,1 mAh (30,0% rated); Energy=1,627 Wh.


One Hour Discharge
  Duration (h:m:s): 00:58:51
  Load current: 1,497 A
  Cut-off voltage: 2,750 V
  Battery discharged capacity: 1,468 Ah
  Battery discharged energy: 5,317 Wh
  Battery initial-point voltage: 4,116 V
  Battery mid-point voltage: 3,342 V
  Battery end-point voltage: 2,756 V
  Battery midpoint current: 1,496 A
  Exit condition: Battery cut-off voltage reached.


Lithium-ion Charge
  Duration (h:m:s): 01:41:16
  Charge current: 1,050 A
  Charge voltage: 4,200 V
  Battery charged capacity: 1,463 Ah
  Battery charged energy: 5,720 Wh
  Exit condition: Final charge current reached.


One Hour Discharge
  Duration (h:m:s): 00:56:56
  Load current: 1,497 A
  Cut-off voltage: 2,750 V
  Battery discharged capacity: 1,420 Ah
  Battery discharged energy: 5,135 Wh
  Battery initial-point voltage: 4,073 V
  Battery mid-point voltage: 3,346 V
  Battery end-point voltage: 2,753 V
  Battery midpoint current: 1,496 A
  Exit condition: Battery cut-off voltage reached.


Li-ion 30% Charge
  Duration (h:m:s): 00:26:02
  Charge current: 1,050 A
  Charge voltage: 4,200 V
  Battery charged capacity: 450,1 mAh
  Battery charged energy: 1,627 Wh
  Exit condition: Maximum charge reached.

Ultrafire 18350 1200mA

Brand new

Well this battery lasted only 36 minutes with a 1200mA load. It's rated around 60% at 1C.

Note the weird temperature rise as the current drops, usually when the current drops during charging the temperature also drops, in this battery the opposite happened and then it fell, Here is some data.

Fail!    Low capacity; Capacity=719,4 mAh (59,9% rated); Energy=2,529 Wh

Summary:

1. One Hour Discharge: Fail: Low capacity; Capacity=722,4 mAh (60,2% rated); Energy=2,544 Wh; IPV=3,937V; MPV=3,443V; EPV=2,753V; MPI=1,195 A.

2. Lithium-ion Charge: Capacity=745,6 mAh (62,1% rated); Energy=3,058 Wh.

3. One Hour Discharge: Fail: Low capacity; Capacity=719,4 mAh (59,9% rated); Energy=2,529 Wh; IPV=3,952V; MPV=3,430V; EPV=2,754V; MPI=1,195 A.

4. Li-ion 30% Charge: Capacity=360,2 mAh (30,0% rated); Energy=1,447 Wh.

__________________

One Hour Discharge

  Duration (h:m:s): 00:36:16

  Load current: 1,195 A

  Cut-off voltage: 2,750 V

  Battery discharged capacity: 722,4 mAh

  Battery discharged energy: 2,544 Wh

  Battery initial-point voltage: 3,937 V

  Battery mid-point voltage: 3,443 V

  Battery end-point voltage: 2,753 V

  Battery midpoint current: 1,195 A

  Exit condition: Battery cut-off voltage reached.

Lithium-ion Charge

  Duration (h:m:s): 01:35:14

  Charge current: 840,0 mA

  Charge voltage: 4,200 V

  Battery charged capacity: 745,6 mAh

  Battery charged energy: 3,058 Wh

  Exit condition: Final charge current reached.

One Hour Discharge

  Duration (h:m:s): 00:36:07

  Load current: 1,195 A

  Cut-off voltage: 2,750 V

  Battery discharged capacity: 719,4 mAh

  Battery discharged energy: 2,529 Wh

  Battery initial-point voltage: 3,952 V

  Battery mid-point voltage: 3,430 V

  Battery end-point voltage: 2,754 V

  Battery midpoint current: 1,195 A

  Exit condition: Battery cut-off voltage reached.

Li-ion 30% Charge

  Duration (h:m:s): 00:26:00

  Charge current: 840,0 mA

  Charge voltage: 4,200 V

  Battery charged capacity: 360,2 mAh

  Battery charged energy: 1,447 Wh

  Exit condition: Maximum charge reached.

Panasonic CGR18650CH 2.22C (5A) test

Discharge curves at 5C

Discharge curves at 1C

Above you can see the test curves plotted by the Vencon analyzer.

Please disregard that temp spike in the middle, it happened because i touched the sensor.

Initial No-Load Voltage

  Duration (h:m:s): 00:02:00

  

That is the start of the test.

One Hour Discharge

  Duration (h:m:s): 00:25:13

  Load current: 5,003 A

  Cut-off voltage: 2,750 V

  Battery discharged capacity: 2,103 Ah

  Exit condition: Battery cut-off voltage reached.

The battery gave me 2.103Ah for 25 minutes continuously, note the temperature rise, it has reached around 36 Celcius.

Then there is a 10 minute rest, the temperature starts to fall now.

Then there is a pre-qualify charge which finishes in a few seconds and the main charge starts.

At 2.22C (5A) loads

Lithium-ion Charge

  Duration (h:m:s): 01:46:26

  Charge current: 1,575 A

  Charge voltage: 4,200 V

  Battery charged capacity: 2,124 Ah

  Battery charged energy: 8,351 Wh

  Exit condition: Final charge current reached.

This took 1 hour and 46 minutes.

After charging the 5A discharge took place one more time.

One Hour Discharge
  Duration (h:m:s): 00:25:13
  Load current: 5,003 A
  Cut-off voltage: 2,750 V
  Battery discharged capacity: 2,103 Ah
  Battery discharged energy: 6,773 Wh
  Battery initial-point voltage: 3,734 V
  Battery mid-point voltage: 3,135 V
  Battery end-point voltage: 2,752 V
  Battery midpoint current: 5,003 A
  Exit condition: Battery cut-off voltage reached.

Pass!    Capacity=2,086 Ah (92,7% rated); Energy=6,744 Wh

Summary:
1. One Hour Discharge: Pass; Capacity=2,103 Ah (93,5% rated); Energy=6,773 Wh; IPV=3,734V; MPV=3,135V; EPV=2,752V; MPI=5,003 A.
2. Lithium-ion Charge: Capacity=2,124 Ah (94,4% rated); Energy=8,351 Wh.
3. One Hour Discharge: Pass; Capacity=2,086 Ah (92,7% rated); Energy=6,744 Wh; IPV=3,762V; MPV=3,149V; EPV=2,751V; MPI=5,003 A.
4. Li-ion 30% Charge: Capacity=675,1 mAh (30,0% rated); Energy=2,520 Wh.

At 1C (2250mA) loads


Pass!    Capacity=2,103 Ah (93,4% rated); Energy=7,302 Wh

Summary:
1. One Hour Discharge: Pass; Capacity=2,186 Ah (97,2% rated); Energy=7,611 Wh; IPV=4,013V; MPV=3,264V; EPV=2,752V; MPI=2,250 A.
2. Lithium-ion Charge: Capacity=2,130 Ah (94,7% rated); Energy=8,334 Wh.
3. One Hour Discharge: Pass; Capacity=2,103 Ah (93,4% rated); Energy=7,302 Wh; IPV=4,000V; MPV=3,268V; EPV=2,753V; MPI=2,250 A.
4. Li-ion 30% Charge: Capacity=675,3 mAh (30,0% rated); Energy=2,505 Wh.

One Hour Discharge

  Duration (h:m:s): 00:58:18

  Load current: 2,250 A

  Cut-off voltage: 2,750 V

  Battery discharged capacity: 2,186 Ah

  Battery discharged energy: 7,611 Wh

  Battery initial-point voltage: 4,013 V

  Battery mid-point voltage: 3,264 V

  Battery end-point voltage: 2,752 V

  Battery midpoint current: 2,250 A

  Exit condition: Battery cut-off voltage reached.

Lithium-ion Charge

  Duration (h:m:s): 02:05:07

  Charge current: 1,575 A

  Charge voltage: 4,200 V

  Battery charged capacity: 2,130 Ah

  Battery charged energy: 8,334 Wh

  Exit condition: Final charge current reached.

One Hour Discharge

  Duration (h:m:s): 00:56:04

  Load current: 2,250 A

  Cut-off voltage: 2,750 V

  Battery discharged capacity: 2,103 Ah

  Battery discharged energy: 7,302 Wh

  Battery initial-point voltage: 4,000 V

  Battery mid-point voltage: 3,268 V

  Battery end-point voltage: 2,753 V

  Battery midpoint current: 2,250 A

  Exit condition: Battery cut-off voltage reached.

Li-ion 30% Charge

  Duration (h:m:s): 00:32:17

  Charge current: 1,575 A

  Charge voltage: 4,200 V

  Battery charged capacity: 675,3 mAh

  Battery charged energy: 2,505 Wh

  Exit condition: Maximum charge reached.

This battery has been rated around 92-93% capacity when discharged at 5Amps and 97 to 93% at 1C which seems to be great (i got 95% with a different battery at 5A). Anything above 80% seems to be OK but i prefer to get the most. After that the analyzer charges the battery up to 30% for storage mostly. Soon i'll be able to discharge at maximum rates (10A for the panasonic.) Also take a note on the temperature and how it varies depending on the current.

Yaesu VX-8 LED mod

Many people ask me about the size of the led's i've used.

The display needs 3 LED's 1206 size mounted on an angle.

The keyboard needs 10 pieces of 0603 LED's size.

I am going to make a video on removing and re soldering a led with a simple soldering iron for those of you asking me by mail.

Would be great if you could spend some time and click on some ads, since i'm out of cash it would help a lot for my researches on the yaesu and other stuff. So far i've have had a few clicks tho lol.

In the mean time check the video of the VX-8 showing the color of the display and keyboard http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYBhpiIrMC8

The next step

The next step on my small project will be a firmware dump of my VX-8. My version is the bluetooth corrected software. I've seen that the first versions of this handheld had problems on pairing and yaesu released a new firmware update on this. The seller i got it from claimed this had a new bugfree version.
A firmware dump might give us something to play with.
Seems to be a pain in the ass.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYBhpiIrMC8

VX-8R Update on the IC's

Some of the VX-8R chips are: A DF2370VLP34V CPU which is based on the H8S/2000 core processor and has 34MHz speed. A CMS589AD5 GMSK modem chip and a V24100 AM/FM radio chip.
Here are the datasheets:
http://rapidshare.com/files/381706846/DF2370VLP34V.pdf
http://rapidshare.com/files/381706233/CMS589AD5.pdf
http://rapidshare.com/files/381707483/V24100.pdf

VX-8R led modification

This is how i modded my leds on the Yaesu VX-8R.

Since i do not like the orange color provided by Yaesu i changed them to something that suites my taste, you can use any color leds you want.

At first get a VX-8R.

Remove the battery and antenna (and the pouch if you have it on) and then remove the two screws at the bottom.

Then remove the plastic insulation cap from the mic and antenna connector.

By holding the dial use a philips headed screw driver and remove the dial, it should look like this.

After you do this then remove the ring crews on top of the dial and mic connector with tweezers or a screwdriver etc.

It should look like this.

Remove the sidescrew that holds the charge connector cap.

Then lift the board and backpanel from behind gently with a flat headed screwdriver and then pull the whole device downwards the bottom of the device. This should remove the assembly and you will end up like this.

Now be carefull and watch close the flex assembly around the LCD, it's glued and you have to remove that gently to avoid damaging it. You can use plastic tools for safety and lift it up. If you don't remove this you cannot seperate the interface board from the baseband module. This is how it looks removed.

Now you can take the two boards apart and set the baseband module aside, we need the interface board in the front.

Now you have to remove the LCD, to do that you will have to unscrew two philips headed screws from the backside of the pcb, do not remove the shielding, just lift it and use a screwdriver to remove them. then lift the lcd.

Now this is a part where you have to be carefull cause you may destroy the lcd connector, if you do that bye bye VX-8R, if you don't have the required tools you cannot replace this connector if you break it. Use a plastic tool and if you can use a tool that is as wide as the connector, gently lift the black bar of the connector upwards and the lcd flex should be instantly released, just BE CAREFULL.

After removing the lcd you can remove the mic connector wich has a similar connector. You will end up with a board that looks like this and you may now get started replacing LED's.

Now you can start removing the LCD leds, here you can see one removed. For this modification i used only a soldering iron and high quality desoldering wick and flux. Start and replace one by one taking care to use the correct polarity.

The led's have been replaced, note that i didn't actually used the same side led's but they are large enough to fit. After soldering use a flux cleaner and clean the board, you do not want to leave a fluxy mess inside such a device.

This is where a stereoscope comes in handy, on the keyboard leds i remove the old led and clean the pcb pads, after that i place some solder on one end of the led contacts and solder one side first just to set the led on the correct position and then solder the other side. Here you can see how it looks with plenty of gel flux on it.

This is how the board looks like after the leds have been changed. Now the board needs to be cleaned with flux cleaner several times. You do not want to leave traces of flux inside. After that you can assemble the board and unit and start using it.

Now the unit is assembled and tested. Sorry about the bad pic. Take care not to touch anything else with your soldering iron or you may destroy something. Also take care on the switches in the front because if you short something out with solder you may loose the keyboard functions, you can repair it for sure but you ahev to re-open the device. Also make sure to be gentle on the gaskets and plastics to avoid compromising the waterproof seal of the radio.

Feel free to contact me at leosedf@gmail.com for any questions. I am planning to make a video on how to open the device in case you have questions about opening the device. If you wanna help me out click on some ads.