Samsung 30Q INR18650-30Q 3000mah 15a cell

I did get some results, I'll have to locate my graph data.

Short answer - 30q is superior in power, energy and longevity and all for less money, no brainer.

30q temperature was lower for same load, sag less and delivered ~100 mah more under higher discharge rates. I tested right up to 30a with a temperature cutoff at 75c, they work damn well.

They're superior in pulsed power output even to my 25R and HE4 test cells, ~140watt per cell for 10 seconds.

I've just finishing up with my first couple of battery builds using them - one is 13s6p for a ~400watt ebike, next is a 20s12p replacement battery for my DH Comp street bike which is currently running about 7.5kw peak. I'm just about to start the assembly of pack 3 which is probably going to be 28s15p for my Madass conversion.

From my experience to date I would say the Samsung datasheets are far more conservative than the LG specs. Despite 'only' being rated at 15a vs the 20a of the HG2 I know I'd be taking the Samsung for high discharge use every time based on my testing.

thanks ohbse!
ill settle on the 30qs then. the only thing that was reall y swaying me was cycle life but its probly an exaggeration anyway. I should be able to take care of that with treating em nice- cept when I don't
time to order some of these puppies!

Ohbse can i ask at what Voltage your 30Q were delivered ?

I recieved my 30Q's at 3.447-3.449 V .

randyc1 said:

Ohbse can i ask at what Voltage your 30Q were delivered ?

I recieved my 30Q's at 3.447-3.449 V .

Click to expand...

Exactly the same here. After pack assembly each parallel group averaged out to be 3.4451v. It seems they are now shipped at a lower SOC, seems consistent too. Perhaps something to do with the shipping rules?

Yep lower is better for shipping.
I try to ship at near 0% for large packs and modules. This makes them almost completely safe with proper packing.

eTrike said:

These cells are very similar but 30Q outperforms as noted. You can glean this info from lygte-info.dk and manufacturer datasheets.

Regarding cycle life I suspect kdog was looking at different datasets. 30Q performs excellently under high load and high heat... it is rated at 15A (5C!) for cycle life... HG2 ends up slightly worse according to the datasheet.

Thanks Ohbse!

Click to expand...

I went through the hg2/30Q comparison a while back. it was rather frustrating trying to get real data to compare, but in the end what sold me on the 30Q was a temp/discharge current graph/chart i found on the vape forums, comparing different cells for use in high current vaping, usually of a single cell, stressed to the limits.
the tests were actually done by the vapists themselves.

as i recall the hg2 could not compete with 30Q.
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/1f/85/53/1f8553fcf8441e5491135c84be25e1a8.jpg

okashira said:

Yep lower is better for shipping.
I try to ship at near 0% for large packs and modules. This makes them almost completely safe with proper packing.

Click to expand...

can you really discharge that low without damage to cells?

ridethelightning said:

okashira said:

Yep lower is better for shipping.
I try to ship at near 0% for large packs and modules. This makes them almost completely safe with proper packing.

Click to expand...

can you really discharge that low without damage to cells?

Click to expand...

When I say 0%, I mean about 2.8V at about a 500mA load per cell. Once the load is removed, the voltage recovers to 3.1V per cell or a little higher and from my experience, Model S cells would be quite happy stored like that for a year if not a decade without maintenance at room temperatures.

spinningmagnets said:

I don't know why, but the 25R and 30Q both seem to survive abuse better than most other cells.

Click to expand...

I've seen the same if not better abuse tolerable from Panasonic (Model S) cells

I've run a 4s13p pack as a 12v replacement pack for more then a year now in our daily driver (cager), without any maintenance, protection, BMS or any balancing whatsoever and it's still going strong.
Several times I have let it die due to headlights left on, etc and it overdischarged to less then 0.5v per cell, quickly followed by rapid charging at 20A per cell (!) after jump starting...tapering off based on my logs.

Also.. see my posts for overdischarge and other abuse test points..

I'd love to see both cells compared on same graph (30Q and HG2, and maybe even the VTC4) :

Graph 1 : Volts (and Temps in °C) versus mAh both for 30Q and HG2 on the same graph (at different discharge rate : 5A, 10A, 15A, 20A, 30A)
Graph 2 : mAh versus # of Cycles @20A both for 30Q and HG2 on the same graph
Graph 3 : DC-IR versus Volts both for 30Q and HG2 on the same graph
Graph 4 : DC-IR @3.70V versus # of Cycles @20A both for 30Q and HG2 on the same graph

I think it would help most of us choose wisely between HG2 and 30Q.

eTrike said:

You can pull up both on the comparator, and gather the rest from datasheets and individual tests here:
http://lygte-info.dk/review/batteries2012/Common18650comparator.php

Enjoy!

Click to expand...

Thanks for that awesome tool eTrike ! Didn't know about it !

Anyone know why in the 20A test, for the 30Q the test seems incomplete? Did the test terminate due to some high current limit? It seems less likely considering its holding a higher voltage under load, one would assume that the cell is heating up less.

redilast said:

Anyone know why in the 20A test, for the 30Q the test seems incomplete? Did the test terminate due to some high current limit? It seems less likely considering its holding a higher voltage under load, one would assume that the cell is heating up less.

Click to expand...

I think it's probably beacause temperature went higher than what the test permitted so as soon as it hit that certain temp limit the 20A load was shut off and the voltage instantly went back up (no-load voltage). Sound about right ? Anybody?

Look here : http://lygte-info.dk/review/batteries2012/Common18650comparator.php
In the "Batteries" field, select " Samsung INR18650-30Q 3000 mAh (Pink)*" and then click the "See test/review" hyperlink just under.

They say : "Very good discharge curves, capacity is nearly constant and they track perfectly. Even the 20A curve maintains a decent voltage, but as can be seen below the cell gets warm.
The tail on some curves is because I continue to record after stopping the discharge (If the cell is hot), i.e. it shows how much the voltage recovers."

And just below the 20A discharge graph they say : "The cell can also handle 20A for some time, but you are supposed to stop when it gets hot (As I do here).
Remember the chart shows above ambient temperature, the actual cell temperature goes above 75°C."


See on his graphs :
Discharge cycle @10A : temp rises 35 to 38°C above ambiant. If ambiant = 25°C then real temp would be up to 60 to 63°C.
Discharge cycle @15A : temp rises 48 to 49°C above ambiant. If ambiant = 25°C then real temp would be up to 73 to 74°C.
Discharge cycle @20A : temp hits around 48°C above ambiant (around 73°C real) before even finishing the complete discharge cycle ; stopping at around 2050 or 2100 mAh.

I guess he didn't want to damage the cell from excessive heat... But IMHO, 75°C is already pretty bad for the cycle life ! I would't go past 50°C or maximum 60°C to make my cells last.
From his graphs, even at 15A, the 30Q cell seem to be getting too hot to actually finish the discharge curve.

Here is a 18s6p pack that been in storage for one month. It was left balanced and then disconnected from the controller and BMS to monitor the drifting.
Before this, it was missused with discharge currents up to 147A. Two times discharged to 2,3V and after that charged with 35A current for about 30 seconds.
Some Ps are ok and dont have any drift at all 8 of them are bad and bleeding. Battery have around 50 cycles.

That does look badly unbalanced.

147A / 6P = 24.5A per cell. That's fine for peak discharge.

im building a 22s18p30Q pack for a nyx frame right now.
unfortunately the cells were shipped from the supplier with 2 different storage voltages.
some at~3.66v,and some(30%) at ~3.45v
looks like they are from 2 batches.

so far iv never had to deal with this issue cause all cells were at very close voltage from supplier.

im now charging them ALL to ~3.75v with storage mode on a balance charger, in ~50cell lots in 1p config.

can anyone shed some light on the finer points of getting a pack well balanced from the get go? namely:
-what voltage tolerance between cells in a p group is acceptable?
-what is the best way to select the cells to combine in p groups, ie. cells at same voltage or so that all p groups have same average voltage over all, so some high and some low cells in each group?

-it seems the cells drop some voltage slowly after charge, how long to wait before they have stabilised generally so that i can compare their actual charged voltages?

cheers
RTL

ride,

i had exactly the same problem.
for a friend, i initially was going to build a 20s9p pack, but later we decided to make 22s, so ordered another 18cells.
strangely, the first batch was the NEW cells with 3,44V, but the 18 cells we purchased later (1 week maybe) had about 3,66V, so it must have been earlier batch.

As i never had problems before when mixing different batches (on my 22s11p pack i mixed 3 batches without any signs of drift afer 1 year so far), i thought if i discharge the 18 cells to 3,44V, everything will be fine.
But NOT a bit of that!
the newer batch, with the 3,44V seems to have slightly more Ah (probabaly different chemisty??), so when the owner had the eintire 22s pack well balanced to lets say 3,44V, during charge, the 3,66V cells have hit 4,2V much earlier than the 3,44V ones.
Luckily i built the 2s pack as an add-on, so i could simply unplug it and now using 20s.

If i where you, i would reclaim and exchange the cells with 3,66V for the newer ones.
If thats not possible, than look if you could lets say put 9p of new cells together with 9 old cells for one 18p group (of course with equalizing voltage before!). than the whole pack should stay balanced very well. If you mix old and new without any "system", you won't be happy with that battery..

eTrike said:

The new cells are sent lower in order to meet <30% SOC shipping rules as it seems

Click to expand...

I suspected a much. the order was of 600 cells in a single shipment, so looks like they mix n matched them.

Luckily, my friend willow has the other 200 cells still un-assembled, so im hoping there are enough of the 3.66 v cells to make the pack in the whole order.

madin88 said:

As i never had problems before when mixing different batches (on my 22s11p pack i mixed 3 batches without any signs of drift afer 1 year so far), i thought if i discharge the 18 cells to 3,44V, everything will be fine.
But NOT a bit of that!

Click to expand...

thanks for letting me know about this maddin, you have probably saved me from a huge headache.
I had just planned to charge all cells to same voltage and assemble the pack at random, i certainly wont do that now.

eTrike said:

The new cells are sent lower in order to meet <30% SOC shipping rules as it seems. If your older cells were purchased several months apart that may explain the difference in capacity if tested.

Click to expand...

Do you think they charge or discharge the cells in the company before shipping?
I'm not sure, but i more believe they do something with the electrolyte to meet those new shipping laws already during production.

As mentioned, when i worked with differnt batches before, the idle voltage was always exatly similar and i could not notice any differences in capacitance (same idle voltage = same s.o.c.)
Now, the new <30% batches seem to behave differnt after the idle voltage was brought to the same as cells from earlier batches.

madin88 said:

eTrike said:

The new cells are sent lower in order to meet <30% SOC shipping rules as it seems. If your older cells were purchased several months apart that may explain the difference in capacity if tested.

Click to expand...

Do you think they charge or discharge the cells in the company before shipping?
I'm not sure, but i more believe they do something with the electrolyte to meet those new shipping laws already during production.

As mentioned, when i worked with differnt batches before, the idle voltage was always exatly similar and i could not notice any differences in capacitance (same idle voltage = same s.o.c.)
Now, the new <30% batches seem to behave differnt after the idle voltage was brought to the same as cells from earlier batches.

Click to expand...

they do what they call a 'formation charge' after the cell is assembled, most likely they changed the way of doing this when the rules for shipping changed.

madin88 said:

ride,
i had exactly the same problem.
for a friend, i initially was going to build a 20s9p pack, but later we decided to make 22s, so ordered another 18cells.
strangely, the first batch was the NEW cells with 3,44V, but the 18 cells we purchased later (1 week maybe) had about 3,66V, so it must have been earlier batch.

Click to expand...

Hi,

Same Problem here.
I ordered 50pc for a 10s5p Pack and then I decided to add another group for a 11s5p Pack.
So 5 Groups were of significant higher voltage (60mV) when I tested the pack with my Schulze Balancer.

It took hours to initial balance the pack and at the first charge/discharge the groups were drifting to about 60mV at full discharge (3,00V)
Now, a cycle later and charging the pack with 8A it looks a lot better, but still not perfect.

Its not the first battery pack I made and with the Samsung 29E and Sony VTC5 I haven't had any problems.

I would say 0.06V imbalance between parallel groups when discharged in a top-balanced pack is nothing to worry about as long as it doesn't get worse on each cycle. The new cells may have been of slightly different capacity to the original ones.

eTrike said:

This is disconcerting. Can you do a comparison of both types using a single cell? I would expect them to do at least one cycle as QA.

Click to expand...

sorry, unfortunately no more.

@ christiank

It is very normal that you see a drift if you discharge the cells 100%.
A few mAh will then result in BIG voltage differences. I have seen this also on my Sony VTC4 pack after discharging them so deep, and Sony are the best cells when it comes to drift!
You do the cells a big favour if you don't squeeze them completely out. On Samsung 25R for instance this means not below 3,2-3,3V, but this must not apply to every other kind of LiIon cells.

i would do following test:
make your battery perfectly balanced at lets say 4,00V per cell. Do a full charge now and then a full discharge and watch the voltage.
if the voltage of that one group is getting higher as the other 10 groups during charge, it means that it has less Ah. If it is the other way round, it will have more Ah.

madin88 said:

make your battery perfectly balanced at lets say 4,00V per cell. Do a full charge now and then a full discharge and watch the voltage.
if the voltage of that one group is getting higher as the other 10 groups during charge, it means that it has less Ah. If it is the other way round, it will have more Ah.

Click to expand...

The 5 Cells are spread over 5 Groups...
Well, the pack is charged to 4.15V now, charging was done without balancer and lead to a drift of only +/- 15mV = 30mV between best/worst group,
where in CC phase (8Amps) the cells behave very well, they driftet appart only in CV phase.
Then I balanced the pack to +/- 4mV.

Next thing is to test under real-world conditions.
However, actualy here in Austria there is -10°C and snowfall.....

I really hope that the cells will equalize over the next cycles.
Its the third battery pack I made and the first time I experienced such a strange behaviour.