Night Vision Nox run time with 18650s

[upSLIDEdown]

Curious what brand / mah 18650s you guys are running in your Nox and what kinda run time you're getting out of them.

I run a Nox18 and have been running some Amazon green and black 9900mah batteries. Seems like if I hunt all night I'd probably go through 3 of them (just a guess). I've definitely killed two in a night and have yet to hunt from sun down to sun up with it yet. This seems a little excessive to me, considering they're supposed to be 9900mah. Maybe they're just junk batteries. Or maybe this is normal. Just curious on others experiences. TIA

 

[Killswitch Engage]

not 18650 but i can run my patrol in freezing temps on the keepower 17500 for 7-8hr. buy some good batts. you wouldnt put 87 octane in a ferrari would ya?

 

[Travis224]

I looked up a thread on 18750 batteries, it was said that 18650 batteries can really only be about 2750mah by design. The ones that get bought cheaply are ones that didn't make the cut and are bought by repackagers and ANY mah number is thrown on them..even tho they likely won't even make the cut at 2750mah.
Now I do believe there are ones made for faster draw purposes, but bottom line, there is no standard testing for the batteries so claims are crazy and far fetched.

The pink ones by either Panasonic or Samsung (I forget) are reported to be high draw and that's what I use. Even then with warm temps, I doubt I would see anything different than the claimed 5-7 hours each.

 

[Greyswandir]

Orbtronic works well, but according to a rep from N-Vision they tested extensively with Keeppower 3500 mAh 18650s and got the best results.

 

[GreenMushroom]

I bought more of the ones it came with. I think the keep power others are referring to. Never timed it but I'd say we're getting 4+ hours. Long enough I just use those and the rarely bother with plug power.

 

[broskibrobro]

Curious what brand / mah 18650s you guys are running in your Nox and what kinda run time you're getting out of them.

I run a Nox18 and have been running some Amazon green and black 9900mah batteries. Seems like if I hunt all night I'd probably go through 3 of them (just a guess). I've definitely killed two in a night and have yet to hunt from sun down to sun up with it yet. This seems a little excessive to me, considering they're supposed to be 9900mah. Maybe they're just junk batteries. Or maybe this is normal. Just curious on others experiences. TIA

There are a small handful of companies in the world that produce lithium ion batteries (LG, Panasonic, Samsung, etc...), everyone else buys from them and slaps on their own label.

The highest density 18650 I've seen are 3500mAh cells. I do not recommend buying from Amazon due to the insane amount of mystery meat, especially when it comes to LiIon batteries.

I get my cells from here, just get the highest capacity cell from one of the major manufacturers and you should be g2g.

 

[Austan]

There are a small handful of companies in the world that produce lithium ion batteries (LG, Panasonic, Samsung, etc...), everyone else buys from them and slaps on their own label.

The highest density 18650 I've seen are 3500mAh cells. I do not recommend buying from Amazon due to the insane amount of mystery meat, especially when it comes to LiIon batteries.

I get my cells from here, just get the highest capacity cell from one of the major manufacturers and you should be g2g.

I've bought a couple flashlights that came with batteries rated from 3500 to 7500. They all tested below 1500 mah. Ultrafire were the worst. Get Panasonics or equivalent and make sure the C rating is high enough to meet your output needs.

 

[shoobe01]

I bought more of the ones it came with. I think the keep power others are referring to. Never timed it but I'd say we're getting 4+ hours. Long enough I just use those and the rarely bother with plug power.

I also found (off eBay IIRC) two of the exact batteries it came with, cycle through them, and despite being numbered (by me) to track the performance, they all seem to work the same.

I think I am getting more like 7+ hours, but I don't do all-night things so I am not reliably stopwatching, and also wonder if they bounce back a bit between sessions. Also haven't had long enough for it to be cold outside, interested in how much time I loose from that.

I use all my stuff all the time briefly, so leave batteries in them all when I can. I have a (very name brand) laser that drains when off, fast. Seen no evidence the NOX has passive drain which is also nice.

 

[Morgan3]

Panasonic, Keepower, LG and Nitecore have been the best performing batteries in my experience. I can’t speak to who is oem or whatever, but I can say that 90% of the 18650 style batteries you will find on Amazon are pure garbage. Don’t trust any amp hour ratings without verification with a trusted source.
The same can be said with flashlight and headlamp ratings. They just shit out outputs and ratings that are not even remotely possible and wait for suckers to buy it.

 

[shoobe01]

Yesterday from pre-dawn, I got to run the unit a bit over 5 hours straight, in >90% humidity for all of that, and in the pouring rain for a couple hours. Worked great, battery reported it was down to 1/4 just minutes before I finally turned it off.

Also, now I turn it on again to check: back up to 2-bars (50%). For a few minutes now, so not a momentary reading issue. I know bars are not very precise, but as a common guide, it'll do for now.

Also, also, when I turned it on to check, it said 100% charge for quite a while. 90 seconds or more. This time I was suspicious of that, but also other devices take a bit to tell what charge level is. My L3 thermal actually says "WAIT" inside the battery symbol, instead of reporting incorrect info. So, be careful powering on and using the on-screen meter for quickly checking level before you go out.

ETA: I also had run it for 20+ minutes at a time 3-4 times in the days before this. So 6+ hours of runtime. 7-8 sounds totally plausible to me.

 

[D46Infinity]

I use the keep power that it came with and bought a few extra from n-vision as they had the best price at around 11.00 each.

 

[1trkyhntr]

I've been using 18650 batteries for 6-7 years now in a lot of different devices. I don't trust any brands except KeepPower and Orbtronic protected batteries. They use Japanese cells. There are so many fake Chinese batteries out there that claim to be genuine Panasonic, Sanyo, etc. that I don't trust anything else. I've had some Chinese batteries that did not last but a couple of months before they would not take a charge. I'm using 16650 KeepPower and Orbtronic in my Trijicon MK111 and they are over 3 years old and still hold a charge like new.