Awesome, thanks for clarifying that. I’ve had issues with hobby level flashlights like Emisar that you literally can’t fit a button cell 18650 in it and learned the hard way that I needed flat top cells haha. The best way is to just have both kinds on hand.
The store page says the battery holder can handle “Φ18±0.5mm diameter, 65-69mm length” cells and the ones I bought measure 69.27mm x 18.68mm so i hope they will fit. Ill shave the battery module’s plastic down if needed just to have protected cells (because im paranoid)
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Ok, good to know there’s some wiggle room, also not sure if you knew this but the “650” in 18650 is the length of the cell, (18 is the diameter) it all makes more sense after that LOL.
I also had a curious thought, I wonder if the uConsole could be modified to use two 21700 cells? I have a few lights that use them and those cells are around 5000mAh. I imagine the little console could run a while on about 10K mAh.
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It’s funny, I didn’t know much about 18650s before ordering the uConsole and now I have a zebralight sc65 hi preordered also.
Open to any tips on a good charger because there’s a lot of back and forth on whether Xtar or nitecore chargers are actually any good…
I have an XTAR VC4S and love it. I’ve never had any issues charging all kinds of rechargable batteries from AAA all the way to 21700 cells and you can mix and match different cell types at the same time and it’ll charge them all.
I have to warn you about venturing down the rabbit hole of enthusiast level lights… You’ll have so many of them in less than six months LOL!
I just read all this stuff about the chargers not detecting charge level right, overcharging, etc… you haven’t had that experience?
18650s sure have a lot of wiggle room for something that’s supposed to be 18mm x 65mm ._.
As for the 21700s, im pretty sure you could. A cheap plastic 21700 battery holder, a bit of soldering, and a prayer that the back case still fits since that’s also the heatsink for the core haha
Maybe we should petition to have more of the spare parts available on the store so we can tinker without buying an entire second unit? The 4G module, keyboard, and battery module would all be great to be able to buy spares/separately.
Im pretty sure Nitecore’s chargers are rebranded from other makers and not OEM, but i have had very good luck with the ones I used at my old job. 1 failed charger in over 5 years of nightly use on 3rd shift and that one died due to physically wearing out from use (USB port failed from being moved around too much). The one we used looked like this model but im not 100% if this is the same one: NITECORE UMS4 4-Slot USB Fast Charger, for 18650 21700 Batteries
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I have had a few 18650 cells that never actually got charged up to 4V+ after being on the charger over 24 hours. They were old cells I scrapped from a Lenovo X230 extended pack. I just figured that’s why the laptop reported a bad battery pack and the rest of the cells still charged up to 4.2V just fine by themselves. If I had to guess those reports of charge issues were probably from bad/old worn out batteries.
You know that’s an idea… Could use the 21700 battery holder and attach it to the outside of the back panel and then run the wires into the uConsole battery adapter and make some 18650 sized fillers from PVC and copper just to transfer the power into the 18650 battery holder…
I’m thinking about the XTAR PB2S 2023 version that has an adapter to better secure 18650s in there. I hate rubberized coatings but powerbank use seems nice.
Clockwork Uconsole CM4 Linux handheld review. Clockwork Uconsole CM4 Linux handheld review. - YouTube
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