Jordan, have you ever looked at
www.liionwholesale.com? I buy all my batteries there and they have great new batteries at very good prices. Have a look sometime.
Yea I am aware of them but have not used them in the past but see them mentioned positively over on CPF quite often when doing battery research. Selection and pricing based on a quick search are comparable with Illumination Supply as well as the limited info on the cells they offer. The owner Craig is fairly active on the laser forums and had a lot of dealings back when Andrew(drlava) decided to mainly focus on his light show software and Craig an I would go in full runs of flexdrives, P3's, grooves ect...
He is usually pretty active over on PL and does some dabbling with other laser related things. He is also a member here as well as on CPF so lots of avenues of communication which I know he will take care of people that go his way due to my suggestions. I do like to use/support suppliers that are somewhat active in our community. Have not actually talked to him in quite a while but his PL shows him active in the last few weeks.
https://www.photonlexicon.com/forums/member.php/3647-csshih
https://laserpointerforums.com/members/csshih/
CandlePowerForums
Just to throw out there as I never really talk about it as a rule I don't do any kind of endorsements for kickbacks. I only endorse based on merit and experience. Have turned down probably thousands of offers for free junk for endorsements/reviews or referral kickbacks but that just seems scuzzy and misleading to me leading down the wrong path. The only one I ever accepted was Wicked Lasers when Steve was still running it and the Krypton 1W green came out. He offered a free unit which I was somewhat hesitant but really wanted one as if delivered as billed would have been bad ass. He said he wanted just an honest review so gave into my inner demon that really wanted one. I got it and started with a few tests. It way unperformed and before going further than just uploading the YouTube video of the power test I mentioned the issue to him sending a link to the video I was going to use in the review. After troubleshooting with him just to make sure there was not a simple fix before stating what I was experiencing he was trying to insert himself in my process and manage the information for the review. Did not go over well he ended up saying to forget it and send it back so I did but left the video up.
No one will ever beleive any company/person has a perfect track record, does not occasionally screw up or have a product that slipped though the cracks and did not perform as intended. You do your best and if you are on the ball it will be far and few inbetween. I screw up now and then. Never take offense or discourage someone from posting about it. I think the way you react to those situations shows more about you than not seeing anything that ever goes sidways. Let it play and show how you can do better. The unit was quite a bit under power but then it is advertised with my favorite phrase to hate "UP TO" which means I negatve whatever I say after this other than you wont get more that is for sure. The power was not the biggest issue the instibility seemed to be but later was told if even true it is the way it manages heat smartly adjusting the output power. Probably BS but he should have let it play as I did actually have some of the other very positive things to say in the review about it which I had never thought I would have to say about any of their products after the nightmare situation I had with the original 1W 445nm preorder. Actually looking back you can thank his bad handling of that for a lot of the direction this whole community had taken as If I had got one in a timely manor I may have played with it for a few hours and went on my marry way never knowing the joys of building which is what I decided to do after doing the credit card dispute and washing my hands of it at the time. So that is some irony there....
Anyway with that I would try them out if they had something I was searching for that was not on illum as I have seen good reviews and you say you have had good dealings and maybe they are active over here or on PL which would be a plus for me as well.
One thing that is lacking on both these sites is very detailed specs, lot of in house testing reports and even actual bin/batch spec sheets which is why I always try to mention batterypspace.com but for a while their the selection of non pack(any number of cells welded in strings) but just individual cells was lacking a bit but just peaked and saw they do have some of the new 20mm and 21mm. Things like the details info on their listings like this
https://www.batteryspace.com/lg-lit...0mah-18-2wh-inr21700-m50---un38-3-passed.aspx
And love to see spec sheets and these might actually be unedited and for the product you are receiving unlike just about any laser diode sourced though the gray market which is pretty much every diode mentioned on these forums. Anyway check this out.
https://www.batteryspace.com/prod-specs/11514.pdf
