Ultrafire fakes, opened up and refunded !

Only if you live in USA

Buying 18650's on eBay is a serious gamble. Sounds very similar to the fake Trustfire flames from last year. The scary thing is that somebody is buying these and not realizing just how awful they are (and potentially hazardous). I'm guessing for there to be so many different battery types under the wrapper that maybe they are taking them out of old laptops or something? To me the lesson isn't to buy some better brand, it is to only buy from sellers that are known to be good.

I gave up on Ebay for everything, between rampant greed, scumbags and shipping.

Rich

This just keeps getting better! I completly frogot I had ordered these batteries from another seller about 6 weeks ago and they just showed up. These where unprotected Ultrafire 3000mah. I had planned on making a battery pack out of them. I charged 2 of them and got a whopping 70mah at 1A out of one and 5mah out of the other! I decided to stop charging and discharging these batteries since they could be unsafe.

They where wrapped in the standard ultrafire wrapper but under it was a thick tough black plastic sleeve. I had to get the xacto knife out and cut at it for about 5 miniutes to get it off. Once the plastic is off they are much thinner than a standard 18650. So what the heck are these from? These look to be recycled also, they had 4 spotwelds in the center of the negative end where they where wired to packs. New endcaps where put on to make it look new.

Thats ever faker than the other fakes. Those have to be the most faked up batteries I have ever seen.

No kidding Langcjl, The only thing faker would be to get sticks of wood and place them in Ultrafire wrappers and sell them for $1.50ea On the bright side I have been refunded for all these batteries and they have provided a bit of entertainment

I just got a 21550 "Small Sun 4500mah" battery, which is supposed to be designed for 3AAA lights. First thought it was a brilliant idea for the coule AAA lights I have. But it turned out to be a 14500 stuck inside a plastic tube with a spacer at the bottom and then wrapped up. Except they even botched that the battery appears to be lopsided inside so the button on top is offset and at an angle....

ledoman, Here is a pic of the ends. If you look closely at the flame area their not quite the same on all ultrafires. I don't know if its an indication of fakes or not.

Is that the protection curcuit in the bottom with the ultrafire stamp on it ?

Boaz, yes this is the protection circit from the protected ones, the unprotected ones where not marked, they just had a thin metal cover to hide the old welds.

Here is the picture of mine purchased from BuyInCoins. Haven't had any issues with them but only used in low current flashlights. I don't have ability to test theirs capacity. Mostly I give them away with some zoomies.

So after this Ebay experience, are you going to continue to shop there?

Is the risk the same @ Dealextreme?

I've never shopped at either, so just curious.

I do not like the Ultrafire 3000 - so I wouldn't buy them.

DX is ok (you can buy there the famous trsutfire 2400 flame version):

http://www.dealextreme.com/p/trustfire-protected-18650-3-7v-true-2400mah-rechargeable-lithium-batteries-2-pack-20392?r=28318244

Hm, that justifies when I saw Jim at Manafont go out of his way on here to stress that he sells "genuine" UltraFire. I have a friend who thought that was funny, seeing UltraFire I think started out making something approaching a knock-off of SureFire, right down to the name (now much-expanded in product line, of course). I thought it was funny anyone would knock off UltraFire, but it's not so funny now.

I'm still wondering if that so-called "new style" 504B discussed months back (completely different, not as good) is an impostor too.

I have the BRC 3000's from DX, but the unprotected version. While I think I overpaid, they're consistent and work okay. Mine have a white plasticky or papery disk covering the (+) side.

A few months ago I posted a similar concern about high-end Panasonic 18650 cells from Ebay, but people here assured me they were probably okay; however that seller was more 'known' or had a good reputation. I did find it ironic or worrisome that Japanese cells would ship from China (Hong Kong), but they said that's how it goes.

I've read about reclaimed batteries being re-wrappered as no-names, but not as counterfeits. That's shocking. Thanks for the pictorial.

I got three of these free with some flashlights I got on ebay. Runtimes (If I could figure out why my multimeter won't talk to the computer I could get capacity numbers, but I can't) of the three were about 2 hours, 1 hour, and 15 minutes. The protection boards are an exact match for the counterfiets posted above, not the (believed to be) genuine ones. The different font is the most obvious difference between the two. The seller is sending me two more batteries, but I have no hope they'll be any better. If they weren't free I'd be demanding a refund too...

--Bushytails

It really makes me wonder how many of the people who complain about these batteries got fakes, never opened them up and decided all ultrafires are junk. If you look at this test the ultrafire 3000 actually held more than the AW2600???

http://www.lygte-info.dk/info/Battery%2018650%20UK.html

So besides the Panasonic what is a good budget priced 3100 protected battery on the market?

http://www.rzbiker.com/20120527_184518.jpg
:slight_smile:

Welcome to BLF! You'll love being here.

Nice first post. :)

Now, that gray powder might be worth something… chuckle chuckle wink wink