Have you seen this type of counterfeit 18650 battery before? UltraFire

I received some of the mystical protected ultrafires but in blue wrapping with my first personal Liion flashlight purchase.

And to think that the blue UltraFire used to be recommended by Goinggear in their older videos.

I will post the photos here too so anyone can see them.

hex4def6 photos:

Browsing BLF I have found another example of some small ii-ion cells put inside a 18650 shell.

Is it safe to cut an old Ultrafire up to see what’s inside ?

This guy found his UltFire 3000mAh to have in fact 887mAh.

But that is actually quite irrelevant because the max discharge the Pro Peak Prodigy 2 can do is 1Amp, so at 3Amps like what we all need the cells should not do more than 400mAh. That is assuming the discharging was done at 1A, maybe was done at 0.5A. In any case 1A is pretty irrelevant in the flashlight world.

Lower in the comments you can read (even after the guys shows how bad they are)

"i am going to buy a new battery for my flashlight ,i find a pair cheap battery on ebay ,ultrafire brc18650 2 for $3.10 ,should i buy it or not ?

If it's a fake, perhaps.

If it's genuine it could be a bad idea - there is quite a lot of energy in there and if it gets out all at once it could spoil your entire day.

At the very least do this outdoors, downwind of things like people that you care about.

Wear hand, eye and face protection and make sure you stay upwind of the cell.If it does get energetic, the fumes are really nasty.

Most likely, nothing will happen, but it could get a bit exciting.

This is but one of the many reasons I NEVER buy anything but genuine Panasonic or AW batteries (mostly AW) from reliable, easy to reach vendors I have dealt with for many years. Yeah, they cost more but I could care less. They always meet spec and I never have any problems with them. It’s bad enough that most here buy the very cheapest lights available (strike one), the cheapest batteries available (strike two) and then go on to complain that they got screwed (strike three). DUH! What in the world did you expect? You fell for the false advertising, the unrealistic pricing and ignored the countless battery reviews. No sympathy here. Think of all the poor people buying and using this junk that never even realize they’ve been had. Ignorance is bliss, I guess.

On the bright side (pun intended), maybe that great warranty that came with that unbelievably great deal on those crappy batteries and lights will save the day. :slight_smile: You KNOW that’s not gonna happen. Heck, most of that stuff isn’t even worth the shipping to and from wherever it came from.

Let me know how those new $20 car tires worked out for you. Seems legit, eh?

All that being said, I too occasionally buy some junk to play with in an attempt to make them better/brighter (lights - never batteries) and when it all goes south, which is usually the case, I chalk it up to cheap entertainment. Sort of like panning for gold. Lots and lots of work for little to no return.

CAVEAT EMPTOR

Maybe this could help with opening a cell.

The shear popularity of this cells is incredible and nu-informed people will buy what most people buy.

For example check out this German seller, he sold 989 packs of 4 cells. That is 3956pcs UltraFire cells, fake 4000mAh capacity!

Check how many watchers, 401 users watching that sale.

Or this other seller proud of 4200mAh capacity (fake) has sold 64 packs of 10, that is 640pcs UltraFire.

This seller has the newest 18650 cells, 5800mAh capacity, fake of course.

Amazing photos. Crazy the market that creates this crap.

If anything, it’s a reason to own a hobby charger. Run them down and fill them back up. You’ll know then what you’ve really bought before loading the Kung full of grenades.

Since these ads showed up in my ebay account I will post the stats. The popularity of these cells is just incredible and the capacity claim has nothing to do with reality. I bet they don't have 2000mAh at 1Amp discharge.

617packs sold at 8pieces, that is 4936 UltraFire cells at 5000mAh

1860packs sold at 4pieces, that is 7440 UltraFire cells at 5000mAh

The only thing we can do is try to inform the general public. As long as the demand for these exaggerated capacity cells are available the unaware public will by them. The only defense against this china marketing is being well informed. If everyone knew how crappy and dangerous they are, they would simply disappear from the market. This thread is definitely a step in the right direction.
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Posting all these pictures will help and hopefully move up to the top of google’s search engine.
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Another battery surprise story. My 14500 battery explosion, with pictures

I’ve linked this on a load of vaping sites today.

We have all known for a long long time to stay away from the brc3000 ultrafire cells, vapers are no where near as savvy.

The response has been overwhelmingly positive, which was the hope, we really baby our cells compared to some vapers so I’d rather people were aware.

Thanks a lot gords1001 :wink: , that’s about all we can do to help. I suppose the market for these type cells is greater in the vaping market than anywhere else. If we could all pitch in I’am sure we could make a dent in the numbers sold.

Yeah thanks gords1001. And moderator007 yeah that is all we can do.

The rather weird part is you can s ee those German sellers sell a lot of them. To most of the emerging markets and even developed countries the fact that a German seller offers those cells means everything is correct and tested, but that is just and old cliche. That is also why some of those companies even try to use German sounding names like Heider to sell ultra cheap flashlights. So what I am trying to say that US and German sellers selling thousands of these cells is actually a guarantee for many people to buy from local sellers anywhere in the world UltraFire cells.

I have cut open a few. As above but bring battery down to 0 volts as you are going to destroy it, no? To cut into a charged or partially charged cell could get interesting.

The cells I cut were the brown and gold wrapped “protected 4000 ma” batteries. Well, it did say so on the label! Reviewers on Amazon give this cr@p 5 stars?

Hopefully some slick lawyer could nail Amazon then it could start to roll down hill on the importers to stem the flow >)

Some one has to get hurt first?

Amazon policy

You’d have to search for a while, but there have been several reported incidents of ultrafire “BRC” cells (in all of their various iterations & colors) exploding, leaking, overheating while charging, and reporting some of the lowest capacities of any “new” 18650 we’ve ever seen. This one certainly stoops to new lows. Regardless of which version BRC you might find or how new they might appear, please do not use them and recycle them immediately. That can probably be said of most Chinese lithium cells… pure garbage sold to the unsuspecting.

What did you find inside when you cut open those Brown & Gold wrapped 4000 ma cells?