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

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, itā€™s a reason to own a hobby charger. Run them down and fill them back up. Youā€™ll know then what youā€™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 googleā€™s search engine.
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Another battery surprise story. My 14500 battery explosion, with pictures

Iā€™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 Iā€™d rather people were aware.

Thanks a lot gords1001 :wink: , thatā€™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 Iā€™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 ā€œprotected 4000 maā€ 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

Youā€™d have to search for a while, but there have been several reported incidents of ultrafire ā€œBRCā€ cells (in all of their various iterations & colors) exploding, leaking, overheating while charging, and reporting some of the lowest capacities of any ā€œnewā€ 18650 weā€™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 cellsā€¦ pure garbage sold to the unsuspecting.

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

I notice that 18650s are beginning to appear in other products such as this radio:
Tecsun pl-880
Iā€™m sure the radio community will receive the 18650(kHz) message.

When I first started ā€œplaying aroundā€ with cree lights I bought some grey/blue trust~ultrafire 18650ā€™s as I didnā€™t know any better back then. Itā€™s only when I got myself some lights with some serious firepower that I realized that those **fires were junk. These days Iā€™m more picky about the cells I use. I would also avoid any super-cheap deals on batteries as well. More likely than not theyā€™ve been pulled out of old laptops and re-labeled. :expressionless:

I saw my first 18650 battery in the Tomtom Go 710-910 series of GPS units which came out around 2007. I have seen some units recently with what appear to still have their original battery and it still holds a charge to some extent. Changing that battery requires patience and some skill.

You just megahurtzed me from laughing. :_(

I like the frequency of your posts.

Your transmission is breaking up, you need another repeater station

Not surprisingā€¦ They do the same thing with AA and AAA for a very long timeā€¦

Nearly all chinese made cells dont even work well as slingshot ammo. Their average density is to light to provide any kinetic energy downrange.

They work quite well as rifle targets though. :slight_smile: