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.
I notice that 18650s are beginning to appear in other products such as this radio: Tecsun pl-880
I’m sure the radio community will receive the 18650(kHz) message.
When I first started “playing around” with cree lights I bought some grey/blue trust~ultrafire 18650’s as I didn’t know any better back then. It’s only when I got myself some lights with some serious firepower that I realized that those **fires were junk. These days I’m more picky about the cells I use. I would also avoid any super-cheap deals on batteries as well. More likely than not they’ve been pulled out of old laptops and re-labeled.
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.
They tested 700ma on hobby charger. When cut I was disappointed not to find a miniature cell or white powder, just a plain low capacity cell. No matter how hard I shook it, the other missing 3300ma were never found along with vent or PTC. Over and under charge protection were also clearly printed on wrapper in engrish, lol.
@ Pilchman; Do you not have battery disposal stations at schools or big box stores like Lowes or across the pond equivalent?
Maybe even those that know these cells can't be real at 4000mAh 4800mAh 5800mAh, still hope for 3000mAh or something. Vent and protection circuit are like on different plane.