Been playing around with my new OPUS BT-C3100 charger. Thought I would test 5 UltraFire BRC 18650 3000mAh (cough…cough) batteries I had laying around. I have never used them. They came with some C8s I received a few months ago. Figured they were crap, and decided to throw them on the charger and confirm. Here are a couple pics of the batteries:
I took the wrapping off of the “Null” battery, just to see if there were any markings underneath. Didn’t find any.
Edit: So…I’m looking at my pellet gun over in the corner. Hmmm…
Kapow!
Well…not really.
Sorta looked that way. There was a small white powder cloud enveloping the battery as the pellet slammed home. Pics coming up…
“08400” printed on battery.
OK…that is as far as I want to tear this apart. Looks like an 08400 Li-Po battery?
So…the batteries are crap…call me Captain Obvious.
Edit: You’ll notice that the UF wrappers claim “…with Re/Discharging protection circuit”. Uh…nope. Zero protection circuit at all. At least on the outside…could very well be some sort of protection on the “08400” battery itself.
I have some older red Ultrafire "3000 mAh" cells that I bought a few years ago from a seller on Amazon (before I knew better) and they test at about 700mAh. My new favorite are some red 5600mAh Ultrafires I received with a light I bought. They weigh about half as much as a Panasonic, and are only about 400mAh.
I get e-mails from people almost every week who have bought some drivers saying "my light is blinking and stepping down power after only a few minutes--what is wrong?" I then ask them what batteries they're using. Almost always it is something like this they bought off of eBay or Amazon.
There are lots of good budget items out there, but no-name batteries aren't one of them. Much better to buy NOS laptop packs or power tool packs with good cells if you want to go budget.
No kidding, Richard. My used laptop batteries avg. about 2000mAh so far. And so many choices for quality batteries ~$5.
Another thing. You’ll notice that the wrappers claim “…with Re/Discharging protection circuit”. Uh…nope. Zero protection circuit at all. OP updated with this info.
Cocaine?
My general rule is if you see three black bars on the wrapper, throw it away. Stick with genuine Japanese/Korean cells if possible. If you have to go Chinese, the appropriately named Trustfire brand is your best bet.
Tacoboy, you sure have purchased a lot of cells lately!
8 here, 20 there and on and on. What are you doing with so many?
You may even have more than I do.
“Trust” is a relative term. They seem to be the most trustworthy of a questionable bunch. Personally, I’ve only bought the “True 2400” black and red Trustfires on Dealextreme, and they only tested out to 2000mAh. This was a few years ago, so the situation might have changed. Regardless, I always tell my friends to spend the extra dollar or two and get 2600-2800mAh Japanese/Korean cells over those “3000+mAh” Chinese cells. The capacity will probably be the same, but qualitatively the Japanese/Korean cells are superior. They will have superior leak resistance, self discharge, lower impedance, higher discharge voltage, etc.
I only trust RMM if I were to buy new cells. The Chinese can put whatever wrapper they want on their crap cells and claim that they are “Genuine” LG, Samsung, Sanyo, Panasonic or Sony.
