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.
These wrappers work just as well on a non working cell as they do on a top of the line Panasonic cell. Hard to believe but its true. If used on a 14500 cell you will have a 18650 wrapper on a 14500 battery. How neat would that be.