I got a few (3) Ultrafire blue 3000mah cells w/ my first BL purchase. I heard how crap thy are, but needed something to get me off the ground. One cell in one light (driven @ 2.5A) lasted about 15m. i charged it and put back 400ma, the cell was down to 2.97V before I realized. Is this normal?
I had the same thing with some TFF 18650/14500 waste of money IMO. These names have lost me as a customer in terms of batteries. If they depended on me for sales they would go out of existence. LIARS!
Keith
No its not normal and potentially dangerous, get some decent cells as quickly as possible, true 3000mah cells should last an hour at 3a draw.
I do have some quality cells sitting here - TF2400s that were highly rated, and have som Panny NCR coming.
>>>>>One cell in one light (driven @ 2.5A) lasted about 15m.
That seems about right. I have been cleaning out my crappy batteries and testing to see what holds a charge and run times, etc. Like you, somehow through some deal, I ended up with four 18650 blue UFs, probably about 6 months ago in my flashlight infancy. Charged em up way back when, and I think maybe I tried ’em. In any case, I put ’em in my “atomic war emergency pile” and forgot about them.
Fast forward to a few days ago and I DMM the blues and Lo and behold, I get like 4.12-4.16 volts on ALL four cells after sitting on a shelf for months.
I says to myself, I says: “Everyone must be wrong about these blue UFs. Look how long they held a charge.”
So I put em in a 502B with the manafont drop-in. High is GREAT. Bright as heck.
But like you, before I could say “POS” 30 or 40 times, within maybe 5 minutes they were down to like 2.75 volts and dimmer than a maglight double AA — which we all know from the recent IS results — is about 10 lumens.
I don’t know about dangerous, but they certainly are useless junk. Next trip to Home Despot, in the recycle bin they go.
Funy thing is, one of these cells powered my XM-L 502b for days of use around the yard at night and was at 3.86. looks like I got one dud out of 3. Not bad I guess…
>>>> looks like I got one dud out of 3. Not bad I guess…
Boy, tell me the next time you play blackjack, I’ll back you. You are one lucky guy!!
Tried all four of mine, and they go FAST. Maybe 10 minutes tops at full power. After that, they’re fading fast.
I am totally amazed though that mine held their shelf-life charge so well. Like a REAL battery.
But when I actually use one, there’s no juice behind that perfect charge. Mine are pretty much useless.