The big Ebay refund day - finally got my Opus BT-C3100 v2.2 - fake, fake and fake. (batteries from Ebay)

Batteries and Chargers Rechargeable Batteries
1

Before I started using this forum, I have got most of my stuff from Ebay.
And I have been sure that Ultrafire batteries is good, not the best, but good. so I have go some here and there, etc 20 x 5200 mAh gray Ultrafire from three different sellers with 100% happy customers and thousands of sales.
Was sure they would have good quality, but no, when I started testing today, I get around 1400 mAh at the most on the 5200 batteries. I have not tested all yet, but I have taken one from each seller, and one extra and all give the same result.
So that was three case opened for full refund.

I also did buy this batteries, Genuine Samsung ICR 18650-30B 6A Li-Ion 3000mAh 3.7v FLAT TOP BATTERIES.
But guess what, they do only have around 1400-1500mAh. At the most 50% of the rated capacity.
So asked for a full refund here also, since they have to be fake.

Just to be sure that there is nothing wrong with my BT-C3100 v2.2, I tested some of my new Sanyo UR18650ZY 2600 mAh batteries I got yesterday from China, and they all discharge to 2650-2680mAh. So they are good cells. Paid just $1.9 for them. (50 pcs)

Unfortunately I have more batteries coming from Ebay. And I know they are fake, since they are red Ultrafire 6800mAh batteries. Did not think they was fake, since I think that maybe they had improved the mAh since I order most of my batteries back in 2008/2009. But no, 6800mah 186500 batteries do not exist. But the seller don’t want to refund me before I have got the batteries. But then it will take a couple of hours to test them, and then ask for a full refund if they have less then 3500mAh.

Then the time will show if I get all my money back. It’s around £150 total, most likely all in fake batteries.

Here is a list over Ebay sellers that has sold me fake batteries: (updated 19.July 2015)
gothic_household - 8x UltraFire 18650 3.7v 5200mAh Li-ion
fastpostitem88 - 8x UltraFire 18650 3.7v 5200mAh Li-ion
rgbstore12 - 4x UltraFire 18650 3.7v 5200mAh Li-ion
amber.club - 2300mAh 14500 AA Size 3.7v Li-ion Rechargeable Battery
teamspeed2012 - UltraFire 2300mAh 14500 3.7v Li-ion Rechargeable Battery
directsales-hk - 2x UltraFire 26650 3.7V 7800mAh Rechargeable Li-ion Battery

Will update this list when I get new batteries in (that is in transit now).

And you are correct, some minutes doing some research had saved me allot of money, both on batteries and flashlights. But, since I have used Ebay for most of it, I’m pretty sure I will get my money back when I show them pictures of the test.

2

A little bit of research would have saved you a lot of hassle and money.

Thanks for posting and keeping awareness up.

Stay away from fake battery suppliers people.
If you’re not sure, make a post and ask us if it’s a good deal/genuine supplier. I’m sure lots of us would help you out.

P.s. Thread title is a bit confusing. I thought you meant you got a fake Opus charger from Fleabay.

3

I don't mean to scare you, Kenneth, but also beware of opening up too many Paypal claims. In theory, you can always open a dispute with a seller, but if you open more than four or five disputes back-to-back or within a short timeframe, you will trigger a response from the PP automated fraud control system and they will threaten to suspend your account. At least one or two of our members had this happen some time back and they narrowly avoided account suspension. If you can live with losing some money, you might just chalk it up to lessons learned and be done with it.

4

I think you are doing it the right way by testing and confirming the batteries. Contact PayPal ahead of opening multiple disputes and tell them what is happening, they need to know what sellers are selling counterfeits or junk too. Let us know how it goes and glad the OPUS is paying for itself…

5

I take it with Ebay first, not Paypal. So I’m not opening any paypal disputes. Ebay gives the seller 9 days to fix the issue, if I’m not happy with the solution or the seller has not replied after 9 days, Ebay gets involved directly.
Then it takes only 2-3 days before you have your refund, if they think you have a case, and I will have hard proof.

I have got both my Opus BT-C3100 today and my Liitokala Lii-260, and I’m waiting for a couple of Liitokala Lii-500 also. And a iMax 80W…so I can give them as much proof that they like.

6

How are you checking the capacity?

Are you using the Discharge/Test function on the Opus, or are you looking at the mAh reading from charging them?

7

Discharge and also use discharge refresh. (3 times charging, and discharging)
Discharge at 1000mA

The quick test don’t tell me anything.

8

Just checking :)

The way you wrote, it came across as though you may have been reading the mAh reading from the charging process.

9

English is not my first language, so a typo there. Fixed now.

But do other of you also have the Opus BT-C3100 v2.2 charger? I see that I get different results on discharge refresh and just discharge. On just discharge I get a higher number of actual mAh on the Samsung batteries, that my first test that was a discharge refresh test. I have now started the test on all four, but on different times, so will not see any final result before tomorrow.
But maybe they are not so bad at I first found out. The strange thing was that I used the same discharge refresh mode on two Sanyo batteries at the same time as with the Samsung batteries, all started at the same time, all batteries charged fully up in my Nitecore D4 charger, and the Sanyo cells gave me the correct result, but the Samsung cells, only 50%.

10

ken when you buy a charger and it reports 1234mAh, how would you know that the number is anywhere near accurate? a more expensive and accurate charger would read 1678mAh. it is funny how people take the numbers spit out by opus as reference. nobody ever tested how accurate that is how not accurate the mAh readings are. not even HKJ did.

if the opus reports 2000mAh, don't be surprised if more expensive equipment measures 2800mAh as the actual capacity under the same test conditions (charge state, cut-off voltage, discharge rate).

11

I stay away from eBay for batteries. I usually only buy from Fasttech, Banggood, or Illumn. I don’t really even trust Amazon.

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but when you put in four batteries, freshly charged on Nitecore D4, two Samsung 30B (3000mAh) and two Sanyo UR18650ZY (2600mAh) and start the test at the same time. And you get a correct result on the Sanyo batteries, but not on the Samsung.
I then tested the Samsung in my Liitokala Lii-260 (yes I know it’s old, I’m soon getting the new 500 version) and that also give me same readings. And again, the same result with the Sanyo batteries in the Liitokala Lii-260.
Do this not make a pattern?

I used a discharge of 1000mA on both the C3100 and Liitokala Lii-260. The batteries was charged fully up on Nitecore D4 before testing them.

I understand that equipment to thousands of dollars maybe give another result, but I have to trust on what I have. And thats the reason why I did buy two different types. For if one give me 2000mAh and the other 2500mAh, I can assume there is something wrong with the test. (chargers) but when they give me the same result….there has to be some truth in that.

13

I have ordered quite allot of batteries from Gearbest.com now after seen them be mention in thread after thread here and on other forums. The only bad thing is their shipping times.
So really hope I get good quality from them.

The rest of my new batteries (like my 50x Sanyo 2600mAh) comes directly from wholesales on Alibaba. Used allot of time, talking with the different sellers, and have looked at what they do for me, how the price is, and if they have their own brand they want me to test.
Really waiting for a shipment next week (I hope so, the last one used 4 days only) it’s contains lots of different types of batteries.
Allot to test, but then I know what seller of the two I now have picked is most honest, or both are.

14

http://na.industrial.panasonic.com/sites/default/pidsa/files/ur18650zy.pdf

At 1amp discharge and 2.75V cutoff your equipment should measure less than 2500mAh, see the datasheet. your opus measures "2650-2680mAh", that's at least 200mAh off. that's a tolerance of >8%.

For a 5200mAh cell, your opus would measure anything between 4780 < 5200 < 5620 mAh, that's a range of ~1000mAh on a single 18650.

Not accurate at all.

15

Still, how can you not see that I get the same numbers on two different chargers from two different manufacturers?

But, as told earlier in this thread, it’s seems like the discharge and discharge and refresh mode gives different results. The first Samsung battery has now completed a full “normal” discharge on the C3100, and it’s almost 3000mAh.
So it’s seems like my Liitokala Lii-260 uses a discharge refresh mode type of thing.

So maybe the Samsung batteries is not fake. But the Ultrafire batteries, rated at 5200mAh, only gives around 1400-1500mAh, so they are not rated correctly. What ever you say.

16

I thought no battery can go over 3400mAh in single 18650…the best of the best that is the HIGHEST mAh rating you can squeeze into a single 18650 platform

Any of these insane high mAh ratings are just chimAh ratings they slap on the side to entice people who don’t know they have the largest capacity…if you get 1400-1500 per battery that is still useable (the actual fakes people have seen here with tiny li po batts inside a hollowed out 18650 shell w/ some sort of powder inside for weight read in the mid 100mAh range!)…just low, but would you trust em…nope

17

Two of the sellers has offer full refund now (Ultrafire 4x and 8x). But they want me to ship them back to the UK, and the shipping cost would be almost as much as I paid for the batteries. But luckely E-bay told the seller that he have to pay for the shipping back…so then I have to see, if he still want to pay for the shipping, and get the battery back, or just refund me.
The two sellers: gothic_household and rgbstore12 is the same seller. Since I got the address where they wanted me to send the batteries back, I saw that it was the same. Sure the last Ultafire 8x seller i the same also.

18

I think his 5200mah batteries are 26650's not 18650's ...

Ebay is a horrible place for people to buy lights and batteries unless you're really really smart .

Noobs need to avoid the joint like the plague .I have no idea why people are so attracted to it . The really great deals are usually found here on this site ..almost never on ebay .

95% of all noobs who come praising some light they picked up cheap on ebay only to find out 3 weeks later that they bought a dull stick.

Avoid Ebay

19

But the batteries I have from Ultrafire has 5200mAh printed on 18650 batteries, with a actual mAh on 1400-1500.

It can be good and it can be bad. But I think it has been worse. Most of my stuff is got from Ebay or DealExtreme, and I have been lucky with lots of the old stuff. I have tested some of my old Trustfire batteries, some around 8 years old, some has been in my car, cold like h*** in the winter, hot like h*** in the summer in the sun, and still, they had over 2000mAh on them (after a recharge, then a discharge) after so many years. (it’s 2200mAh batteries), and I had some TrustFire 3000mAh with a actual mAh of around 2800.
And my flashlights, back in the days, I actually got real Ultrafire WF-501B with actual lumen of 700-900. Now you get 2-3000 lumen flashlights, that actually is 600-800 lumen, if you are lucky.

The rating sytem on Ebay and on other site is not correct, since (me included) often give feedback when I get the product, few can test lumen or real mAh before giving feedback. So then the feedback is good, maybe fast shipment, good price etc.
Then you can’t change the feedback after you find out the truth.

20

I agree with Boaz, also I think this is how most of us landed here.

As a side note, did you considered that:
Capacity depends on many factor, but considering a perfect world with the EXACT PERFECT same battery, charged at the same voltage, mainly on the discharge cut off voltage. So if OPUS cut’s off at 3.00V and another one cuts off at 2.67V, you will get more mAh from the latter.

ALso drawn current affects capacity, as you all know. And also discharged capacity is more accurate than charged one.