I thought the first Trustfire 3000 from Manafont tested good @ 2600mah but the ones purchased later only tested 2000 or 2100 mah or so. This was a recent thread from BLF and a reason I didn’t order any.
The best value are the Sanyo UR18650F/M. They have consistent results, unlike the Trustfires.
To get those protected you have to buy the XTARs, or the Sparks.
One interesting aspect of Trusfire cells, that has not been tested yet, is if the capacity reduces randomly in time (not all cells loose the same capacity) in the same way they seem to be made with random capacities. Probably cells the cells are not "binned" as LEDs by CREE for example.
How about these.. http://www.pandawill.com/2pcs-xtar-18700-2600mah-37v-rechargeable-battery-p54212.html Mine arrived in 4 days. Great value for these xtars.
I do not know what are they based, I only know they are made be a Chinese company in Shenzhen.I know that in UK there's a lot of buzz with Torchies cells. Well that is primarily because of all those 1A comparisons he did. He says 1C discharge and then the discharge is done with 1A, Then at 2C the discharge says 1A also. If you look at the graphs there's no voltage sag...... Actually the sag is lower on the 5.6A discharge, which is not possible.
Hmm, I have some more Senybors now and really should get round to doing some more tests but in my tests they outperformed the @&£)fire cells. I will get the internal impedance tester on them also.
If you might consider unprotected, I've been looking at these for a while, Sanyo 18650 2600mAh from Intl Outdoor, at $5.85 a piece. Free shipping if bought 3pcs above.
Its brother (2100mAh) has been tested to get 1800mAh, around 85% of claimed. Since it's Sanyo cell, I believe that result will be consistent, and for a 2600mAh cell, good chance you will get a good 2200-2300 mAh from these. Still a great value for the price.
No, they are the real deal. They have a US and China warehouse. After reading the bad reviews, I decided to risk and purchase them. So far I've had good experiences with Pandawill.
I recently had a DX Trustfire Flame go bad on me. Not in a bad way, it just wouldn't charge up anymore. I'd probably had it for a couple of years, but not real heavy use. So I bought some more XTAR 2600's from the longstanding group buy. I think those are very good batteries for a little more than Trustfires. Still a lot less than AW's and equivalents.