Not true for the El Cerrito CA Radio Shack at least. Green sticker price is still being charged as of an hour ago.
When the items scanned total $20 (the guy did round up from $19.95) — then the next single item gets the 50 percent off (hand-entered code)
Better make sure the next one is a high priced one (the guy did pay attention to that in my favor).
But If the next one scanned is $3 you’ll only save $1.50.
If it’s $30 you’ll save $15.
Then the count starts over — and when the next items scanned total $20, once again, the following single item gets half off.
Still not too bad. Not as stunning a deal as I’d imagined though.
3 different stores, 50% off entire pile of clearance items (so long as pre 50% price adds up to $40 or more). Need to spend $20 or more.
All of my receipts show this.
There are signs in the stores. One store I went to interpreted the sign to read that the first $20 of product is not discounted. That product can be regular stock items or clearance items. Then every thing after that if on clearance is an extra 50. I pointed out that the sign does not say that. My interpretation, and other stores that I have been to is that so long as the final purchase (the actual amount paid for product before tax) is over $20, then any clearance product are an extra 50 off. Here is the sign.
Not that I am studying the sign, the intended interpretation of that one store is correct. However it does NOT mean that one has to spend $20 for each clearance item they pick up to be 50%. In my first paragraph I purposely substituted the word “product” for “items” In the sense of the sign those 2 words are interchangeable.
That one store caved in for me and followed the other stores. As long as the whole pile of clearance items (product) totaled more than $40, all clearance items (product) were discounted an additional 50%
The receipt for my purchase earlier today of 12 blue tooth speakers and a Hello Kitty 8GB thumb drive, all clearance items.
I picked up 2 Turtle Beach Xbox Live headsets for $21 a piece, pair of 26650s, the 14500s with charger, along with 3 of those PopDrop speakers.
One of the 26650s seems to have the protection circuit tripped, but putting it in the charger doesn’t want to reset it. They state no returns, but I’ll see if they’ll do an exchange since it was DOA.
If they won’t exchange try using the other good cell to reset it. + to + and - to - . I bought a total of 6 pair and one cell was bad. After I got it going it turned out to be one of the best of the bunch. OPUS clocked it at 4100 mAh. Go figure.
Did they make you first buy $20 worth of stuff before the 50% discounts?
I bought four of those 26650 cells. Two 2-packs, identical packaging
One 2-pack:
One shows at 1.0v Xtar VC4 is trying to charge it as NiMH
EDIT — let that run then removed and reinserted the cell, and it was recognized as li-ion and charged OK in the XTAR VC4
Other one at 0v (protection circuit) — Xtar VC4 identifies it as li-ion, zero volts, and is trying to trickle charge it
EDIT — the VC4 couldn’t reset it but
EDIT — the “DEWorld” charger (bundled with 2x14450 cells) also from RS was able to reset protection on that cell.
It’s charging OK now.
Other 2-pack: both 3.8v and taking charge normally in a Liitokala 260
The Radio Shack in DC also has the 50% clearance items with $20 purchase. They also told me that if I buy two clearance items, they will give me 50% off both of them. Too bad someone already cleaned them out of the 18650 batteries.
Because you could remove the cells from the package without damaging the package, you could just repackage the 2 bad ones and find a RS still with stock to exchange. You have to hurry, all sales are final but I bet exchanges are allowed.
Bring a meter to check the cells in the store.
I too had 1 cell the Opus didn’t like. I put it on my Nitecore charger and it first charged it to “full”, but as though it were a NiMH or something. I put it back on the Nitecore and it charged up like a normal lithium. I’m guessing that the Nitecore reset the protection circuit in the process of treating it like a NiMH.
A friend called me today from the Midwest. He was in a RS and they were not willing to give him the deal I told him about. I was out of state, In Massachusetts at the time, driving. I used Google Maps to find the nearest RS (2 miles) and drove there as we spoke. Google maps will not only will locate RS stores but will also tell you if that store is still open. The Massachusetts store had the deal I described but it changed today. Here is a picture of the NEW deal. Not the same or good as the old deal.
The old deal
The new deal
After talking the the manager in the Midwest store on my friends phone I came to realize different regions have different deals and THEY change often.
The deal in his Midwest store
No wonder there is so much confusion about this
And no wonder RS is just about dead. They don’t even know how to conduct a clearance sale! |(
Decided to stop by RS on the way home, nothing remotely worth the prices on the tags, even the clearance ones. That digital caliper was still $13 on clearance! To get 50% off, I’d have to buy a regular priced item $20 or more and those are pretty much regular retail price. Whoever manages their Midwest region definitely has no idea what the word clearance means.
Our store offered both discount deals. $20 and 1 clearance item for 50% or 1 at 80% and 2nd at 50%.
And they had a few of these bluetooth speaker(phone)s. Picked up 4 of them (black, 2 blue, red) for total of ~$20+tax. Left 3 blue ones for someone else. Bluetooth connection distance from device is better than some other devices, though they have a bit of static at distance. 3 hour spec is stated as at 1/2 volume. Great lead on this, thanks!
I have just come to realize that the charger that comes with the pair of 14500’s will also charge 18650’s and 26650’s
2 independent charging channels, 1 or both can be used, and a 500ma rate.
Up until now I have not been willing to gift Li-ion lights or chargers or cells to family at Christmas.
I have one also, and nominated it for proper review, and offered to take mine apart and post pictures of both sides of the single circuit board inside it if anyone could identify the bits and tell us whether or not it’s safe to use.
My guess is, don’t leave cells in it overnight.
The one I got consistently will slightly overcharge to 4.21v, but I haven’t figured out if it continues to trickle charge after that.
EDIT: I found other reviews of the charger saying the same thing, it overcharges. I wouldn’t give it to anyone not properly careful about li-ions, nor anyone with children.
From a liability point I think there is much more protection for the end user from a charger bought at an American retail store than any other charger bought from a website in China.
Or from some unknown seller on Amazon or EBay for that matter.
