After some research, I have confirmed that these are in fact fakes. Please dont let these snakey Chinese sellers get away with this crap. They know the difference and are trying to pass these fakes onto you! If you got some of these without the hologram, demand your money back!
Thats why I will never deal with these crap Chinese companies ever again, makes me sick. They are deliberately ripping you all off. And they dont care. Theres Billions more people to rip off, they could care less about your return business.
Out of 3 Chinese orders, I got 4, YES 4 Screw-ups.. Seems like Fuzzy Math.
I Have never placed an order within the US and gotten screwed like this.
If there's one thing I've learned in a year of serious flashalohicism, it's that you get what you pay for and can't trust most sources for 'cheap' or discounted batteries. Too easy to slap a shiny new plastic cover on a piece of crap battery. For what you get, I don't mind paying $8-15 bucks per and not having to worry about it. I would gladly trade my 6 or so UF 3000 for 2 Xtars.
I have read other threads of people being scammed on this forum. I have never seen so many people say "oh well, im ok with being scammed" or "oh well, I'm ok with losing $5.00" Seriously? This is exactly WHY they keep doing it.
The point here is that these Scandelous Chinese Companies Like Deal Extreme are selling fraudulent counterfeit Items. That is 100% Illegal. If I hadnt seen those TFF's on their site for fifty cents cheaper I would have bought from another Site who were selling REAL Batteries..Also, THEY KNOW they are doing it. They sent me and 100's of other people FAKE goods on purpose. And they have been selling counterfeit TFF's for over 3 months. They knew they were fake when they bought them, they knew they were fake when they sold them, they HOPED you didnt know. Lithium Ion Batteries are not something to play with. They are potentially dangerous (especially when you dont know what the hell they are) and these Chinese Dogs are doing it on purpose.
They are snakes. Gets my blood boiling. Ive already filed a complaint through DX and Paypal. Sorry for the rant.
There was a time when Dinodirect offered usd6.71 for a pair of protected TF Flames 2600, but they sent unprotected cells unknowingly, because their supplier screwed them. Many people were complaining that they were fakes because of some small misprints but still the letterings have that hologram effect. Some others and I ran them through the discharger and got about 2300-2400mAh, same as the protected ones, they are (1) matched in capacity (2) capable of very high currents, overcharged at 4.22-4.23V they are more than enough to burn your XM-L in direct-drive strobe mode EASILY.
Dinodirect did damage control and out of very good will gave out giftcards of about $8-11. They made good and ensured that the batteries are protected. So we ordered more and protected batteries came.
Of the 30+ TF Flames that I have here from Dinodirect, and a pair of protected TF Flames 2400 from DX (acquired quite long ago)...yeah they have hologram effect letterings for "Trustfire". Some of them do not have sticker though, coz some members do really want that piece of hologram sticker, however that does not means they give bad results in discharge tests.
But you really ought to test them out first. A discharge test on a hobby charger is the best, if not then at least do a runtime test in a 2 x 18650 regulated light with low-voltage cutoff (you'll be safe with a fan blowing at the light) as there will be a very noticeable difference between 2300mAh and 1500mAh.
I have 10batteriesTrustFire"flame"of 2400mAh.The last twoare notcomingwithholographicwriting.Itriedone of theselast twobatteries. loadedupto 4.16volts. I putthe battery on aUltrafireC1Drop-inXM-L. It ran for80 minutes@1.51Ahalways inHI.Afterflashedintolow, final voltage3.36volts. Certainlyit would lastatleastfor quite some timebut I was interestedinhow long youstayedup.To coolI putin the freezer.
HEh heh...well if you over cool it, the capacity would drop a lot as well. Just a fan will do nicely. Best is to use 2 x 18650 regulated lights, but of course any info is better than no info.
There's a good thread at DX about problems with the flames starting in December. There were some really bad ones that were probably fake, and the ones they are selling now are more like 2100 mAh instead of the 2400 mAh that the "true 2400" used to be. I think that's as good as it gets. The 3000's are more like 2500.
Well, there was a very big hoo-haa when dinodirect ones got like 2250-2300mAh "only" and DD was whacked left, right and center. I did get a few freak ones IIRC the best was 2498mAh @ 1A (!!) but that was for the unprotected, so there is a possibility of a mismatch in 2S/3S/3P....but oh well.
This only means that no matter if its CNQG/intworld/lightmalls/lightake/DX/Manafont/DD/KD, all are susceptible....simply because it's from the main distributor (s), which could be getting from various bigger distributors.
everyone is entitled to their own opinion. However, Defending a company who uses tactics like this is borderline shilling IN MY Opinion. Remember this; it doesn't matter who their Distributors are, what matters is that they have not stopped selling counterfeit batteries in 3 months Even after finding out they are fake. They haven't had the decency/morals to stop.
You may be OK with this, But I don't roll over for anyone. Ill get my refund and never buy from these Chinese Rats again.
Borderline shilling? That's nothing new, not the first time i have received that comment.
I'd recommend reading more posts here in BLF/CPF. Others and I have posted many many tests, pictures etc... those were correct then. I have like 70-80 cells from what 8-9 manufacturers. Can anyone keep up?
Ok, i'd stop recommending TF Flames from DX. My experience and others from DD were that they made good, just took quite a while. Looks like DX screwed up on this but did not fix this. If you want my experience with DX, i have IIRC about 30 orders now, once it was out of stock for 1 week and i opened life chat to cancel it. I got it in my PP account within 30 minutes - count myself lucky i guess? But I am in the same time zone as HK.
I do not think calling them Chinese Rats is a good idea.
Well, I dont really care much about fake or real. But the problem I see is: how is a typical user supposed to know if he bought crap batterys or if they are good? Is the PCB on the fake ones as good as on the real ones? Are there safety issues?
I dont really want to spend like 30 bucks on a hobby charger just to make capacity tests to see if I received good cells or not. TFs have been recommended here for a long time, and the dealers know that. Still they sold crap cells with under 1000 mAh. That just cant be it. They are labelled 2400 so they should deliver at least like 2000.
If I had known that, I'd have bought solarforces or xtars right away. Might be more expensive (7$ vs. 5$) but that would have been totally worth it for me. Now I have one pair of TF2400 and two pairs of TF3000 and for both types there were good and bad readings...
Nightcrawl, it's part of the learning process, treat it as "school fees". There really is no such thing as 100% success even with doing homework in the forums. I have easily > 50 budgetlights (stopped counting already), and at least 10 to maybe 20 if one is critical are like useless? You ever seen 90Hz PWM?
I have sold a couple. But you do not see me posting them as crap, as i know they are built to a price point. There are some good stuff. The premium lights are usually quite good, but they do cost.
Seriously when i bought the $6.71 TF Flames (first pair) I was expecting them to come in at 1200mAh or something, i could use them for my 532nm though. Just a test pair, i mean who uses a $25 cell shipped in those unless it's a > $300 high-power one meaning the pump diodes do take a lot of current (even then the TF Flames can provide the juice absolutely no issue at all). But they came in great.
2100: Yeah, I know. I do have few flashlights but even I notice the difference in price. And I'm OK with that.
I also see that a 5$ cell wont perform as good as a 15$ cell. Thats all fine.
But 2000mAh @ 1A isnt really an exaggerated request, seeing that the old cells did that without problems. And thats what bothers me, such fluctuation in quality or even knowingly selling fakes (they could have tested some and seen "oh, they are crap, lets send them back")... thats just not right.
To me, that's the whole reason BLF exists. So people can talk this stuff out and say where there is garbage and where there is good stuff. Some people will get garbage still, but by telling everyone else, maybe it can be minimized. I've said all along that budget lights deserve and need more discussion than good lights that just work right out of the box. So you can buy $5 cells and get ripped off every now and then, or you can buy $20 cells and get ripped off (in my opinion) every time by paying more than you need to. If you have unlimited funds and very limited patience, the latter is the way to go. But if you have limited funds and a lot of patience, you can do okay on a budget. The people who are really getting ripped off are the ones who fall for the 4000 mAh cells on eBay and don't know they are getting 1500mAh, if that.
Don't forget too, that Trustfire may have quit using the same cell and labels. To save money and increase profits, maybe they're producing genuine cells that just aren't as good as the old ones. That's assuming Trustfire is even a real company, and not just a piece of clipart that people affix to products.
This is not the first time that DX has sold fake TF Flames, whether intentional or not, I have no idea. That is why when it came time to buy mine, I bought from Manafont. I had not heard of anyone getting fakes from MF, in my research, which, admittedly, was far from extensive. About the time I ordered from MF, I had understood that DX had started carrying real TF Flames again, but I decided to not take the chance. Even their own site people had posted that they received fakes.
Are there better deals to be had than on MF? Yes, DX was cheaper and at the time I bought mine there was a thread here raving about a deal on Ebay over Tenergy 18650's. Even in that thread, some folks were getting dud Tenergy's. I would rather pay a bit more and get reliable batteries from a reputable dealer than take advantage of a limited time deal and possibly get screwed. I am no shill for MF, however, as soon as they start selling fakes of things I want to buy, then I will not order those items from them, either. Until that time, if there is a choice between MF and DX or other sources for a particular product, I would order it from MF.
