EDIT: worse than I thought "Make" your own UltraFire 18650s!

batteryfraud.org might be better . . encourages trusted sellers and doesn’t discourage 18650s.

You’re totally right!
It would be a good thing if we can do something about this fraud.

I’m going to stick with Panny cells from trusted vendors, Kuma, CNQG, eFest etc. Just like the extra capacity.

+1

I thought of this when the TrustFire 3000s came out and stuck with them for that very reason. Too “costly” (I hope) to get hologram wraps. Also, I don’t know if anybody else noticed or not, but TrustFire has been putting a second small hologram sticker on the outside of the double pack shrink wrap as a backup measure.

I bet they were pretty upset that they lost customers due to the fakes out there.

I haven’t seen any but given the ease of making the labels, and the widespread counterfeiting of brands, I would assume Sanyo deals that were too good to be true… are.

How does the thief know that he didn't poison the same watermelon as the owner ??.

..maybe there is only one poisoned watermelon.

Yes, my lamp-loving friend, but which one would you eat?

Boaz wrote:

How does the thief know that he didn’t poison the same watermelon as the owner ??. …maybe there is only one poisoned watermelon.

That is the whole point, The farmer made the patch worthless to the thief, and the thief made the whole patch worthless to the farmer. Even if there are NO poisoned watermelons, the entire patch has no value!

It doesn’t matter is there is two or only one, or even none. The whole patch is No Good.

NO wonder batteryjunction sells only ultrafire rechargeable 18650’s, etc…I’ve always wondered why a place like Batteryjunction would only sell el cheapo rechargeable lithium ions. Makes perfect sense now. When I was new, I bought a few ultrafire, and tenergy, 18650’s from them. Some of them turned out to be complete junk. Worse yet, their return policy was horrible on these items.

Needless to say, I buy only AW, Callies Kustoms, etc…Now…

Wow, nice!

I’m glad I buy all my TrustFire batteries right from TrustFire :wink:

http://www.aliexpress.com/store/400163

-Jamie M.

Would it really be that hard for manufacturers to put serial numbers on the things that we could check via an on-line site? Other industries manage it with a format that can be used to extract production data and which contain hashing which means the code will always be unique and impossible to guess.

If the serious players don’t want to loose trade to fakes then they need to do something, it might cost a bit but the increase in sales should offset this.

Well, battery manufacturers do it, see below:

Those are green Panasonics and red Sanyo, the arrows shows the various serial numbers.

Panasonics have a group of serial numbers that are plotted on the upper portion of the label, plus another code that is ink printed on the lower portion.

Sanyo have a similar serial plotted just below the middle, plus also have the brand and model and a code which are not printed but pressed in relief on the shrinkwrap: it's a three row code, from the picture you can only see the first row in the highlighted square, with the brand "SANYO"

I'm sure that the factory can check back those codes if needed, but one will have to contact the customer service of the factory. Have no idea if they are quick or not at answering.

Anyway note that Sanyo and Panasonic are real manufacturers of those cells, and the cells as pictured have only the factory shrinkwrap and no protection added.

Anytime a brand name reseller (be it Trustfire or AW or whatever) they will put their own shrinkwrap on top of it, together with the optional PCB. Sometimes the original factory shrinkwrap is removed before adding the PCB, to avoid excessive thickness buildup, so the original serial informations are lost.

The interesting part of the list you made Gucci, Rolex, Apple … is that all of these brand sell extremly overpriced. They may be superior quality to any other brand but still way more expensive that they should be.
I don’t know anything about Gucci but ROLEX for example is known for at least for some time selling ETA calibers in there watches. ETA is known well on the market and superior quality but not nearly as expensive as ROLEX sells them. Actually you can get good watches with ETA calibers for a few hundert dollars from some well reputable brands like SINN or Chronoswiss.
Same for Apple: Its well known that the production cost for the newest phone lies around 150 to 200 dollars (calculating everyting in and beeing conservative with the estimation of production quantity). Correct me if im beeing wrong but where is official sale price now - about 3 times that high ?

It’s nothing than pure greed of the manufacturers that makes it interesting for the copycats.
If there where only a few hundert dollars between a real and fake ROLEX i would probably buy the real one. With thousands of dollars difference it’s a no brainer for most on this planet.

Same with our beloved batterys from Pany, Soniac and Lucky Gold(sh…ing)star.
To us (endcustomers) they are sold most probably for a 3x or 4x the price they are sold in quantitys to contractors. No wonder they got copied by everyone.
At the moment i see no other way to get REAL batteries than buying from official distributors of the manufacturer (and pay xtimes what they are worth) or ripping them out of anything that has been bought in quantities (like laptop-replacement batteries)

|( Have to calm down again - my bloodpressure … :weary:

Mo

For whatever it’s worth, not long ago I bought a pair of Trustfire flame 14500s, not protected, real cheap, off ebay. I don’t remember if there was a hologram on the outer wrapping, but there were holograms on the sleeves. Both cells tested at 340 maH. I contacted the seller, who kept assuring me that they were good, but they eventually refunded the purchase and I asked (always the optimist) that they speak with their supplier.

340 is about right for the coloured/flamed labeled 14500’s. If they are the grey ones then 200-250mah is about average :frowning:

I only buy the Sanyo 14500’s from Intl-outdoor.com now, always test over 800mah!!! :smiley:

-Jamie M.

Hi guys, im from eu and I’m buying batteries for battery pack, for electric bike. I don’t need to add, that i’m searching for good batteries with great preformance, for lowest price as possible. If could someone recommend me such battery, which wouldn’t be fake? If someone have any experience with good capacity batteries, for not alot of money?

What size batteries are you going to use, 18650? Find some Panasonic NCR18540B batteries (possibly the old 3100mah ones would be a much better price).

Cheapest I’ve ever seen the 3400mah panasonic’s is $5.23 each, i.e.: Page Not Found - Aliexpress.com

Good luck on your project.

-Jamie M.

Hi, size it’s not important. I want to make at least 15Ah 13s battery pack for 220$, else it’s not worth (it would be cheaper to buy pre-made pack then).