"Good" real Trustfire Flame 18650 Cells ?

So i got a pair of cheap TF Flame 3000mah cells a few months ago, and noticed they held their charge voltage quite well compared to the various crappy Ultrafire cells i have.
I decided to give them a test run in the new BT-C3100 V2.1 Charger, and after nearly 7 hours of running in the test mode, the test results were 2634mah and 2617mah.

These were bought from here: http://www.dx.com/p/trustfire-protected-18650-3-7v-3000mah-rechargeable-li-ion-batteries-pair-120476#.VC45iRYzOkd

DX listed the actual mah to be between 2500 - 2600 mah. Have anyone else found that these particular TF Flames were actually good for the price ?

I’ve been using Trustfires (with the flame) 2400 for a few years now, decent cells, with rated capacity, lost cca 100-150mAh in some 2-3 years.

I have seen “other” TF Flames with a different label, ( i have a few of those too but haven’t ran any tests on them yet) though i have heard of some supposedly fake TF Flames that were really bad like the majority of the millions of crappy various Ultrafire cells we see.

I think Trustfires are the only decent exception from the “…fires”, but I only ever bought the ones with the flames. There could be fakes of them too, so I look at the reviews.

i always want to try out one of them since i stick too much to higher end cells

There should be a rule against using an oxymoron as a thread title :bigsmile:

Well my experience with real trustfires is quite positive, for a few years now. What’s yours?

I have two Flames 2400mAh Flames and one 3000mAh Flames went sudden-death, put them inside a flashlight and couldn’t ight up, and I measured zero volt with them. Does anyone know why could this happen?

I still have like four other Flames and still working good so far though.

I had a similar issue with one Sanyo 2600 after I dropped it. It was not the protective circuit, the voltage was 0 even after removing it.

You can try charging it a bit to see if it will recover - use NiMH mode until you get the voltage in the 3-4V range, it can go over very fast so be careful. Also you can try bypassing the protective circuit to see if it is the culprit.

I purchased these cells 2 years ago & they work fine. Ultrafire batteries suck. I dumped more than 10 & only 1 left so far.

In 18650, 14500 and 16340 sizes - all from Fasttech. They have had the capacity I expected from reading HKJs test and have worked well through many recharges (18650s & 14500s). I haven't had the 16340s long but they are working as expected.

I do discharge tests on them from time to time with a Hobby Charger and they aren't losing capacity, though I've watched them carefully because they are *fire batteries.

Most of my lights are 18650 and most of my batteries are laptop pulls so I only needed a couple of protected batteries as my lights have low voltage protection.

I am happy with the price/performance ratio, but as fake Trustfire Flame jackets are for sale on their own, ( https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/12748?page=1) I will only buy from a known good supplier and never from ebay.

I’ve had one bad batch of TF Flame, but it was clear cut - Rechaigealle Balleiys from Dinodirect a few years back. One of the many c**p from DD that got them banned and earned DD that extra bad ratings.

The rest of my real Flames - 18650, 16340, 14500, they’re all good and held up their own. My sources were Manafont, DX and FT (when they shipped batteries).

I’m especially fond of the 14500s TF Flame - all of mine maintain over 700mAh even after a couple of years. Two of these are powering my portable soldering iron - 2.2A (over 3C discharge) and had many hard charge/discharge. Yet they’re both still balanced and also maintain >700mAh just like the rest.

They do have their own website: http://www.trustfire.com/en/

Speaking of ebay. I have seen many trustfire ebay fakes in my days. The most recent I bought out of curiosity.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/390920951630?\_trksid=p2060778.m2749.l2649&var=660285869810&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

Fasttech appears to always have genuine but dealextreme is questionable sometimes. These latest fakes on ebay had the authentic wrapper but did not have the protection circuit on the back and had no button top. I have seen other trustfire flame fakes that had poor hologram wrappers and a fake protection board.

i would never buy batteries from Ebay. All the various cells i received with lights from Ebay were fakes and no good.