Thanks for the update, Rockspider - very valuable information! I am getting to the point of giving up on most China suppliers of cells outside of CNQG, IOS, HKE and yes Manafont. The first three always seem to stand behind what they sell (In my experience) and Manafont always seems to have good cells, or at least they test better than most. Even when they sell counterfeits, they label them as a Mimic. Dino, DX and TMart have all been caught and called out multiple times for selling fake batteries - I won't purchase from them in the future. eBay? Forget about it.
In light of this post about wrappers from dchomak, I think we should all exercise more caution in who we buy from.
Rockspider, your counterfeit cell photos confirm my suspicions in at least this one case:
The Counterfeit cells do NOT have the hologram in the label. I'm certain that TrustFire placed the hologram intentionally to make it more difficult to copy.
These are the photos that give it away:
Look for the "rainbow" shiny horizontal lines in the swooping silvery area that crosses the ® symbol. That's the hologram. It's much easier to see in real life.
Hi, Boden and welcome to BLF! The idea on the thread was to post any good finds and actual battery tests. I'll take care of updating the OP so that is a resource to go to for 26650 purchases. There are to many word of mouth pushes to purchase that are based on best price vs best value. If you have something supporting a good cell, by all means post it up or send me a PM with links and I'll add it.
Here’s a couple observations on my recent 26650s:
King Kong 4000mAh raised top from intl-outdoor: 3900-4000mAh at 1A discharge
Trustfire protected 5000mAh: 3400-3500mAh at 1A (Original, with holograms)
Keygos 4800mAh protected from Keygos: 2900-3000mAh at 1A
Keygos and King Kong give 4-4.5A with my HD2010. Trustfires limit the current down to about 3.4-3.5A.
I measured two cells of each type.
Just received an additional 3 Trustfire TF-26650 5000mAh cells to live with my Skyray 9xT6 flood monster. Like the previous sets I’ve received from Manafont over the last year, they are genuine Trustfire cells and each had a static voltage of exactly 3.83 volts.
I only trust the King Kong 26650’s in a 1 x 26650 light, such as my Fandyfire HD-2010 or a couple others. No way I’m using 3X unprotected cells in my Trustfire TR-J12 or Skyray 9X T6.
At $16.46 for a 2 pack delivered, it sure is the cheapest on the net. Did you happen to check the voltage of each cell before you tossed them in the charger? I was curious what static voltage they arrived at. Thanks.
Sorry I forgot to add that in this thread - yes as Scaru said, both arrived at 3.92v. Charging in an ML-102 charger now. I found that these cells (just like my King Kong INR raised top) fit better with the edge "lips" of the charger filed down flatter. I have two ML-102's and one has these edges filed down, one doesn't. I tried it in both. Even after filing (leaving some of the lip remaining) 18650's still fit fine.
Just received 2 TrustFire 26650s from Fasttech. I will be testing capacity with my new hobby charger once my leads and stuff come in from China(HobbyKing).
Unless someone could make me some leads with banana(?) plugs on one end and magnets on the other end for a few dollars.
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The most I found was 5A discharge.