Gotcha.
Danger, I don’t expect them to measure everything that goes out the door and i’m sure that they used Efest’s specs. That’s not the issue. Like Wight said, the issue with BJ is their reaction after the fact. Put aside the restocking fee for the moment as that only affects me. By not changing the specs, adding a little note about the spec’s inaccuracy, or, at the very least, putting up my reviews where I politely spelled out the problem, they are allowing who knows how many people to make the same mistake I made.
I’m sorry, but that’s not the right thing to do.
And, Snake, that’s for the “review” on those house brand cells.
I don’t understand how people can defend batteryjunction on this one. They messed up. They sold a product that want what they claimed it was. Then they charged a customer for returning what was either a defective product or a misrepresented product. And they have failed to do anything to prevent the same from happening to other customers.
A big part of how I choose whom I buy from is trust, and I’m sure that is the same for other people to. And based on what I have read here I definitely don’t trust batteryjunction.
Order Discrepancies:
Please check your package to verify that you have received everything you ordered. We eagerly want to resolve any discrepancies that may have taken place. Please check for any missing items, items damaged in transit, defective items or wrong sizes/colors. We must be notified of any order discrepancies within 7 days of the date of delivery. Any notification of a discrepancy more than 7 days from the date of delivery will not be considered.
This is copied from their Customer service page.
Seriously?
As wight pointed out, batteries fitting or not is a significant known issue.
And then they can’t even be bothered to correct it (after a month even)?
Add charging Cone a restocking fee, blowing him off when he points out their listing error?
It shows batteryjunction doesn’t give a shit care about their customers. There are plenty of other sellers to buy from.
Although I am not the battery supplier of BJ.
I would like to mention that 14500.16340,is usually standard name of battery.
It is reasonable to have some estimation error range.
That does not mean misleading descriptions.
Like 18490 also suit for 18500 battery.
umm
49.11mm ~ 50mm
33.98mm ~ 34mm
really…you are freaking out about a few tenth of inches?
ever hear of the saying “close enough for government work”?
Efest are decent enough batteries…the tolerances are taken into account with the battery springs
quote from the battery wiki
WarHawk he was not complaining about the measurement in the BJ advertisement v the standardised measurements. He was saying the actual measurements were not close to the stated measurements of either the std or the advert at BJ.
The numbers were two 16340 cells reading 36.4mm and 38.2mm instead of the expected standardised 34mm (or the stated measurement of 33.98 by BJ), which is 2.4mm or 4.2mm longer than standardised measurements, which is enough in some cases to prevent the cell fitting. The BJ number makes it worse.
In the longer 14500’s Battery Junction claimed them to be 49.11mm (standardised sizing would be 50mm which is fine), but they were in fact 5.3.2mm (I assume this is meant to be 53.2mm), or 3.2mm oversize. In some lights the spring may be compressed and only have 1 mm or so of further compression to spare with a perfectly standard (say a 14500 at 50mm) sized cell.
Ah gotcha…thanks for that clarification
Thanks, Ejected. Ya, WarHawk, my issue wasn’t the specs verses the theoretical (33.98mm vs 34mm), it was the specs/theoretical verses the reality (33,98/40mm vs 36.4/38.2mm). To Sally’s point, I understand that there will be some small variance in what the the cell should be in theory, and what it is. Plus or minus a millimeter is one thing, but when the cell is upwards of 12% longer than what is called for, well, I don’t think it unreasonable to conclude that’s too much.
And the bigger problem, for me, is that the product page is simply providing false info and no one (BJ or Efest) seems to care. If we are going to say that a 16340 can have a length measurement that is wildly different than 34mm, then why bother naming cells according to their dimensions? At what point is it not acceptable? Can a 16340 cell measure 19mm by 42mm? Those numbers have meanings attached to them. If they are going to be meaningless, lets stop using them.
At the very least, it is not too much to expect that the specs on the product page are close to reality. Moreover. when you order two of the same cells, it is not unreasonable to expect those cells to be the same size. If I went to the Home Depot and purchased two D cells for my old Maglite and one went down the tube and one was so wide or long it wouldn’t fit, I’d think we’d all agree that’s unacceptable, right? I don’t see how expecting to receive what was advertised is a controversial topic.
Furthermore, it is not unreasonable to expect that the false info to be changed once it is brought to a companies attention. I give them the benefit of the doubt the first time. Maybe they didn’t know. But the know now and nothing’s been done. I’m sorry, but, to me, that says a lot about who I’m dealing with.
I’m only providing a data point. Do what you wish with the info.
Apart from more accuracy is always good, as these are clearly not accurate in the first place, why would you measure something to the hundredth of a mm, when youre not going to make hundredths of a mm your maximum error range… ie: 49.01 - 49.21 in relation to 49.11.
Im not actually suggesting they should be made with this much accuracy, although that would be nice, Im saying that the degree of measurement given implies a degree of accuracy not at all present in reality. These things are out by as much as 10%, that is whole mm’s, not tenths let alone hundredths.
Apparently that’s a difficult concept for whoever they have posting measurements for their batteries. 
I un-subscribed from their newsletter, and gave them this thread as the reason…
Glad i didn't say that ...
The name of the company is BATTERY Junction
if they can't get batteries right ... they probably need the 15% restocking fee .
Sad thing is people praise these U.S. companies even though they do what a chinese vendor would do. not correcting the problem is just lazy and stupid .Even if they didn't want to use your review they could thank you for your help and add a note in the review section themselves if modifying the sale text is too tough for them .
I was going to suggest [ battery station ] as well ...and was happy to see snakebite had beaten me to the punch . < i've met the owner and think they are great people who have real passion ..if you ended up giving kevin at battery station 15% you couldn't have given it to a nicer guy :P
boaz recommends
Cone, sorry to hear of the problems. I purchased NiMH batteries from Battery Station one time, a couple years ago and they were junk. It appeared that they were re-wrapped generics. BS, (which is s good nickname for them), wouldn't stand behind mine either. I ended up just calling my CC and having the charge removed.
Sorry to hear your problem, but it is far from unusual: I ended up years-long relationships with resellers in many occasions, always when they stubbornely refused to acknowledge the fact that they were selling underpar copies of once good items.
True that Chinese exporters never take merchandise back, don’t even think of a reimbursement. Also, most of more prominent Chinese labels must rely on sub-contractors who are the lowest bidders for a given production batch. Each batch can came from a different factory; not only batteries, but any item.
Now, the boom of electronic cigarettes has brought a strong distorsion to an already wacky system. Even the labels with their own factories are having trouble with fakes, to the point most of the e-cig items, valued few dollars, have a 16-digit security scratch code to verify authenticity. To mention just one prominent case, last year market was flooded with fake burners from one of the most famous brands, whose security code was checking authentic on the verification website: items coming out of the factory, were fake instead, made of subpar alloys and so on.
I mentioned this for two reasons: First, the flashlight market shares the batteries with the e-cig market; second, I want to give an idea of how “desperate” today’ market has become, as in this moment cynical sweat-shops owners have a possibility to compete with large companies backed by substantial resources, since the naivety (read “uttermost ignorance”, but don’t quote me on this, it isn’t meant to be offensive to anybody by any measure, but I need to describe clearly the state of the game and the players) of a crowd of new customers with an initial attitude of trust toward a bunch of businessman looking to make a quick buck.
In this setting, where you account for deeply inexpert customers, of both the technology and the market rules and happy to take the various faults as the price of their learning, considering the neverending economic crises where all easy business opportunities had disappeared, the relatively low-technology involved in e-cigs (with the exception of Li-Po batteries, an e-cig would have been easily feasible the same way in 1960, when commercial Ni-Cd batteries made their apparence on retail market), all of this has emboldened the manufacturers to a level never seen before. Quality items are becoming rarer and rarer. People failing their electronic studies are designing e-cig stuff: the typical variable voltage battery for an e-cig is typically made from a step-up circuit, so the 3.7 V of the battery gets to 7-9 Volts, and then a PWM circuit adjusts this stepped-up voltage between 3 to 6 volt, usually. Efficiency is down the drain, circuit is noisy and unstable; if any flashlight manufacturer would have come out with such a design, he would have been ridiculised all ver the boards all over the places. But here, not: user is happy to turn its battery wheel and something change in vapor production, who care about repeatibility, reliability, and so on?
So many retailers have been caught like fishes in this new net. But, I think, flashlight market should not conform to the larger but unwary e-cig market. Should I be nitpicky and inquisitive when buying a RCR123 for a flashlight, and more tolerant when buying the very same battery for my e-cig? Flashlights doesn’t make smoke, I would say to some retailers.
I am a vaper myself and I am astonished.
I hope this craze will end soon, as it is impacting on the flashlight hobby negatively.
I’m sorry for this wall of text but I tried to explain what I learned lately by my flashlight-ecig cross-experience.
Regards to all,