The 18650 lights I see on eBay are intiguing. Not sure what the advantage of the battery size would be, and looking at the many offerings, they all appear to be made in the same factory.
There is a price difference between the offerings. (Light,charger and 2 batteries) Does that indicate a real difference in quality/reliability, or is it just “Whatever the traffic will bear?”.
Other than supporting forum advertisers, Is it better to order from one ofthem, with their reputed Sloooowww shipping, or deal with the eBay sharpies, :face_with_monocle: based upon their feedback numbers?
Sounds like you are about to make the mistake I made about 6 months ago
I purchased a T6 18650 light (a 502B), with 2 x 3600mAh batteries and a charger on ebay for $ 16
When it arrived I still thought it was a good deal, as it was brighter than my 8 year old 1 watt 3 x aa torch but then
I used it on high for about 20 minutes and it became very dim
I checked the Ultrafite (correct spelling - a ripoff of an Ultrafire battery) and it was down to 2 volts.
I went to charge it - and the charger died - fortunately.
I became a bit sus at this point so did lots more reading and found that my batteries must be fakes because the biggest 18650 capacity made today is 3400mAh - and they sell at a premium prices, also my batteries were only 33 grams in weight - and any decent 18650 battery would be 10 grams or more heavier than that. And that buying Ultrafire batteries was a bad idea anyway.
So I purchased from fasttech.com a Nitecore Intellicharger i4, a pair of 3100mAh protected Panasonics and from Manafont.com the 'Legendary' 3 mode P60 drop-in for my light - and then I finally had my first good flashlight - and I was bitten by the flashlight bug.
Since then I've purchased a few more flashlights - not from ebay but from the chinese stores - fasttech and manafont, guided by reviews on here, and reading about the bargains and good deals on here you can get a decent quality light, batteries and charger without spending too much.
e.g. do a search here for reviews on the ML-102 charger, the Convoy M1 flashlight and tests of the Panasonic batteries.
And have fun exploring the world of really bright flashlights (and expect a few WOW moments from friends).