141

Read post #132 again...

In the dispute, I mentioned "The shipping costs to ship these back to the seller far exceeds the cost I paid for the items."

Hope that helps.

142

ledoman - it's safe to ignore anything from Buyshield/Auctiva and SquareTrade. They are in the business of selling 3rd party warranty policies that are, at least in my opinion, pretty much worthless. A lot of HK-based retailers use those two companies and try to make an extra buck. Personally, I consider anything originating from their IP space very likely to be spam and I have SpamAssasin set up accordingly. (A friend of mine just silently drops all traffic originating from China at the edge of his network. Apparently, it's very effective in cutting down on spam, port scans and hacking attempts. Still, talk about painting with a large brush... ;)).

As for the seller, I never got another reply after the first "send it back and we'll refund you" email so I filed a dispute, wrote a short recap of what had happened and included a link to this thread. I got my refund about an hour later. I suspect I'll have to do the same for the other two batteries, if they ever do get here.

143

I wish mine does not even arrive now... i rather have the refund and someone else dispose that junk...

144

So now we've got these rubbish batteries how do we dispose of them ??

145

It is new years soon and I have some spare pieces of visco fuse laying around somewhere

Joking aside, I found this thing about battery recycling in the UK. It looks like they are accepting Li-ions too.

146

Thanks spambot

I have a centre not far from where i live, it's good to know they take lithium :-)

147

Lowes and Home Depot have deposits as well. drop em off for free near the return desks (at least at Lowes)

148

i'm sorry i accepted it now. (its not much money, i know, so no big deal). on principle i wouldn't want to support this type of transaction at all. it is either pure ignorance on the seller's part, or more likely, outright scam which assumes stupidity on the part of the buyers. leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

...and definitely don't throw more money away on the useless warranty.

149

I finished running a test on my Fakefire batteries and they didn't do horribly. They held their charge from when I charged them last night, losing like 0.01V. I only got a pair so I tried one in a light with a 1050mA AK47 driver and XP-G R5 and the other in a light with a 1400mA Shiningbeam driver with a XP-G R4. I compared these with results I got before when I was doing a comparison of 18650's. These batteries definitely came up short, but did somewhat respectably, getting an hour of runtime in each light. I may try them with my XM-L drop-in and see how they do at a higher draw.

Even though the results are somewhat decent, this certainly isn't what I paid for. Compared with the true flame Trustfires I am getting significantly less runtime. Plus no protection. Plus they are just fake. So I will e-mail the guy and see what he says.

Battery 1050mA 1400mA
Fakefire 70 min 60 min
Gray Protected Trustfire 80 60
Gray Protected Ultrafire 110 70
True Flame Trustfire 130 80
150

Here is what I got from seller:

Hi, these batteries were made for manufacturer use. The quality may not as good as the branded batteries, but the difference of capacity should not be too much. Could you want to have 40% refund?

And after a dispute on PayPal I have got a full refund very quickly.

151

I heard that line before purchasing 3000mAh AA GODP batteries. Turned out to be 600-750mAh each after three full refresh cycles (1 refresh cycle is 5x charge/discgarge).

At least i got offred 70% refund which was acceptable for me so i ended with not very usable 16x AA 700mAh for 3 usd in the end.

The GODP 3000mAh should probaly mean: if GOD Permits 3000mAh. I guess this is what i get being an atheist.

152

Sub 1Ah, so GODP cells are not nearly as omnipotent as their name suggests. Beware of leaking GODP cells though, I've heard that their electrolytes easily becomes omnipresent if you are not careful.

Someone should organize a list of cells to avoid, I submit BTY brand cells and these fake TF flames as two entries on that list when/if it gets created.

153

I think someone from our senior members tested a GODP li-ion cells and called it GOOP afterwards... that was miserable too... (to add to the list)

154

And what did you expect for that price? I've seen too many cases like yours, and if these batts sells a good seller with 50% off, then I'm in, but so low price and genuine? Bah, no sense risking

If you charge them with intellegent charger (CC, CV), will it be dangerous also?

155

It is when charging lithium-ion cells that any problems will show up. Sometimes in the form of flames. I wouldn't try to charge any cell that was below 3V after standing for an hour or two. Nor would I ever try to charge a Chinese cell if I wasn't in the same room as it.

Most of the time nothing will happen, it will charge and then the voltage will drop back to next to nothing. All of the first RCR123 cells I bought died this way. They'd charge but would only work for a few minutes before they dropped down to tiny voltage. Sometimes they will just fail to charge.

But some will fail in more dramatic ways. This has never happened to me when I didn't force it to happen outdoors, but my house is worth around half a million euros - an 18650 worth a few euros. Why take the chance?

Some of the products of violent failure of a lithium ion cell are seriously nasty. You only get one pair of lungs. This is one of the products of violent failure of a lithium-ion cell. There are others which are almost as bad.

And burning lithium metal is not fun stuff to have around. Throwing water at it will make matters worse.

156

Thanks for the advice, Don I ordered my first 14500 li-ion batts and don't want to make a fireworks party in my house the first time I use them, LOL. I borrow a MM from my friend just for that. So, If I recieve a bad/dead one (or both), would it be better to ask for a RMA directly without try to charge them? What is the voltage should be on new ones?

157

Around 3.5-3.8V

158

I found no problems with cells discharged to 2.66 and left there for a month or so. But these were from a 2 year old laptop and identified as sony 2200mAh. They still hold well after half a year. Anything below 2.6V recieved as new it's a sure toss for me. Even if at 3V i would be looking at it very carefully.

Before i dispose the 4 trustFake cells that did not yet arrive... ill' measure the voltage, charge the eventually "good"ones and do a discharge test comparing to good 2400mAh cells in a same light. Later on i'll asses self discharge over one houra and 1 day. Then i'll ask for a refund probably. It seems all are pure garbage, generic low quality cells left in a warehouse to rot a few years then facelifted (even that was easilly identified as fake of fakes) to look new.

159

They should have been charged to storage voltage as part of manufacture - yes it is safe enough to take them down to 2.8 or even 2.5V (But this will shorten their life), but "brand new" they ought to be in the 3.5-3.8V range. If they are below that, they need careful attention paid to them. Or recycling.

160

The four I got were charged to 4.2V on Thursday or Friday. Three of them are at 4.18+V, the fourth is down to 3.93V. The fourth one looks like it is due for disposal, the other three are mostly OK for the moment.