Mystery “protection” added by a random unknown company is junk from what I’ve seen. Fails too often. DW01 chip seems common.
RMM’s batteries with Seiko protection is the best deal.
~ edit ~
Hey, 1000th post. Congratz Flomotion.
That's good to know... same base cell, but different quality protection circuit.
I've also received batteries from mtnelectronics - try "Grid" display. best packaging I've even seen for cells.
You don’t think the Wallbuy protected Panasonics are dependably safe? What about the Fasttech protected Panasonics?
That is my kind of company! 
In all seriousness though, I would tend to agree based on several opinions I’ve heard about these random protection chips. I would definitely pay an extra $2.50 for a well known, proven protection with ridiculously fast shipping.
They’re the same way with unknown circuits of varying performance, according to reviews and word of mouth.
This sure flies in the face of the enthusiastic posts about them for most of this past year.
Fasttech protected panasonics….
:~
Yea… I’m afraid they are the ones that sealed it for me.
3 out of 4 failed in one report. 75% failure for him.
People like when something seems to be a great deal. Its natural. And they don’t fail on everyone I’m sure. The protection doesn’t have a chance to fail in normal use, its usually not tested until there is a problem.
Panasonic NCR18650B is safe down to 2.5v so one could do a series of tests on the overdischarge protection at least. Protection is often set to kick in before 2.5v.
@ Helios, This subject still amazes me! When I posted about the failure of 3 out of 4 of my “protected” FastTech cell’s, there was very little interest. I think the enthusiasm toward the generic batteries has more to do with price, than quality. The people buying these assume the protection circuit will work if needed. Have I missed ALL of the postings where the protection circuit has tripped and been re-set on these generic cells? In my opinion, these batteries are dangerous.
I think your thread didn’t get more response because it started out looking like the protection just tripped. Not fun or interesting enough for some people? So they just move on or only read the first few posts? Others, after reading the title might think its just going to be a simple question & figure there are enough replies that it must have been answered already.
You could change the thread title to “3 out of 4 ‘protected’ panasonic 3400mAh fail”. Bet that might catch the eye of a few more people. :bigsmile:
Like I mentioned, your thread sealed it for me on mystery ‘protection’. I’ve told anyone who asks (and several that didn’t ask / might not have wanted to know) that mystery protection is junk. Seems to fail too often.
Another thing, the HKJ review on the panny 3400 shows what looks like a quality circuit instead of the cheap flimsy ones offered in the deals. People don’t notice, I didn’t notice until recently, the difference.
i bought 10 of these for around $13 a pair on fasttech a few months ago
How does one tell good protection from poor? Is there a visual clue?
I just (finally!) received my order of eight protected button top 18650B’s from BangGood and haven’t even had them on the charger yet. After the ordeal of getting batteries nowadays, I hope they’re not junk.
I wouldn’t consider them junk; I just wouldn’t rely on their protection circuit, though you shouldn’t be relying on a quality circuit either.
The visual clue that I’ve noticed, though it may just be coincidence, is the quality protection look like this:
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and this
Pics above are by HKJ and RMM respectfully.
The varying quality protection seem to all look like this:
2nd Picture on listing
2nd and third picture on listing
2nd Picture
I see that you always tune in to show your favor for RMM, and that may be, but where are the other 100s of broken pannies? 3 out of his 4?...how about the other 100s or probably 1000s..???.haven't seen much..,or any!!!If they were that bad, we Surely would have heard Much More about that!!!
Maybe you can start a poll.. how many pannies do you have, and how many of them failed'....
Might be a good start..
so 4 cells are ~32$ ?
we had paid 27.60$ for 4 cells in the WB GB months ago ! :P
If you want you can get them even a little cheaper...go to focalecig.com and add. FOCALECIGSHARING
Will give you 15% off...also other batteries available.
When it comes to the example where 3/4 failed. People have to remember that they had been severely abused first. Using an example with cells that might have seen close to 100 degree Celsius is not something I would rely on.
Its kinda like saying "Driver took new car to a short little racetrack, drove it around continuously for 30+ minutes. 3/4 rotors and pads needed to be changed. Brakes on the car are low quality and should not be considered safe"..
There will always be cell phones that can fall 100 times on floor and have zero issues. And then there is the few examples where it broke after one single little fall on the floor... Does not matter if it was a quality phone or not. Sometimes things just breaks (especially if its seen some abuse).
My point is, if you are going to use an example. Use one where cells have not been abused. And if people are going to give examples of good quality vs bad quality, they better have some good data behind it. Otherwise its just spreading rumors. The chance of hearing an example about issues with green protected NCR18650B are probably several hundred times higher than any other cell due to the high sales numbers.
I have never had an issue with the protection circuit on any of my cells. And I have owned 20+ of those cells, and I have more incoming. Several other people have tested the protection circuits too without any issues. Like ChibiM says, considering the amount of cells that have been sold, (which are probably 10.000++), where are all the examples and stories of protection circuits not working? Statistics seems pretty good to me.
On a side note. In the example with the cells that had seriously overheated. How can anyone know that the same thing could not have happened with a "quality protection" that had seen the same type of use? And if it happened with a "quality protectection, then what? Lots of speculation can be done. Just blame it on that sometimes electronics fail?
No need to spread rumors about "low quality proteciton circuits" unless there is some decent data behind it.
My latest battery order (with protected cells) contains two Keeppower 18650 3400mAh Protected. Why? Slightly less resistance in protection, shorter length, higher trip current. These are measurable facts. When it comes to the durability of the protection circuit, I don't have any good data that shows that they are worse or better than the protection circuit in the green NCR18650B.
Well I don’t think I’m going to lose any sleep over it.
I checked my new ones (from BangGood) just now. All eight came in at 3.61 volts exactly, and I don’t have anything that pulls over 3 amps in any event. I’ll pay attention if they misbehave on the charger, but so far I’ve never had a cell that did. I’ve never ran a cell to depletion however, or had a protection circuit trip, so I suppose I still have some new experiences coming.
I might be more concerned if I was really pulling them hard, and I doubt they’ll ever get baked either in storage or in my lights. If anything, they’re more at risk of being frozen and I haven’t heard anything yet about that hurting them.
As an aside, and somewhat off topic, I just today had my Olight S20 give me the red “low battery” warning (on the highest setting) for the first time. I checked the cell (a protected Panny 18650B), and it was at 3.66 v. Dropping it to lower settings had the warning light go out, but of course I swapped it out and put it on the charger. I suspect it would have carried on at ‘low’ for some time.
@RaceR86; I am certainly not trying to be argumentative on this topic. In my original post I was asking for help on reseting the tripped protection circuit on my cells. Recap; Threw my SRK with freshly charged FT 18650 “protected” cells in my bag to go on a trip, and forgot to lockout the light. Upon arrival, pulled the light out of my bag and it was warm. That was when I immediately realized what happened, and tried several methods to un-trip the protection, unsuccessfully. Back home a week later, I stripped the protection circuit off of the cells and 3 out of 4 would not take a charge. The 3 bad cells were in the sub 1.5 volt range, and I now believe probably tripped the internal PTC protection.
Out of the 60-70 Li-ion cells I own, 20 or so are protected. I expect the protection to prevent over-charge/discharge, and restrict current flow to a predetermined level. This was the only time I have ever asked my protection circuit to preform and it didn’t. I would not label this as “abuse”.
HKJ mentioned that he does not test the overcharge/discharge portion of the protection circuit. I also have not read many posts about peoples experience with these either.
Perhaps I will start a new thread on this topic, and see if mine was just an isolated incidence. It seems to me though, that most people just assume (like I did) that if needed their protection will work.
The abuse part I was referring was that the light was turned on in a bag, and since it was a SRK, im expecting that it turned on high. I had 3A P60 do that when I was new to the hobby. I found it when it had around 20% capacity left. The light was 80 degree Celcious (measured), I was not able to hold it. Sure the SRK has more surface area. But its considerably more powerful and its got longer runtime. I would not be surprised if the cells had seen 80+ degree Celcius (at least of they were not used a lot before the light turned on).
If I put my oven at 90 degree and threw some batteries in there for an hour, I would consider it abuse. Im no battery expert, nor do I know what batteries are supposed to handle in terms of heat. I would assume that the protection circuit should not fail at those temperatures, but I would assume that such extreme temperatures are not healthy.
I have tripped the protection circuits several times on my green Protected NCR18650B, either through over discharge (mostly me testing them), or through too high current. Never had an issue. I had an issue with one of my Sanyo 2600mAh protected cells, so I don't buy those because of that (and several other reasons).
You have a point though, most people don't test the protection circuit. They just assume it will work. So yes, most cells out there have probably not been tested properly.
I have half a dozen ordered from wallbuys in the lucky money promo, all work perfect…
But as others have said normal price is 17-11% off, which give 15.10$ So no extra good deal…still the cheapest available.