What 18650s can replace my Ultrafire 18650s...? (pic included)

Today was doing a minor re-organisation of lights and batteries…

And I found I have these:

You are seeing 11 x Ultrafire 18650. I have labelled them from 1 to 12. Label 1 was at some other place so it couldn’t take part in this family photo.

It has been a general consensus that these are bad, bad, very bad batteries.

But being a newbie few months ago, I actually bought 12 of it. And to further my knowledge, may I please ask how do I test the capacity of these batteries - hobby charger? Which one is a basic entry level?

I also had a couple of Sanyo and Samsung 18650s… But Panasonic 18650s seem to be the best? There are so many brands… Keeppower, AW, EagleTac, etc… too many.

So what have you been buying? What brand and type of 18650s should I buy to replace these Ultrafire?

Up my thread.

Go to fasttech and order some Sanyo 18650FM they are cheap and a lot better than the ones you have and all that for a small budget.

And these ultrafire crap should be put in a battery bin.

By the way these coloured boxes are nice.

What 18650s can replace my Ultrafire 18650s...?

How about a lemon and two copper nails? BAHAHAHAHAH!



Seriously though, what Werner suggested. Anything Sanyo, Panasonic, Samsung...

Try THESE and/or THESE

You’ll noticed a HUGE difference from 900mah to 2,600 mah. I’d sayd if you still got 12 good Ultrafire just buy a pair or 2 depending on your light and wait til 1/2 of those Ultrafire to fail. No sense in buying a dozen or so, if they aren’t hardly used. I got like 15+ 18650s and about only 5-6 of them are being used on a weekly bases.

i agree on the sanyo ur18650fm, they keep the highest voltage keeping your lights putting out full power the longest (vs panasonic and others which will fall out of regulation more quickly)

I also think the coloured boxes are nice :smiley:

I have 2 Sanyo 18650FM flat-tops and they work great too, might have to gradually replace these Ultrafire with more Sanyo.

Thanks. Will take a look.

I guess I’d go with Sanyo because they seem cheapest on FastTech. I can’t find myself spending $19 on a pair, compared to $10.58 on a pair.

This I agree fully. Not all my 18650s are used at the same time, most just stay in the light. But, to wait for them to fail, might be too long.

Don’t know much about current regulations, probably gotta read up more. But what I know is that Sanyo 18650s are good and one of the cheapest on FastTech :smiley:

base on my experience sanyo is still the best. it stay longer than anyone.

Better than Panasonic and Samsung?

better as in higher voltage under load giving you maximum brightness for a longer time vs slowly fading as the battery drains
as in capacity no, because you can get panasonic that have higher total capacity
as in longevity, years from now which battery will still have the most percent of its original capacity, there is no testing information out there that i know of that has these numbers.