Some 18650s aren't what they seem...

[farzooks]

...just discovered this on www.budgetlightforum.com

A 16340 masquerading as an 18650

[vapee]

looks pretty dodgy, so they put some sand and a 16340 or something in an ultrafire packaging

[Deleted]

very shifty

[suede]

There must be some money in the battery game--Who the f**k sits down and dreams of doing crap like that--is it worth it?.Not a bit of wonder the effin things blow up.

[blakey]

Seems fake, how does the top terminal make contact ???

[dave]

Some sellers have been known to re-cycle old laptop batteries in new stickers as well! There are many horror stories about batteries on the flashlight forums

[ant]

I got a few cheap ones from china, this one was DOA and it stunk like hell once opened. Looks more like a capacitor!
The working ones don't last anything close to my Panasonics.

[blakey]

That right there is why I don't skimp on batteries- Not worth the risk

I buy genuine parts from reputable dealers, I pay a little more but then safety sometimes costs a little more.
These things can chuck out a lot of power very quickly

[djs]

Dec 23, 2012 12:13:08 GMT suede said:

There must be some money in the battery game--Who the f**k sits down and dreams of doing crap like that--is it worth it?.Not a bit of wonder the effin things blow up.

Mad. "ooh, lets take a small battery, encase it in a bigger battery housing, run a connection to the terminal and fill it with sand"

How to sell a £3 battery for £7....

[Mev]

With the parts involved and work needed it'd be hard to see how they make a profit from these dodgy batteries though. I tend to disbelieve most I see on the net without proof.

[djs]

Dec 23, 2012 13:56:07 GMT dave said:

There are many horror stories about batteries on the flashlight forums

Flashlight forums! .... LOL

and I thought we were a bit anorak-y.

I'm off to find an l.e.d. Christmas lights forum.....

[alvoram]

I dont get it either, these fake ultrafire 18650's go for less than a quid on ebay, where's the profit, surely they could ask as much for the 16340 in the first place....

I call fake picture too, have seen many of these stripped down images of ultrafire batteries, and they always look like the one ant posted. Plus if the ultrafire batteries I've used are 16340s, please tell me where I can buy a small 16340 mod, because those things still last over a day after almost 9 months usage. A days use, from a 16340 mod would be amazing!

[vapee]

maybe the 16340 battery is full of sand too
then inside that battery theres a watch battery and finally a small ant running on a tredmill powering up ur pv

[Brambles]

along the same lines --- fake battery.

[dave]

I think the problem is that Ultrafire and Trustfire have been around for a long time, so is the name a lot of vendors put on their stickers, so some of the "fakes" are only fakes in the same way that most eGo batteries aren't made by Joytech/ Janty. Unfortunately it also is the name that gets stuck on some extremely dodgy batteries, so you are taking a bit of a chance unless you know who you are buying from.

I remember when the Lavatube first came out - a lot of people had problems with the nameless batteries they were supplied with. I struck lucky though and I am still using the ones I got after a year - they are fine for the occasional use my LT still gets. There is an element of "luck of the draw" with cheap batteries. If you get quality batteries from a known source, you know what you are going to get