Best place to buy trustfire flame 2400mah or 3000mah 18650s?

[chewy78]

Wheres a good place to find trustfire flame wrapper 3000mah 18650 cells besides ebay?

Are the ones on ebay legit? I am looking for good bang for the buck cells. Already ordered some flame wrapper 2400mah 18650 cells from dx. One of my Wolf-Eyes LRB 168a cells was acting up. Could be the pcb on it or just a bad cell. I could rip it off but I don't want to have an explosion in the process.

I use them in an M90 Rattlesnake with a LUMENS FACTORY HO-9L lamp. One cell always shuts down right away after a full charge so i need to get some replacements. The bad cell reads between around 3.2-3.3 volts and the other cell seams around 4.1 volts after discharging them in my M90 Rattlesnake after a few minutes. When i charge them on my Pila IBC, the good one reads 4.17 and the bad one 4.14 or 4.15.

 

[TranceAddict]

here you go http://search8.taobao.com/search?q=trustfire&commend=all&ssid=s5-e

you will find them as cheap as $0.5 per cell

 

[chewy78]

that is cheap lol

 

[TranceAddict]

same price goes to ultrafire but i doubt if the protection pcb is reliable

 

[TranceAddict]

same price goes to ultrafire 18650, but i doubt the protection pcb is reliable

 

[Danielight]

I bought a TrustFire Protected 18650 2400mAh for $7.75 from Shining Beam to go with a Romisen RC-T601 II XM-L U2. So far the battery has been trouble-free. :thumbsup:

 

[chewy78]

i just got some of those 3000mah ones (actually around 2500-2600mah) from ebay and they are not that bad.

 

[tandem]

I have to wonder about any Li-ion cell being marketed for 50 cents.

For some products, maybe even for most products, there is such a thing as too cheap.

The cheapest I can buy legitimate Sanyo Eneloops - packaged as Duracell Pre-Charged - is $7.99 for a package of four.

4 x (2Ah * 1.2v) = 9.6 watt-hours of energy for $7.99, a pretty good deal. Bear in mind these Eneloop cells are intrinsically safe consumer items, quite unlike bare li-ion cells.

1 (alleged - it may be a fake / forgery) Trustfire 2400 mAh cell 1 x (2.4Ah * 3.7v) = 8.88 watt-hours of energy if the cell lives up to its label claim. This is roughly comparable to 4xAA Eneloops in terms of energy but being a li-ion cell, it isn't a consumer item, is not intrinsically safe, is not produced on the same scale as Eneloop/Duracel, and requires electronics in every cell. There's no way a quality single protected li-ion cell should be sold retail or wholesale for $0.50.

Even the cheapest unprotected Li-ion cell of about the same energy density should cost at least as much - at retail - as 4 Eneloop AA cells. They should cost even more given protected Li-ion cells are assembled in relatively small batches, incorporating PCB circuits and a second wrapper layer over the source cell.

Confirming this assumption, a quick check of a reputable source (AW) shows a protected AW 2200 costs 12.00 each; an unprotected AW cell with the same capacity costs 6.50.

If a protected li-ion cell from a reliable supplier cost *25 times* what you can buy a Trustfire or Ultrafire cell from some faceless entity on the Internet, it seems logical to assume, with prejudice, that the dirt cheap product has something wrong with it. We are not comparing fine wine to home brew plonk here but two electronic items ostensibly made from similar components. In a li-ion cell it is the components that make it a good or bad cell, a safe or less safe cell, a reliable or less reliable cell, a cell which lives up to its capacity claim or one that does not. The protection circuit and thermal protection design of the cell depend on quality components, engineering, and assembly.

Cutting corners in any of these areas may allow a low-price maker to produce a cell at impossibly cheap prices but the cell will be in no way comparable to a product that comes from a reliable maker. Labour and materials are two areas where a cut rate maker can shave costs. Some re-purpose used cells harvested from discarded laptops. Some manufacture new cells using the rejected cast-off raw materials the better makers simply won't use.

Ultra-bargain cells can only be made possible by the use of inferior materials assembled in less capable plants. This doesn't sound like the sort of product I want to put in a sealed aluminum tube that acts like a pipe bomb in my hand (or mounted to my head) if something goes horribly wrong with that discount product.

 

[901-Memphis]

Intl-Outdoors. Website has Panasonic NCR18650A 3100mah protected 18650s for $13.96 each with free worldwide shipping. I am recommending these as the best bang for the buck right now. They have been tested side by side Redilast 3100mah and perform nearly identical at less cost. Same cells as aw is using too with a intl - outdoors wrapper.

 

[LitFuse]

Well stated. No one is looking out for your personal safety except you. There are places where saving money makes good sense, and others where it does not.

I have to wonder about any Li-ion cell being marketed for 50 cents.

For some products, maybe even for most products, there is such a thing as too cheap.

The cheapest I can buy legitimate Sanyo Eneloops - packaged as Duracell Pre-Charged - is $7.99 for a package of four.

4 x (2Ah * 1.2v) = 9.6 watt-hours of energy for $7.99, a pretty good deal. Bear in mind these Eneloop cells are intrinsically safe consumer items, quite unlike bare li-ion cells.

1 (alleged - it may be a fake / forgery) Trustfire 2400 mAh cell 1 x (2.4Ah * 3.7v) = 8.88 watt-hours of energy if the cell lives up to its label claim. This is roughly comparable to 4xAA Eneloops in terms of energy but being a li-ion cell, it isn't a consumer item, is not intrinsically safe, is not produced on the same scale as Eneloop/Duracel, and requires electronics in every cell. There's no way a quality single protected li-ion cell should be sold retail or wholesale for $0.50.

Even the cheapest unprotected Li-ion cell of about the same energy density should cost at least as much - at retail - as 4 Eneloop AA cells. They should cost even more given protected Li-ion cells are assembled in relatively small batches, incorporating PCB circuits and a second wrapper layer over the source cell.

Confirming this assumption, a quick check of a reputable source (AW) shows a protected AW 2200 costs 12.00 each; an unprotected AW cell with the same capacity costs 6.50.

If a protected li-ion cell from a reliable supplier cost *25 times* what you can buy a Trustfire or Ultrafire cell from some faceless entity on the Internet, it seems logical to assume, with prejudice, that the dirt cheap product has something wrong with it. We are not comparing fine wine to home brew plonk here but two electronic items ostensibly made from similar components. In a li-ion cell it is the components that make it a good or bad cell, a safe or less safe cell, a reliable or less reliable cell, a cell which lives up to its capacity claim or one that does not. The protection circuit and thermal protection design of the cell depend on quality components, engineering, and assembly.

Cutting corners in any of these areas may allow a low-price maker to produce a cell at impossibly cheap prices but the cell will be in no way comparable to a product that comes from a reliable maker. Labour and materials are two areas where a cut rate maker can shave costs. Some re-purpose used cells harvested from discarded laptops. Some manufacture new cells using the rejected cast-off raw materials the better makers simply won't use.

Ultra-bargain cells can only be made possible by the use of inferior materials assembled in less capable plants. This doesn't sound like the sort of product I want to put in a sealed aluminum tube that acts like a pipe bomb in my hand (or mounted to my head) if something goes horribly wrong with that discount product.

 

[LitFuse]

double post

 

[chewy78]

just did a test charge with these older cells on bays 1 and 2 on my opus bt-c3400 at 500ma and got 2376 and 2293 mah.

 

[LiteTheWay]

You will find lots of posts here saying avoid anything xxxxFire. And I certainly would if using them in anything other than single-cell applications.

 

[chewy78]

......

 

[chewy78]

the other week i got 4 keeppower 3400 mah 18650s and 4 keepower 2500mah 16650s