There is a widespread misunderstanding throughout the Forums. Many appear to have fallen prey to "clever" marketing tactics, used by many Chinese distributors.
It seems many, do not understand that there is nothing "ultra" about UltraFire, except maybe the products they offer are "ultracheap". This refers to the quality of the merchandise, not necessarily the price.
I missed Andrew's post above, but find some of his suggestions interesting.
1. They source from various Chinese suppliers of Li-Ion bare cells and thus the quality is a crapshoot.
2. They are totally irresponsible and re-sell "recycled" batteries in all sorts of conditions of deterioration with their wrapper on them.
This is true, and applies to most Chinese distributors, not just UltraFire. As seems to be evident, they also source cells from various recalled, or recycled battery packs. These packs actually, often contain cells manufactured in Korea and Japan, as well as China. Many of the recalled battery packs may actually contain cells that are considered defective, for one reason or another.
As for recycled cells, many Li-Ion cells that are recycled are sent to China. As any avid recycler is well aware of, "reuse" is much more effective than breaking down a product into it's basic elements for re-manufacturing. It is both more environmentally friendly, as well as being much more cost effective to the recycling operator. In the case of Li-Ion cells, just slap a new label on the "recycled" cell, market it at a much cheaper price than a "new" cell, and you're done.
3. They are a sufficiently reputable company that counterfeit Ultrafire cells are now in circulation that are of very low quality.
The idea of counterfeit "UltraFire" cells, always cracks me up. Since their founding, a few years ago I, and many others, have purchased and used, many UltraFire products. The general consensus is, that their products are among about the lowest quality products available, particularly when it comes to Li-Ion cells. Their lights and electronics don't fare much better, but that is not the topic of this discussion. At any rate, it is absurd to suggest that anyone would attempt to counterfeit UltraFire Li-Ion cells, or anything else they market, for that matter. It just wouldn't make any sense to fake "crap".
I'm not sure which if any of these is true and I have not yet run across anyone who has absolute proof one way or the other (e.g. someone in the industry or a credible representative from Ultrafire).
I seriously doubt that you will ever see an UltraFire representative here on the Forums (which probably are a major source of their customer base). They've had many chances over the years to appear, but have apparently declined. This is likely because they don't actually have "a credible representative". OK, that may not actually be true. If they did have one though, and the person was truthful, the danger of letting "the cat out of the bag" would outweigh any benefit to participating on the Forums.
As for the products sold by CPF dealers, as well as others, they are running a business. If there is demand for a product, they're going to offer it. It makes no difference whether the product is unreliable, undependable, or even to some degree unsafe, dealers are going to include it in their lineup. It would be foolish to not offer a product that every other dealer is selling in significant quantities. That's the nature of business, supply and demand. Fortunately, CPF dealers are easy to work with, and if you do have a problem, they'll fix it. In my experience anyway, that, they're quite good at.
On a final note I'd like to point out something that I think many members are unaware of. There is only one reputable "Fire" brand, and that is the U.S. based "SureFire". All of the other Ultra, Trust, Spyder, Fandy, Unique, Crapy, Bangy, and rapidly propagating "Fire" brands, have only been around a few years, are of Chinese origin, and are distributors (not manufacturers) that play (apparently quite successfully) on the "SureFire" brand name.
Laser Products Corporation was a company that originated in the U.S. in the late 1970s or early 1980s, as a spinoff of Newport Corporation, which was founded in the 1970s. Around the turn of the century the name was changed to "SureFire", an existing product line, at the time. SureFire is, and has been, a major supplier of flashlights and laser mounted gun sights for the U.S. military and U.S. law enforcement agencies, for many years, and is based in Fountain Valley, California U.S.A.
Rant concluded,
Dave
