GTL 18650 Battery Test [ Updated ]

[bshanahan14rulz]

Thanks, AW! That's a great link for this thread!

Semper Fi, it is people like Old4570 and Mkala who take the leap and buy these cells. Heck, old4570 even bought a cell BECAUSE he thought it might be bad!

It was a choice between the GTL and Superfire , I thought the GTL would be the worse of the two.

lovecpf

 

[SemperFi]

Semper Fi, it is people like Old4570 and Mkala who take the leap and buy these cells. Heck, old4570 even bought a cell BECAUSE he thought it might be bad!
lovecpf

That is true but on the other positive side too, I am appreciative of the undertakings they went thru to draw a concern as well as acknowledge given for attention to anyone contemplating purchasing this preposterous marketing by those responsible in and with abetting the distribution and helping promote these branded name to anyone including us all.

What remains now is the slow way with ppl hopping onto this forum thread and realizing with avoidance to purchase and with some Google rerouting, adding further awareness however with that now being proven by the pics and the commentaries added, its now time for those responsible to bring this up in their respective countries to address this discovery with their respective "watchdog" departments over items like these dealing with battery cells.:thumbsup:

 

[VidPro]

"recapping" :

so i just noticed here, where they try and HIDE the top cap, by putting on another top cap, they Risk a FULL SHORT if this thing gets crushed or smacked, or if the insulation is off by a bit?? or if it heats up and the glue loosens and it shifts about , right?

and how deceptivly the false caps and all could be perceived to be Protection curcuit caps, and not just Fraud Hiders.

Wouldnt these people end up risking a full blown lawsuit complete with obvious things like "willfull neglagence" and other such legal terms that should only be said in courtrooms? without a full disclosure?

 

[Mkala]

bshanahan14rulz > yes, but I never buy again this kind of sh*** (bought because of my lack of knowledge of the practise on cheap cells...). "Done the leap", exactly


VidPro > you totally right ! all the exterior of the battery have negative potential (even the part after the gouge) so if the first insulation fail (compression, etc) : short circuit !

Another pic of this risk :

 

[VidPro]

thanks better picture shows that the insulator is more substantial than it looked in the first one.
luv them pics.

 

[SemperFi]

bshanahan14rulz > yes, but I never buy again this kind of sh*** (bought because of my lack of knowledge of the practise on cheap cells...). "Done the leap", exactly

I share with your 1st impulsive tendency too... I wanted a higher mAh output and thought this was the thing to get... but I also checked around incl. your recent findings with pics... and I'll stick to my current retailer's supply... so far, their prices for our standard is affordable and most important, on their warranty coverage and services esp.... no quibbles needed and quick resolve on any issues... :thumbsup:

Hence, Penny wise Pound foolish is and can be COSTLY!!! to your special "EDC baby".:devil:

 

[applevalleyjoe]

Re: GTL 18650 Battery Test

I have never heard of that brand before....is there more info that you can post for people like me that are not familiar with GTL.

I was going to buy a couple of these to test because I thought that I had read somewhere that they were generic Japanese/Korean batteries. I didn't, however, because the vendor was from Hong Kong and I've had prior negative experiences with some electronics vendors from that area. It seems, as you pointed out later in your article, that some of them go to a great deal of trouble to disguise subpar goods and pass them off as something that they're not. :sick2:

Thanks for your great in-depth analysis and detailed pictures. :thumbsup:

 

[BillyNoMates]

Trust me to buy some of these before checking on CPF :mecry:

I decided to build a new battery pack for my bike light because the current pack made from 6 LiPo cells was showing signs of puffing and splitting. This time I thought I would go for a big pack made from a load of 18650s in parallel.

These GTL 3000mAh cells looked to be a good deal. I never expected these cells to really be 3000mAh, but I thought that something around 2200mAh may be a reasonable expectation.

My mistake was ordering them from ebay without checking out the brand first - only went searching when the pack seemed to be significantly below expected capacity. I had held back a cell for testing, so I dug out my old datalogger and did a simple run-test using a buck-boost CC driver set for a LED current of approx 375mA.

End result: capacity approx 960mAh from 4.05V to 3.00V. Graph below showing voltage and cell current:

Needless to say, don't bother buying:thumbsdow

 

[Notsure Fire]

You guys are up to something I can't even comprehend.

 

[thatjeepguy]

I've been thinking about grabbing a few of these GTL 14500's. Has anyone used these before? I was about to order the Ultrafires but then I found these at 1200 Mah. Much like your initial tests on these batteries it made me question the validity of the claim of 1200 Mah when all the other batteries are around 750-900 Mah. It'll be for my EDC light (SWM V11R) and I would like a long lasting battery, and I see that I could get that out of a Ni-Mh in the 3000 Mah range, but my output would suffer. Is there and end all be all 14500 cell or am I chasing unicorns again?:thinking:

 

[HKJ]

I've been thinking about grabbing a few of these GTL 14500's. Has anyone used these before? I was about to order the Ultrafires but then I found these at 1200 Mah. Much like your initial tests on these batteries it made me question the validity of the claim of 1200 Mah when all the other batteries are around 750-900 Mah. It'll be for my EDC light (SWM V11R) and I would like a long lasting battery, and I see that I could get that out of a Ni-Mh in the 3000 Mah range, but my output would suffer. Is there and end all be all 14500 cell or am I chasing unicorns again?:thinking:

GTL is not know for developing new types of batteries, but for printing way to high capacity on their batteries, a guess would be that the 1200mAh marked battery is below 500mAh.
You can use my comparator to check a few types of 14500 batteries and what capacity they have at different current drain (This is measured values). I will be adding more batteries, but it takes time.

 

[thatjeepguy]

Wow. Thank you! It looks like the Keeppower's are pretty serious batteries! The only question is where can I find them!

 

[HKJ]

Wow. Thank you! It looks like the Keeppower's are pretty serious batteries! The only question is where can I find them!

Keeppower mostly sells OEM, i.e. they put other names on and sells to dealers (But sometimes there are dealers that sells them).

For 14500 you can also look at the intl-outdoor, they also have good performance.

 

[Mkala]

Never buy any battery called GTL... this is the advice of the day.

Before I found this thread, I bought some and the only use I have found for them is in a battery recycling container...

See my posts before, and the tests done by other memberes.

 

[Teno]

Hello,

Well, until I have read this post, I've believed I was doing something wrong...

I just buyed four (4) GTL marked as 5300mah... which I expected to work at leas at 2500mah...

But they do not offer the current marked on. I have not any sort of analyzer, just testing and re-testing them for use them on a future USB-solar charger made by Goalzero.

Pitty...

 

[Wentil]

If you think that's bad, that they're claiming 2800 mAH, check out the latest BS, where they're claiming 5300 mAH in an 18650!

It's really annoying to see shoddy, sub-2000 mAH batteries being sold to an unsuspecting public under false label like this.

http://www.supermarket-gadget.mobi/supperstore/slides/B640.jpg

Hotlinked, image tags removed - Norm

 

[Mkala]

lol

it's getting worse and worse

 

[Dakota Joe]

Yeah ! :thumbsup:

These must be the worst of the worst when it comes to capacity , why on earth would they claim 2800mAh when they would be struggling for 1600mAh , and why put a nice label on rubbish , bit like dressing up a turd and passing it of as chocolate . [ I guess that would be the point ][/QUOTE

I just ordered enough GTL's to make what is supposed to be a 100 ah battery at 11.1 V. I was worried about the specs on these things. Thanks for your post. Although these ones do claim to be protected 5300 ah. Would anyone care to share with me what brand would be good and were to buy? I haven't even opened the package. Would love to test but then I might not get my money back. I was trying to find American made but at $12.99 per 10 batteries on eBay I thought; Well they couldn't be that bad.

 

[THE_dAY]

Would anyone care to share with me what brand would be good and were to buy? I haven't even opened the package. Would love to test but then I might not get my money back. I was trying to find American made but at $12.99 per 10 batteries on eBay I thought; Well they couldn't be that bad.

:welcome:
If your looking for some good quality 18650 shipped from within US I would check out mtnelectronics.com and illumn.com.
Both carry only quality li-ions and have great customer service.

 

[Mkala]

I just ordered enough GTL's to make what is supposed to be a 100 ah battery at 11.1 V. I was worried about the specs on these things. Thanks for your post. Although these ones do claim to be protected 5300 ah. Would anyone care to share with me what brand would be good and were to buy? I haven't even opened the package. Would love to test but then I might not get my money back. I was trying to find American made but at $12.99 per 10 batteries on eBay I thought; Well they couldn't be that bad.

If you want good batteries, buy from trusted sources and known manufacturers like Panasonic, LG, Sony, etc.
Ebay can be good or not, but unknown brands with fancy capacities > 4000mAh and low price <5$, you can only be sh** like these GTL. It's better to buy 3 times less good branded battery (to achieve about 30Ah in your case) than the full 100Ah with cheap and dangerous batteries they will never handle their fancy specifications.