your opinions of Batterystation 123's

[LED61]

Yes, they are extremely knowledgeable people, don't forget JS in the incandescent front.

 

[jsr]

I've never had any trouble with Battery Station 123As. I gather that they don't perform as well as surefire/duracell/energizer/sanyo/other major labels, but they are considerablhy cheaper.

Ditto...same experience and opinion here.

Bottom line is the china-made cells such as BatteryStation, Amondotech Titanium, Powerizer, etc. are considerably lower priced than the major brands for a reason...yield. These china-made brands widen their acceptance standards to increase yield and thus can offer them at a much lower price. That is also the reason why we see more variation in capacity between cells. Widened acceptance requirements also mean less drive to control quality and improve processes (not saying they don't have QC or decent processes in place, but if you have tighter tolerances, you'll need better processes in place to meet the target yields at those tighter tolerances). I think the china-made cells are fine for 1cell applications. I prefer to use Sanyo, Ray-o-vac, and Streamlight cells as they're not that much more when purchased online and offer more consistency.

 

[jch79]

Here's a runtime test I did a while back with my McLuxIII-PD UX1K, with a few primaries and a couple rechargeables. BS cells seem to perform similar to Titaniums, but both were outshined by SureFire.

I suppose YMMV, depending on flashlight used, environment, length of use, etc.

john