Can someone explain UF RCR123 question??

I just received 4 UF RCR123s yesterday. As I went to throw them in my charger I realized that they are about 2mm shorter than my others I got about a month ago. I realized this because when I went to put them in my charger with my homemade spacers there was a huge gap. I pulled out my old one's and they are clearly the exact same model, voltage, etc... They are the standard grey and black Ultrafires that we all use. The one's I got that fit my charger better are silver on the bottom, the one's I got yesterday that are too small are Gold. Can anyone easily clear this issue for me? I'm confused......

Are the cells protected? if yes,

What SKU did you order?? or the product link?? Because I WANT THEM!!! I have been looking for a shorter RCR123 that fits in lights without having to crush them.

richardcpf said:

Are the cells protected? if yes,

What SKU did you order?? or the product link?? Because I WANT THEM!!! I have been looking for a shorter RCR123 that fits in lights without having to crush them.

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Yes, they are protected. I ordered them from Battery Junction. Here is the exact spec that was sent in my confirmation email, copy, & pasted. Here you go.....

Ultrafire 3.6V 880mah UF16340-36V 4 3.95
Protected Li-Ion
Rechargeable Battery
RCR123A CR123A 16340
CR16340

Here is the link... I just found it. Maybe shoot him an email to confirm before you hit the "buy" button.....

http://www.batteryjunction.com/uf16340.html

geoff538 said:

Yes, they are protected. I ordered them from Battery Junction. Here is the exact spec that was sent in my confirmation email, copy, & pasted. Here you go.....

Ultrafire 3.6V 880mah UF16340-36V 4 3.95
Protected Li-Ion
Rechargeable Battery
RCR123A CR123A 16340
CR16340

Here is the link... I just found it. Maybe shoot him an email to confirm before you hit the "buy" button.....

http://www.batteryjunction.com/uf16340.html

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Any idea on why, out of the blue they are smaller than the one's I ordered before? If these are more desirable due to fitting issues, I should order another dozen....

Well I ordered 2 pairs of that exact battery from DX and they measured 37mm, way too long for most of my single cell flashlights.

I dont think you should be worried, because those batteries are measuring real 16340 size (16mm diameter 34mm long) and thats a good thing. They only have 450-550mah anyways.

My guess, although obviously I cannot know for certain without seeing a photo, is that you have been sent the wrong cells and the ones you have are UNprotected. The protection circuit adds ~2 mm to the length.

You should be doubly careful with them because of this - and because UF cells are consistently the worst-performing and most unreliable cells you can get. Yes, they are cheap; but sooner or later (probably quite soon) they'll let you down badly.

BTW, you posted this in the wrong forum, so I'm moving it to the Batteries section for you.

DM51 said:

My guess, although obviously I cannot know for certain without seeing a photo, is that you have been sent the wrong cells and the ones you have are UNprotected. The protection circuit adds ~2 mm to the length.

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The protection circuit add between 2 and 4 mm in length and it is usual possible to see if it is there. You can not use the length of the cell as a guideline, some cells start out shorter than 34 mm.
Take a look here: Anatomy of a Protected Battery to see of a protected battery looks.

I have the same cells from Battery Junction and they are definitely protected as I triggered the protection circuit seeing how long they would run in my Nitecore Extreme.
They lasted 26 minutes compared to 36 for the AW cells and they are indeed a little shorter than the AW cells.

Yup. Same experience. For some reason the grey protected UF RCR123 cells from Battery Junction were actually slightly *shorter* than Duracell 123 primaries. I know they are protected as one failed (big surprise) and I removed the protection circuitry. (Now it is WAY shorter!!)