Surefire Lithium Batteries

I was wondering where I could purchase Surefire lithium batteries at a price similar to the surefire site, but not actually from the site, as they will ship only UPS and I will get a huge brokerage fee after they get shipped here to Canada.

If not, does anyone know of any good brands of lithiums available from the web. I have heard about batterystation batteries, but according to a previous post, their runtimes are less than that of surefire and streamlight batteries.

Greg

There is also ksbman's free international forwarding
offer. See B/S/T Lights forum.

Greg

I can tell no difference in BatteryStation and other batteries in actual use.

Careful there - SureFire vs BatteryStation a still-live pissing match.

Ksbman won't ship more than 12 batteries because of shipping regulations.

http://www.batterystation.com/cpf.htm
You get them for $1 each as a member of CPF. Shipping is via Global Priority Mail (uninsured). $8 small and $12 large. 20 batteries will fit in a $8 envelope.

Which one lasts longer??? Surefire or BatteryStation?

By the battery analyzer method, the Surefire lasts longer still by a few percent though we are working to close that gap some more. Using the batteries in a device, I have never been able to tell the difference as others have pointed out. I am in no way knocking Surefire as they are a fine company. My EDC is an L1 and TW4. My opinion is of course biased but not enough to avoid the truth. If you like, try some and I will refund you if you feel they do not live up to your expectations. $1 each.

I just so happen to have done this test a couple days ago, however haven't had a chance to post it. I guess now's as good a time as any. Draw your own conclusions and note that your mileage may vary.

Good job. Why the spikes on the SF high?

Great work this_is_nascar. Thank you for your efforts.

[ QUOTE ]
this_is_nascar said:
I just so happen to have done this test a couple days ago, however haven't had a chance to post it. I guess now's as good a time as any. Draw your own conclusions and note that your mileage may vary.



[/ QUOTE ]

Hey Ray, it would be great to see this done with some incans and more batteries. Great chart!
Thanks

Nice test, maybe you should run the VIP in high again with the SF cell...

jcciv offered me batteries for testing and I took some runtime measurements.

Arc4x
SureFire P60 Lamp (*)
SureFire L4

It's dangerous to draw conclusions from such a small number of results, but if I hazard a guess...
<ul type="square">[*]Piece-to-piece variations of the SureFire cell may be smaller than the Battery Station cell. The SureFire cell shows fairly consistent results in these test iterations.
[*]The Battery Station cell may produce a higher voltage / power at first. It would have an advantage in some applications.
[*]The total capacity is close, but the SureFire cell may have a little more energy.
[*]It seems there was an improvement in the Battery Station cell.
[/list]
* In the P60 chart, you will find the overall brightness was much higher with the first set of the Battery Station cells. I'm not sure if this is an error or a valid difference.

Though our battery started as a private label deal, we have chipped in on the hiring of a chemist from Sanyo in HongKong. Since we have submitted numerous samples to the military for hopeful sale, we have continued to improve this battery. It is much more than just a label on someone elses battery now. It started that way, but we are knee deep in it now. There should be visible improvements in recent lots; not so much a capacity issue but load current issue. It seems cobalt is the magic behind some higher voltages under load. Beyond that I get lost. I just want it better. Energizer is the new benchmark here.

[ QUOTE ]
batterystation wrote:
There should be visible improvements in recent lots; not so much a capacity issue but load current issue.

[/ QUOTE ]

I have a few experiences with cells from the previous lot and they gave a higher voltage at no load but the voltage sags relatively deeper under load. The total capacity was not an issue even back then. Now your cells works great under load and this could be observed in my charts. Keep up the good work /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbsup.gif

I agree the Energizer is a good benchmark. I've had good experiences with Panasonic and Energizer (and SureFire /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif).

i would also like to say that energizer e2 are top. i get 80min on my Arc4 rev1 @ level 1, they are a more expensive but worth it.