Help with battery selection for UF C2

[Delta]

I have an Ultrafire C2 that I would like to make the jump to rechargables with. I have seen a whol bunch of different 18650's. Protected/unprotected/button/nobutton/etc....

Can someone point me to a cost-effective/good quality battery/charger setup? I really need one for my 2-cell lights just for "playing" with them and not killing my primary battery supply.

 

[Gunner12]

The Protected Ultrafire 18650 batteries and the DSD charger seems to be a good and cost effective combination.

A protected battery has a circuit that prevents overcharge, over-discharge and over current, either one might cause the battery to vent or explode the next time you try to charge them. A button means it that a raised positive end that helps contact with the positive end of the flashlight. Some protected batteries have a flat top and would not work with some lights.

 

[Delta]

The Protected Ultrafire 18650 batteries and the DSD charger seems to be a good and cost effective combination.

A protected battery has a circuit that prevents overcharge, over-discharge and over current, either one might cause the battery to vent or explode the next time you try to charge them. A button means it that a raised positive end that helps contact with the positive end of the flashlight. Some protected batteries have a flat top and would not work with some lights.

It's hard to tell....do those batteries have the button on top or no? One pic looks like yes, one looks like no.

 

[ak645]

The UltraFires do have the button top.Please hold off a little while before buying them.SilverFox has just finished testing on the UltraFire protected 18650.The results were not good.Hopefully Tom will be posting his results soon.

Andy

It's hard to tell....do those batteries have the button on top or no? One pic looks like yes, one looks like no.

 

[petrev]

Hi Delta,

I have a couple of C2s and they just need a small solder blob putting on the head PCB and any battery will work fine - flat top or not.

The DSD charger is very simple and cheap and seems to work quite well - some people find it cuts off a bit early but you only lose about 2% capacity and seems better for battery longevity. Also being almost totally dumb I use them to jump start protected cells that have switched off due to low V (my FMA and DN chargers refuse to recognise switched off cells)

AW now recommends the Ultrafire 139 (?) as a slightly more intelligent charger (2 channel) but some people have had QC troubles with these too so who knows ! They do look like nice units and the people that got good ones love them.

AW is great for customer care - I have had a couple of cells fail early and he has been just great.

I have 2 Ultrafire 18650-2400 cells and lots of AW cells including 18650-2200. The AWs are about a year old and the Ultrafires brand new. My FMA tells me one random AW18650 cell took 1.68Ah to recharge from switch off
while the UF2400s took 1.58 and 1.78Ah.
This is not extensive testing by any means, but shows that nominaly larger cells are not necessarily better - maybe ?

Hope this helps while we wait for SilverFox's full results . . .

Cheers Pete

 

[Delta]

Thanks for the input guys!

 

[Anders]

Hi Delta.

+1 for AW, he show a great responsibility for his customers .

He immediately sent me a new charger when my first was broken.

His cells is greate too.








Anders

 

[ak645]

The results of SilverFox's UltraFire testing are in .Just scroll down a few posts.The good news is that the AW 18650s now come in button top. Quality on those is excellent.Agree on the DSD as an okay low cost charger.You can use it while you save for the Pila IBC.Even after you have the IBC you'll still need the DSD to reset tripped protection ICs.

Andy