Let down with Battery Station brand

[Wireman]

I always used Surefire 123A batteries, I had stocked up on many dozen when they were still cheap.

I just finished off my stock pile and decided to go elsewhere since Surefires went up to $1.75 each. The recommendation that I always got from this forum was Battery Station, I found them with the CPF discount for $1 each which is a good price.

I've been using them in my Brinkmann $18 Target light (I forget the name), I love this light since it's so cheap I don't mind losing or breaking it. I've always got good run time (45-55 minutes) from Surefire batteries, but these Battery Station brand batteries are lasting less than half as long. It's a huge difference, I got about 20 minutes of light before it dimmed considerably and finally went out, this happened with 6 pairs of batteries.

So my question is, could this be a bad lot of batteries? They say 1006 on them if that matters. Or is this just what I should expect from cheaper batteries, and should I just order the Surefire brand?

Thanks!

 

[bones_708]

I've seen complaints about batterystation on here but my personal experiences with their 123's have all been very good. If I was you I would call them up and ask about the batteries. From what I've seen they seem to try to do what they can as far as customer service. They may be able to help if they did get in a bad batch of batteries.

 

[cam94z28]

You could also try Amondotech Titanium CR123A's at $1 each. I had a good experience with them recently....received my CBA II much quicker than expected.

The Titanium's seem to have a better reputation here than the BS batteries.

I just finished off my stock pile and decided to go elsewhere since Surefires went up to $1.75 each. The recommendation that I always got from this forum was Battery Station, I found them with the CPF discount for $1 each which is a good price.

Thanks!

 

[Codeman]

I suggest that you contact BS about it. They had some bad ones several months back, and I think Oct 06 (1006) was about the time frame. Theres a thread on CPF about it, somewhere. At the time, they were replacing the batteries with new ones that had been tested. I don't know if they are still doing that, but it wouldn't hurt to contact them.

 

[Grox]

Codeman has it. Contact Kevin - he is fanatical about making his customers happy.

 

[Wireman]

Codeman has it. Contact Kevin - he is fanatical about making his customers happy.

I assume he is the person who replied to my e-mails. I wouldn't know who I was speaking to since the e-mails were very unprofessional, no greeting and no signature at all.

I was told that they know the batteries are faulty, and to send my remaining batteries back for exchange with Rayovacs. So apparently because of their mistake I have to pay shipping to return their faulty batteries, and I lose the money on the faulty batteries that I have already used (I went thru so many because they were dying so fast). FWIW, I use my flashlight at work to make a living, as an electrician a good light with reliable batteries is a necessity.

And to top it all off, when I asked where to send them I got a reply saying (and I quote) "send them here attention Kevin". Well where is "here"? Would it be too hard to include the address in the e-mail?

I am not very impressed. Someone surely was not fanatical about making me happy. Hell, I'm not looking for someone to make me happy or anything special, I just want what I paid for, which is not what I got from Battery Station.

So I ordered 20 good batteries and expected to get just that. Instead I got batteries that are known to be faulty, and are still being sold for full price until the replacements come in. Because of this, I have to go out to get a shipping box or padded envelope, package up the remaining batteries, find the address to send them to (not a big deal, but it's pretty lame that when I ask where to ship them I am told "here"). Then I get to go out to the Post Office and pay to have them sent out, then await replacements for the unused faulty batteries.

It's easier to just throw the batteries out and order from a reliable dealer.

I was hoping I would be made whole again and I could change the title of this thread, but the title stands.

 

[Grox]

I see what you're saying and I would be unhappy if I was in your shoes.

I can say that the rayovac cells are excellent, though. I've also had good experiences with SF cells. I haven't tried streamlight but the word around the forums is that they seem to be quite good.

Lighthound has streamlight CR123 batteries for fairly cheap.

If you do use your lights a lot, have you considered using a light that could use rechargeables? That would save you in the long run... and give you an excuse to buy more lights I don't remember whether the brinkmanns take SF-style dropins or 17670s (I think they do?), but if they do you might be able to pursue that route.

 

[LED61]

If you're serious about your work and need good batteries, forget about $1.00 batteries. You just cannot expect the quality control you need for that price. You stand to get a good batch, a bad batch, and you cannot afford this.

I recommend Duracell Ultra batteries for $2.00 ea at www.batteriesandbutter.com

You can also get slightly better performance on high current draws from the Procells for $2.25 ea.

Personally, I think these are the best batteries available.

 

[Wireman]

Yeah, I think I'm going to have to do that, either rechargeable or more expensive batteries from a better source.

I always felt the Surefire batteries were high end, for $1.25 each it was great. Too bad that deal went away...

 

[LED61]

BTW, I just checked batteries and butter website and their price is actually down to $1.90 ea, for the ultras, when ordering 50 units. I prefer their performance over the Surefires. Real life use seem to support Silverfox's recent shootout where the ultras overperformed the Surefires holding better voltage through the run and consistency from cell to cell. To me that's worth the extra $0.15 in price.

 

[Wireman]

Rechargeables are starting to sound very nice, I just don't know what to look for, how the runtime compares, etc. When at work I use my Surefire E2L, I'm not sure how rechargeables would work with it.

 

[LED61]

When I look at rechargeables, I look at Wolfeyes. A couple 18500's work great with the Raider 9 series. You get serious output for 40 minutes. Alternatively, you can go with the Sniper. They are great value lights.

 

[turbodog]

Quit taking everything so personally. If you don't like the batterystation cells, order their rayovac cells. They perform 95% as good as duracell and cost $1.50

He likely meant that they know there is a problem on high drain devices. They went to a safer chemical makeup and it's limiting the high drain capabilities of the cells. In any case, I doubt he willfully said "I'm going to send these crappy cells to that CPF idiot". If an error was made, I am sure it was unintentional.

Also, yeah you got some "bum" cells, but it pretty standard for any customer in any situation to have to pickup the return shipping tab.

This will all be a non-issue soon. Batterystation is changing their cell mfg from china to a domestic mfg. And the only domestic 123 mfg is rayovac and duracell. So it's a win/win situation now.

 

[turbodog]

...I was hoping I would be made whole again and I could change the title of this thread, but the title stands.

Is (ex) Judge Roy Pearson a friend of yours?

 

[Wireman]

Quit taking everything so personally.

I take nothing personally, this is business (bad business, apparently).

If you don't like the batterystation cells, order their rayovac cells. They perform 95% as good as duracell and cost $1.50

I don't plan on ordering anything from them anymore. I started this thread to ask other people's opinions, I continued it to show the bad service I have received in the meantime.

BTW, it's not that I don't "like" the Battery Station cells, as you so eloquently put it. The point is that they are faulty, and Battery Station knows this, yet they are still selling them.

If an error was made, I am sure it was unintentional.

That is a completely false statement. Whoever sold me the batteries knew they are defective, they are in the process of getting a different supplier, but it the meantime they are still selling the defective batteries at full price.

The batteries they are selling are not the cells that they show off as doing great on the comparison reviews.

This will all be a non-issue soon. Batterystation is changing their cell mfg from china to a domestic mfg. And the only domestic 123 mfg is rayovac and duracell. So it's a win/win situation now.

It's great that he is fixing his mistakes, it's just a shame that the faulty cells are still for sale on his site under false pretenses.

yeah you got some "bum" cells, but it pretty standard for any customer in any situation to have to pickup the return shipping tab.

That type of service is most certainly NOT standard for good vendors.

I haven't had many problems when ordering online, the only one that comes to mind is Newegg. I ordered an LCD TV for $800, when it arrived it was damaged (the outside of the box was in good shape, it was not the delivery services fault). I called Newegg, they said a new TV would be sent out and UPS would come to pick up the old one.

The next day I received an e-mail with the tracking number of the replacement TV, the day after I received the TV (their shipping depot is in my state). A few days after UPS came to pick up the damaged one.

Now that is service. And that's for an $800 TV. It's horrible to think that a vendor can't cover their own mistake on a few batteries...

So do not tell me what the standard is, because you are apparently accustomed to poor service.

 

[Wireman]

Is (ex) Judge Roy Pearson a friend of yours?

It's apparent that this dealer is your friend and you will defend him while attacking me no matter what the truth is. Because of that bias and your poor attitude in this thread, there is absolutely no reason to discuss this further with you.

 

[dano]

This thread has run its course, and is turning into off-topic nonsense.

Closed.