Cheap CR2016 batts?

I need a decent source for lots of cheap CR2016 lithium coin cells for my Photon microlights and several other lights. I go through a lot of them.

I bought a bunch off of eBay, these "Wama" brand 10-to-a-card cells. Well, they were indeed cheap but pretty useless. On my Photon Freedom, put in brand new batts, and they're not half the intensity I see with Energizer or Panasonic batts.

I'm ordering from Kaidomain soon- anybody got experience with these?
http://www.kaidomain.com/WEBUI/ProductDetail.aspx?TranID=832

My local dollar strore has Sunbeam CR2032's as well as CR2's. Maybe your local dollar store would have some. :shrug:

The 2016's off KD and DX are crap. Most of them arrive dead, between 0 and 2v. The Maxel CR2032's are the only ones worth it from DX.

Just curious if you ever found a good source for these. I've been burned from the last batch I got on eBay.

Both lighthound.com and batteryjunction.com have cheap CR2016 batteries (never ordered any, so I don't know if they are any good).

Marduke said:

The 2016's off KD and DX are crap. Most of them arrive dead, between 0 and 2v. The Maxel CR2032's are the only ones worth it from DX.

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That wasn't my experience. Out of a batch of 20 from DX, only one was dead; a couple were weak, but the rest were fine. Given the insanely low price, they were still a great deal. (And yes, I'm the kind of obsessive weirdo who voltage-tested all of them on arrival.)

That said - it's entirely possible DX/KD could get a bad batch and not catch it. I'm willing to accept a few dead cells out of a batch of 20 given the price, but if most of a batch were bad, I would not hesitate to complain to them and see about getting the problem corrected.

FurrBear said:

That wasn't my experience. Out of a batch of 20 from DX, only one was dead; a couple were weak, but the rest were fine. Given the insanely low price, they were still a great deal. (And yes, I'm the kind of obsessive weirdo who voltage-tested all of them on arrival.)

That said - it's entirely possible DX/KD could get a bad batch and not catch it. I'm willing to accept a few dead cells out of a batch of 20 given the price, but if most of a batch were bad, I would not hesitate to complain to them and see about getting the problem corrected.

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I ordered a 20 pack of 2016's. They sent a full card of 25 >> which is good. Voltage tested all of them, and 18 were BELOW 2 volts. >> very bad.

I also ordered a 20 pack of 2032's. Sent a card of 20.
Voltage tested all of them, and 12 were BELOW 2 volts. >> still pretty bad

I sent a ticket in, and they sent two more packs of 20
2016 replacement pack had 5 below 2 volts, 3 more around 2.5volts, the rest were ok. They must have picked out better ones for me since I complained.

2032 replacement pack had 3 below 2 volts, rest were acceptable, at 2.8v or higher.

Just my experience.

for quality coin/button cells, i go to http://www.swatchbattery.com/

they carry energizer and renata brand.

the energizer cr2016's i purchased had 2006 on package.

THE_dAY said:

for quality coin/button cells, i go to http://www.swatchbattery.com/

they carry energizer and renata brand.

the energizer cr2016's i purchased had 2006 on package.

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so they're old expired batteries? how is that better?

sorry for the confusion, i purchased them in the middle of 2007.

THE_dAY said:

sorry for the confusion, i purchased them in the middle of 2007.

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But they were still out of date, made sometime around 1996.

If you're really using them in such quantities in your Photon Freedom, maybe you ought to consider carrying a 1aaa light instead.

I usually just scrounge 2016's from Fauxtons. They're not as good as name brand batteries but they generally work ok. Maybe there's a dud one once in a while, but in general they measure and perform just fine. I'm really surprised by that 18/25 failure rate and something weird must be going on.

www.digi-key.com sells Energizer and other name brand 2016's for around 30-35 cents each in moderate quantity. Type "cr2016" into the search form. These should be pretty good cells, I just haven't felt the need to bother with them.

I once runtime tested a fauxton for something like 5 days straight and it was still glowing at the end, so whatever batteries they use aren't total crap. The fauxton I tested was actually doing pretty well for the first 8+ hours of that test (putting out enough light to navigate a dark room with, etc).

Lighthound has energizer 2016's for around $1 a cell. I might buy one with my next order since I need to replace my watch battery, and it seems worth the small extra expenditure given the hassle involved in changing it. It just doesn't seem worth it for a photon-type light that gets only occasional use, and for which swapping cells is pretty easy and for which there isn't much of a failure mode from the weak cells (the light is just a bit dimmer but it still works).

off of e-bay, i located a seller that only sells real maxells in the "holographic" packaging.
You know the special packaging to attempt to stop cloning (that will be cloned next week).
also they were in the US , and they cost neer 3times the price of junk, but certannly cheaper than wall mart or radioshack.
they work great, dated great, pretty sure they were real. dated 2012

from this guy http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZyuchicago
(and right after i post this, he will start selling clones so this is just a referance to my statement

i have also bought huge quantities of cheap china cells, they were ok, but i went through them faster than "name Brand" about 2times faster. for the price though i didnt lose anything. it was just a pain changing them.

How many do you need? I have quite a few from Digikey that I bought a while back.

Marduke said:

But they were still out of date, made sometime around 1996.

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Marduke, the energizer packaging had the copyright 2006.

THE_dAY said:

Marduke, the energizer packaging had the copyright 2006.

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Ah, ok. Usually when you list the date on a package, you're talking about expiration, not manufacture.

sorry for the confusion.

besides cr2016, they carry most all sizes of button/coin cells and shipping is free for orders over $20.