TrustFire 14500 protected 900mAh batteries, part two: continuing the experiment.

Yes, you read that right: I already have a review of these batteries, including how they performed in use.
But this review is different from the previous one.
Along the way, I’ll also answer some questions readers often ask about products received for review.

Anyway, if you’re interested, as always, the rest is below the fold.

So, I don’t think everyone has forgotten my review of 14500-size batteries with protection circuits.
They performed pretty well in the tests in that review.
Today’s post is a logical follow-up to that review, but first, some answers:
1. I often see people ask in the comments on my reviews whether anyone actually buys anything on Chinabuye, or if I only review free products.
The answer is yes. I bought these batteries, after publishing my own review.
At the time I ordered the free sample, they cost $4.65 per pair, but by the time I bought mine, the price had gone up to $5.69 per pair. I asked the store for a discount, and they took 5% off. You can easily find a discount like that online anyway.

2. I also often see people say that stores hand-pick products for reviews, then send customers inferior ones.
In this case, I ordered 30 batteries, but this review will include 40 14500-size batteries. I’ll explain why below.
As they say, the tests will tell :)

So, let’s start at the beginning.
After publishing my own review, I decided to order some more batteries. I needed them for the same thing as last time: rebuilding the battery packs for a Kenwood radio.
I needed to rebuild seven packs, which meant I needed 28 batteries. But I decided not to take any chances and ordered 30, with two spares in case any turned out to be defective.
Since I know there’s a customs limit of five identical items per order, I split my order into three parcels, addressed to three members of my family.
The order was sent without tracking (I know, I was taking a risk). It was a large order, with no protection, no tracking, and paid for with WebMoney. Not a good idea :)
Some time later, I received an envelope containing the first third of the order.
Yes, you saw that right: the batteries had no protection circuits.


The obvious thing would have been to file a complaint right away, but since two more envelopes were still on their way, I decided to wait.
But my hunch that they’d contain the same thing was wrong.
The second and third envelopes contained normal batteries, exactly like the ones in my first review.
Both the batteries and their packaging were clearly different.
The first ones were wrapped in film and placed in a zip-lock bag, while the second and third batches came in thick polyethylene bubble-wrap bags.


Only then did I decide to contact Chinabuye support.
At first, I just wrote to explain what was wrong, but they didn’t quite understand me.
The second time, I sent photos and explained that the batteries had been packaged differently, and that some had no protection circuits even though I’d ordered protected ones.
They seemed to be getting it, but things were moving very slowly. I’d paid through WebMoney, so PayPal wasn’t an option for me.
The photo made the difference: I tried to show as clearly as possible what I’d described in words. I was never very good at English in school, but I did my best to keep the wording simple.


They understood me :) They offered two ways to resolve the problem: either they could send the replacements right away, but I’d have to pay for tracked shipping, or they could add them to my next order, but I’d have to remind them and the manager to include them.
They also said that these batteries (the unprotected ones) shouldn’t have been sent to anyone at all, since they were just samples from suppliers, as I understood it.
I replied that I was planning to place an order in the next few days, and they said OK.
Some time later, I received a parcel with my order and the replacement batteries they’d sent for the ones in the first shipment.
So now I’m the happy owner of 40 batteries: 30 protected and 10 unprotected :)


Naturally, I grabbed a few batteries and asked a friend to test them.
The results were more or less the same as last time.
The first two have protection circuits; the third does not.


It's worth noting that the batteries were discharged at 900 mA.
The tester reported:
Pass! Capacity=768.5 mAh (85.4% rated)
Pass! Capacity=768.2 mAh (85.4% rated)
Pass! Capacity=737.4 mAh (81.9% rated)

Here's a comparison of the protected and unprotected batteries.
It's clear that these are the same batteries; some just have a protection board and others don't.


I wasn't under much pressure to rework the battery packs, so I put the batteries in a drawer and forgot about them for a while. I did mention them in the comments a few times, though.
Anyway, I finally got around to reviewing and measuring these batteries.
For testing, I had to use a four-channel charger, which I reviewed earlier.
Even with a four-channel charger, the process took almost 40 hours. So you could say this was a test not only of the batteries, but also of the charger's reliability, since it was running at full capacity the whole time.
Each test took 3.5–4 hours, and I ran 10 tests.
The batteries didn't all behave the same. A couple were heavily discharged, but the rest had roughly the same charge level, around 60–65%, after sitting in a drawer for about 9 months—which seems pretty good to me.

Next, I numbered all the batteries and got started.
Here's how the process went:
I put in four batteries, switched on the charger, and set the charging current to 500 mA.
I took a photo.
I set the charging current to 1000 mA and switched the charger to capacity measurement mode.
I took a photo.
I waited for all the batteries to charge, discharge, and charge again.
Once all four batteries had finished testing, I took a photo and entered the results in a spreadsheet.
I took out the batteries, switched off the power, and started over with the next four.

This took longer than swapping batteries as each test finished, but it kept the test conditions more consistent (IMO).
Here's the start of the test with the first set of four, as an example.


Here's another example: a test with one heavily discharged battery (number 33). The charger even mistook it for a Ni-Cd battery and stopped charging, so I had to “reboot” it. The result in the table is from after the “reboot.”
The second photo shows roughly how much charge went into the batteries during their first charge after storage, though some took even more.


I'll show only photos from the end of the testing process from here on, since I don't want this review to get too long, even though I have all the photos.
The batteries were mostly tested in pairs: slots 1 and 2 were the first pair, and slots 3 and 4 the second. I may have missed this once or twice, but I tried to keep track. By the way, the batteries varied slightly in color, but each pair was always the same color.






A photo of all the batteries after testing.


I put all the data into a small table, which shows:
Battery number in the test
Whether it has a protection circuit
Initial voltage at a charging current of 0.5 A
Voltage after increasing the charging current to 1 A.
Battery capacity measured after discharging at 0.5 A.
Batteries I considered suspicious and decided to retest are highlighted.


The retest revealed no significant differences from the first test.
The only thing that stood out (and it was noticeable in the first test too):
Battery number 25 is a little strange.
When charging current is applied, its voltage rises fairly quickly to 3.8–4.0 V and then increases very slowly. During discharge, it discharges very slowly in the 3.0–2.85 V range, while the voltage of the others dropped very sharply in that range.
Overall, though, the results look like this:
First test — second test
18 — 900 — 900
25 — 856 — 848
33 — 927 — 919
40 — 926 — 914

I didn't wait for charging to finish, so the battery voltages may look a little odd :)


And this is what they'll all be packed into. By the way, I wonder why the lettering on the batteries is different colors.


It's worth noting that in my charger review, I mentioned that it reads higher than tests conducted at a discharge rate of 1C—in this case, 900 mA—because it can only discharge at 250 or 500 mA. I chose the latter, as it's closer to 1C.

Summary.
I won't go over the pros and cons, since they're covered in the previous review. I'll just say that so far I'm quite happy with the results.

Before placing the order, I of course looked for these batteries in other stores and on AliExpress, but I either found a higher price or a seller with a low rating and unpredictable results. That, along with my own review, is what led me to choose this store.
I may be able to get the batteries from the first review back for a retest after a while, but I can't do that yet because they're still in use.

I hope this mini-review was useful. I tried to be as objective as possible.