Good 18650 batteries on Amazon?

[Calvin98]

Are there any good 18650 batteries on Amazon? I see too many with bad reviews and massively overstated capacity. I see that the 18650 battery store has a bunch, but trying to avoid shipping fees. Has anyone gotten any that are good and stated capacity is correct? Seems like there are a lot of bad batteries on the market.

 

[KITROBASKIN]

Over 10 years I have frequented candlepowerforums (flashlights primarily) and from personal experience and members' reports; illumn, orbtronic (flat fee shipping), li-ion wholesale, 18650 battery store, should meet your needs. Compare total cost and know that free shipping is not always the best deal.

There are others not coming to mind.

 

[Tomthumb62]

In short, no. You can’t reliably buy quality 18650 cells on Amazon or eBay. There are too many fakes. Some may be even dangerous.

Even if you find an 18650 cell listing on Amazon that looks promising, Amazon mixes similarly-listed 18650 cells from different sellers in the same bin. So real ones and fakes get mixed together. Amazon doesn’t test the cells themselves to verify they live up to their advertised claim.

So you want to buy from a specialty battery retailer who actually does test their cells and only buys from people they trust.

I too have bought from some of the sellers that @KITROBASKIN recommends. Li-ion wholesale dot com is the one I’ve used most often for small quantities of cells. Good prices, good quality and reasonable shipping fee (in the USA at least).

 

[Calvin98]

Thanks. Ordered a few at LIION website. Price is reasonable and shipping not too bad. Too much of a wild west on Amazon for batteries. Not anything I wanna deal with.