Hi, guys -

On a whim I bought one of those two-LED Thorfires you see on eBay. They kinda look like an owl's face the way the two wings come off the corners. Came with a battery pack and all for 20something dollars.

I knew four good 18650's would cost way more than $20 but I wanted to see what I'd get.

The battery pack was heat-shrinked into a single package. The cable snaked out from underneath the shrink-wrap. I cut it open. The four batteries had a hot-pink heat-shrink wrap on them with no labeling whatsoever. The color looked like LG or Samsung but no labels tells me they ain't LG or Samsung. My guess - batteries probably scrounged out of old laptop battery packs.

The batteries are all parallel. Output voltage is the same as one 18650 cell. Roughly 3.8 volts or so. AFAIK most 18650 LED lights take about 7.4 V. To make 7.4V with four 18650's means a series/parallel combination.

In other words, the battery pack would not be compatible with most lights. Not that you'd want to use a funky pack made from cells of dubious origin anyway.

The "charger" isn't a charger. There's no circuitry to detect when cells are full or to protect you from trying to charge dead cells. It's just a run-of-the-mill power supply that is too weak to overcharge the batteries. Hopefully.

The light itself is reasonably bright, but it's that cold bluish light that just isn't very pleasant.

You get what you pay for...