The two companies were once one. I marked every battery I returned to s51 and got a couple of them back as replacements. So far haven't heard back from them about this.
At one point they shipped what they called "new" batteries - that was in Jan. They weren't. They haven't had anything new since and claimed they "bought Loongtotem". LT doesn't have a factory to buy. They don't do any of their own production. They are oversold without a plan and vicious competition.
After 3 kits returned to the nasty guys at the Freehold mall they refused to exchange, wouldn't sell me carts (I don't think they had any anyway) and told me, loud enough for the whole mall to hear to GFMS. S51 says to go back to him... after that incident s51 sent me to esmoke who gave me 2 working batts and took my crap ones back. esmoke told me that almost every other s51b battery since the "new batteries" were coming back and about 1 in every 4 chargers.
I started to open the batteries and found at least 4 different variations and 2 different chargers trying them with e-cig chargers and batteries but no joy there. The only similarity was that they all screwed into each others chargers but that's it. I started to test them with my multimeter. While they all put out around 3.5 volts the mah was widely variable from less than 170 mah to over 400 mah! Some of the small batteries were more powerful than the big ones! There's too much discrepancy inside of what looks the same outside. Same for e-cig. I can tell you that LT does not make batteries.
What's inside those 9mm diameter tubes is not from the same place even though the outside seems identical. Some say "Everready" and there are at least 4 different types of batteries inside and 2 or 3 different Panasonic clone transducers.
Glad I paid with PayPal because I held my money back and already got back some of what was paid to s51 and everything I paid to LT.
Last night I put together a battery from 3 separate ones using the best parts from each and with the right grey cap on the front - smaller slits (those were all different too!) I got it charged and it's really good, i would say almost perfect. It has no outside branding and all the carts work on it. So far so good.
I suppose I should get a life but my curiosity got the best of me and at least I was able to get most of my money back - albeit through PayPal disputes and I got a favorite battery now!
Put me more than a little gunshy of buying s51, can't get LT anymore except through them and e-cig shipping is also higher than LT used to be.
I hope my batteries last because I just have enough parts to probably get one more good one out of them. Now I have 4 good ones from esmoke, 1 good one made up from a hybrid LT outside e-cig inside (short version) and 1 good one from a LT inside and e-cig outside (long one). The one with the e-cig inside only works off their charger and not the LT or s51 chargers so I had to mark that with a CD marker to know which charger it goes in. That's not a problem with my USB car charger, either the e-cig USB or s51 USB chargers work off that in the USB port. That's good because i do a good two to three hours in my car (with non smoking co-workers).
I'll take some pics of all the battery innards if you guys want.
