All I'll say further is that the poor performance reported earlier with the Evo LV on an AW IMR 14500 is consistent with voltage drop associated with running a battery beyond its means. This will significantly reduce the battery's life and may contribute to a catastrophic failure.
Batteries have ratings for a reason and if you want good performance the numbers matter.
Hey, I hear what you're saying, I just don't agree. The performance is there. I have one right here. Have you tried it? They aren't the best set up for some uses, but it's small and does just fine for it's intended use.
If the issue is battery abuse, try MFLB. After that, this is a cake walk.
I'm not sure what 'large voltage drop' you're talking about, but in my tests that very unit had the least drop of the lot. Mind you that was system drop (as seen by the load).
You're welcome to base your purchases on what you want, and encourage others to do likewise. It just my considered opinion that this is not a valid reason to not take the unit on it's merits. There's a lot of happy owners of these out there. There's an old joke about the Doctor will tell you there's no nutritional value to Bourbon, but there's independent testers out there every day proving him wrong.
You have the right of it with the batteries & charger. The right side of my charger stays green no matter what. The left side appears to be working. Then there is the batteries one of them seems to not charge. When placed in the charger the light stays green no matter which side, but it does not power my Alpha.
OK, thanks for the additional info. Sounds like two problems, different solutions. Charger is bad since the 'good' battery will change on one side not the other. Almost surely contact related. Mine does this sometimes on one side since the sliding bit doesn't slide well. It doesn't make solid contact sometimes and I have to push it up to get the lights to change. I kinda like messing with it, really. And of course the wire to it can be broken. If it's not something easy and mechanical i'd opt for a replacement.
The dead battery is another matter. Often these guys are actually too discharged to 'trip' the charger. Funny as that sounds. A couple of guys have had this happen with various batteries but sometimes it can be recovered by leaving it in the charger (good side) for a while so it can 'trickle charge' up enough to trip the lights and go. I had such a balker a bit ago but not I think with that size.
Best of luck.
OF