18650 Fake Li-Ion Cells

[dexters_lab]

I have started doing some investigation into fake 18650 li-ion cells on ebay. There seems to be more and more consumer devices using these cells now and there seems to be a large market for counterfeit or fake products on ebay and other sites.

Having read about the red UltraFire 3000mah batteries i picked a random seller on ebay and bought two batteries for £6.75 delivered.

after some testing / charging they do indeed seem to be useless batteries. The consensus is they are repackaged old laptop batteries. Of the two i bought both delivered less than 1000 mah of capacity.

These seem to be sold in their 1000s on ebay and amazon, there are other black/gold versions labelled 5600mah  which is frankly ludicrous.

I am going to buy some more, test and post some pictures up including a look at the protection circuit shortly

[metalphreak]

Anything over 2400mah is a lie (unless it's one of  the few WELL KNOWN brands like panasonic... and those cells are not cheap!)

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/reviews/trustfire-'flames'-18650-li-ion-batteries-'2400mah'-protected/

I tested some TrustFire "flames" that I believe are genuine trustfire, perhaps when they were still doing decent batches. It's funny hearing about fake versions of batteries that never came from reputable brands in the first place 

[rolycat]

after some testing / charging they do indeed seem to be useless batteries. The consensus is they are repackaged old laptop batteries. Of the two i bought both delivered less than 1000 mah of capacity.

Not necessarily old laptop batteries - some appear to contain tiny LiPo cells and a lot of dubious filler:



(Source: http://laserpointerforums.com/f67/fake-ultrafire-18650-s-72833.html )

[tom66]

Panasonic has achieved 3.2Ah cells in 18650 form factor, a record. Some odd Chinese manufacturer has beaten that? LOL.

[Shock]

At least if you get a 12 pack you can bake a cake.

[ConKbot]

You cant get legitimate Li-Ion cells from amazon or ebay. Full stop. No "my friend this or that" or "but herp-derp fire" they are all grey-market.  I tried to get bare cells from a distributor and they absolutely will not sell to non-licensed pack makers, even calling representing a US Army organization. The only way to get prime-spec  lg/sanyo/etc cells it to tear apart battery packs from the OEM (NOT ebay/amazon/3rd party vendors that list it as "compatible" or "equivalent".  I wanted some 2900mAh cells for a flashlight battery pack. I found a 6-cell 65 watt-hour net-book battery pack from toshibadirect on sale, and cracked it open. Inside were 6 nice sanyo 2900mAH cells, just like I wanted.

You absolutely get what you pay for, so if you buy a $20 laptop battery pack, its going to have 6 $3 cells and its going to be shit, no surprise there.  The only consumer marketed cells Ive seen that have been legit were 'AW' brand if you buy directly from AW.   They are highly pirated though on ebay. So no safe bets there.

[dexters_lab]

ok, quick update

pulled open the shrinkwrap, pictures attached.

protection is from a Fortune DW01G single cell protection IC with a 8205A mosfet

i attempted opening of the cell, it is not the same as the ones pictured with a tiny internal cell it is a proper cell. Caught me by surprise actually, while i was opening it got too hot to touch within about 60 seconds of breaking through the outter can, so it's now sat out in the garden chilling out

in conclusion i'm not sure if these are recycled batteries or simply ones built to a poor capacity

[staxquad]

Usually a LiIon battery pack loses very little power after a full charge...  "lithium batteries suffer the least amount of self-discharge (around 2–3% discharge per month)" ... but I've got a LiIon battery pack that came with a Chinese bike light that goes dead after 1 week of being idle after a full charge, so they aren't even LiIon, are worse than NiCad or NiMH for self discharge, so who knows what chemistry is inside.

[Stonent]

after some testing / charging they do indeed seem to be useless batteries. The consensus is they are repackaged old laptop batteries. Of the two i bought both delivered less than 1000 mah of capacity.

Not necessarily old laptop batteries - some appear to contain tiny LiPo cells and a lot of dubious filler:



(Source: http://laserpointerforums.com/f67/fake-ultrafire-18650-s-72833.html )

Probably a front for a cocaine smuggling operation

[AmmoJammo]

Note to self: don't repack Milwaukee cordless battery packs with ebay specials 

[dexters_lab]

Usually a LiIon battery pack loses very little power after a full charge...  "lithium batteries suffer the least amount of self-discharge (around 2–3% discharge per month)" ... but I've got a LiIon battery pack that came with a Chinese bike light that goes dead after 1 week of being idle after a full charge, so they aren't even LiIon, are worse than NiCad or NiMH for self discharge, so who knows what chemistry is inside.

Could be a poor quality or faulty protection circuit. Even nicd wont discharge that quick

[Mr Pig]

Fake stuff on eBay does my head in!

I've reported known fake items to eBay several times and they are not interested. A few years ago I wanted to buy a pair or Koss Porta-pro headphones for my daughter and trying to find real pair was a nightmare. I reckon most of the ones sold on eBay are fake. Another minefield is Shure SM-58 microphones. There are thousands out there so used ones should be a good buy but there are so many fakes you just can't risk it. I've seen beat-up mics I could identify as fakes selling for good money on eBay. It's a scandal.

And there's not a lot you can do about it. Apart from bomb China which would pretty much solve the problem overnight! ;0)

On eBay batteries, my trick is to avoid branded ones. An honest company will not put another company's name on their product were as the crooks who will are also unlikely to care about what's inside.

[dexters_lab]

It annoys me that 1000s of people are buying and seem to be perfectly happy with their sub standard products!

[Mr Pig]

It annoys me that 1000s of people are buying and seem to be perfectly happy with their sub standard products

I think it will damage the reputations of the legitimate manufacturers.

[staxquad]

Usually a LiIon battery pack loses very little power after a full charge...  "lithium batteries suffer the least amount of self-discharge (around 2–3% discharge per month)" ... but I've got a LiIon battery pack that came with a Chinese bike light that goes dead after 1 week of being idle after a full charge, so they aren't even LiIon, are worse than NiCad or NiMH for self discharge, so who knows what chemistry is inside.

Could be a poor quality or faulty protection circuit. Even nicd wont discharge that quick

you'd expect some heat with faulty circuitry

"Self-discharge increases with age, cycling and elevated temperature. Discard a battery if the self-discharge reaches 30 percent in 24 hours. "

those batteries must be old recycled ones then
(what chemistry?  dead chemistry )

there seems to be 2 definitions for LiIon battery recycling

1. Prior to the smelting process, plastics are separated from the metal components. The metals are then recycled via a High-Temperature Metal Reclamation (HTMR) process during which all of the high temperature metals contained within the battery feedstock (i.e. nickel, iron, manganese, and chromium) report to the molten-metal bath within the furnace, amalgamate, then solidify during the casting operation. The low-melt metals (i.e. zinc and cadmium) separate during the melting, The metals and plastic are then returned to be reused in new products. These batteries are 100% recycled.

2. Sell the depleted cells to someone else

[amyk]

Of the two i bought both delivered less than 1000 mah of capacity.

They might be high current cells (but rather worn out) --- those tend to be in the ~1000mAh range but are designed for >20A discharges. Is there any writing on the metal can itself (not the plastic wrapper)?

It annoys me that 1000s of people are buying and seem to be perfectly happy with their sub standard products!

Do most people have the right instruments to measure capacity? Otherwise it's just a vague "it lasts long enough in my fleshlighttorch/media player/whatever".

there seems to be 2 definitions for LiIon battery recycling

1. Prior to the smelting process, plastics are separated from the metal components. The metals are then recycled via a High-Temperature Metal Reclamation (HTMR) process during which all of the high temperature metals contained within the battery feedstock (i.e. nickel, iron, manganese, and chromium) report to the molten-metal bath within the furnace, amalgamate, then solidify during the casting operation. The low-melt metals (i.e. zinc and cadmium) separate during the melting, The metals and plastic are then returned to be reused in new products. These batteries are 100% recycled.

2. Sell the depleted cells to someone else

Option 2 is much cheaper, and technically these cells still do have some capacity left. Not entirely honest to sell them as "new", but it is recycling...

[poorchava]

You cant get legitimate Li-Ion cells from amazon or ebay. Full stop. No "my friend this or that" or "but herp-derp fire" they are all grey-market.  I tried to get bare cells from a distributor and they absolutely will not sell to non-licensed pack makers, even calling representing a US Army organization. The only way to get prime-spec  lg/sanyo/etc cells it to tear apart battery packs from the OEM (NOT ebay/amazon/3rd party vendors that list it as "compatible" or "equivalent".  I wanted some 2900mAh cells for a flashlight battery pack. I found a 6-cell 65 watt-hour net-book battery pack from toshibadirect on sale, and cracked it open. Inside were 6 nice sanyo 2900mAH cells, just like I wanted.

You absolutely get what you pay for, so if you buy a $20 laptop battery pack, its going to have 6 $3 cells and its going to be shit, no surprise there.  The only consumer marketed cells Ive seen that have been legit were 'AW' brand if you buy directly from AW.   They are highly pirated though on ebay. So no safe bets there.

I will be buying these shortly:http://www.bto.pl/B2CProdukt.aspx?id_artykulu=42324] [url]http://www.bto.pl/B2CProdukt.aspx?id_artykulu=42324[/url] (actually these, which include PCM http://www.bto.pl/B2CProdukt.aspx?id_artykulu=43537.

I'm gonna check whether they are genuine. The price is 45 PLN apiece for bare cell, which is about 11€. Does that seem real?

[dexters_lab]

@amyk

Sadly no, most users wont have a clue about this problem.

The only marking on the cell was a hexadecimal serial number

[dexters_lab]

was poking around ebay looking at 18650s and spotted this..

[dexters_lab]

When you get fake cells on eBay make sure you open a dispute and demand your money back. In the UK the principal is that you should not be out of pocket and eBay/Paypal generally does enforce that, so you should not have to pay return postage costs. Most sellers just do a refund without asking for them back.

It's the only way to discourage this kind of thing.

indeed, tis a shame though most buyers never know they have been ripped off, they just blindly believe what the label says

[steve30]

Do most people have the right instruments to measure capacity? Otherwise it's just a vague "it lasts long enough in my fleshlight/media player/whatever".

Fleshlights require batteries now? 

 

[dexters_lab]

Do most people have the right instruments to measure capacity? Otherwise it's just a vague "it lasts long enough in my fleshlight/media player/whatever".

Fleshlights require batteries now? 

 

lol!

[SeanB]

Certain models do.....

Those could be NiCd cells of dubious quality. There are a lot of Ryobi cordless drivers around with such poor cells inside that they go flat overnight. I replaced them with some old cells I had lying around and it was a much better performer, but they were about 1mm too long and 1mm too thick, so the handle no longer is a good close fit but who cares.

[Stonent]

Do most people have the right instruments to measure capacity? Otherwise it's just a vague "it lasts long enough in my fleshlight/media player/whatever".

Fleshlights require batteries now? 

 

lol!

I suppose they could make one that has magnet and inductive pickup to self recharge during use. 

[amyk]

Oops I meant "torch".

Apparently these aren't that bad:
http://lygte-info.dk/review/batteries2012/TrustFire%20TF18650%203000mAh%20(Flame)%20UK.html

The same guy who did those tests has also reviewed more 18650s than anyone else
http://lygte-info.dk/review/batteries2012/Common18650IndividualTest%20UK.html

I remember a year or two ago there were sellers on Alibaba selling "battery rinds" - labels with UltraFire/Panasonic/Samsung/etc. branding.

[justanothercanuck]

I can't trust a battery with the word "fire" in the brand name.  I've heard of problems with TrustFire and UltraFire in the E-cig community.  If you want a good 18650, go with AW brand IMR's or possibly look for Sanyo/Panasonic MNKE's.

[dexters_lab]

I have some other ultrafire on their way, these just your normal blue shrinkwrapped and unprotected cells so we will see what they are like.

I also have some cells that are supposed to be panasonic cells that should be a minimum of 3200mah

Will test them when they arrive

[nukie]

Problem with these cheap cells is that they perform well when new but degrade quickly due to the containment from foreign matters in the metals. I bought many Chinese cells, some are pretty good, mostly quite bad. Avoid LiFEPO4 at all cost even if the reviews are great. The best 18650 LiFePO4 is A123 or cells from K2 Energy.

[BravoV]

When it comes to 18650 cell, the only safe bet is on Panasonic cell or 2nd best is Samsung cell, only genuine one of course. Also currently there are a lot of Panasonic cells now are came with protection circuitry installed by 3rd parties, abit pricier, but it performs pretty good imo.

[microbug]

Orbtronic seem to have a decent reputation and do genuine Panasonic (& other brands) Li-Ion cells. They offer some with protection installed.
I don't know how true it is, but I heard that Ultrafire, Trustfire etc. are often made from recovered laptop cells. You can sometimes see this when the bare cell has sanded off spots - these are where the cell was spot welded to other cells in the pack. The other thing often reported is a tiny Li-Poly cell inside an 18650 case with a lot of dubious filler (white powder) surrounding it. Either way they are very dangerous. The issue is you can't trust the manufacturing - the cells could be internally damaged. I wouldn't be surprised if they explode during charging. I regularly see other people on forums mention that they use *fire brand batteries, and it bugs me.

[dexters_lab]

Have just taken delivery of two xtar batteries, they are protected and apparently panasonic cells. I need up update my test rig to test my cells properly before i can confirm they are good.

[tom66]

Apparently Tesla (car company) are getting 18650 cells, 3.6V/3.1Ah from Panasonic at around $3~4 each. But they are extremely bare bones, unprotected, etc. Wonder if Panasonic would sell those bare cells to anyone not putting them in a pack.

[nukie]

They are also not making them quick enough causing a spike in demand forcing many power tools companies to Samsung cells which is as good.

[amyk]

Apparently Tesla (car company) are getting 18650 cells, 3.6V/3.1Ah from Panasonic at around $3~4 each. But they are extremely bare bones, unprotected, etc. Wonder if Panasonic would sell those bare cells to anyone not putting them in a pack.

Officially they don't, but the fact that you can buy them, presumably genuine, suggests otherwise... (or some no-name company has been producing some incredibly good fakes, which is just as well.)

[BravoV]

Genuine Panasonic or Samsung cells are available in retail where the "refreshing" laptop's battery pack is huge business like my place here, and the highest capacity 18650 Panasonic 3.4AH cell (NCR18650B) is available for sale in retail market about $14/pcs. 

[Neilm]

Apparently Tesla (car company) are getting 18650 cells, 3.6V/3.1Ah from Panasonic at around $3~4 each. But they are extremely bare bones, unprotected, etc. Wonder if Panasonic would sell those bare cells to anyone not putting them in a pack.

If Tesla are making the pack themselves and have the accreditation then there would be no issue. The cells will have there own internal protection but don't need to have anything else. However, they will only supply to accredited pack assemblers.

[poorchava]

You cant get legitimate Li-Ion cells from amazon or ebay. Full stop. No "my friend this or that" or "but herp-derp fire" they are all grey-market.  I tried to get bare cells from a distributor and they absolutely will not sell to non-licensed pack makers, even calling representing a US Army organization. The only way to get prime-spec  lg/sanyo/etc cells it to tear apart battery packs from the OEM (NOT ebay/amazon/3rd party vendors that list it as "compatible" or "equivalent".  I wanted some 2900mAh cells for a flashlight battery pack. I found a 6-cell 65 watt-hour net-book battery pack from toshibadirect on sale, and cracked it open. Inside were 6 nice sanyo 2900mAH cells, just like I wanted.

You absolutely get what you pay for, so if you buy a $20 laptop battery pack, its going to have 6 $3 cells and its going to be shit, no surprise there.  The only consumer marketed cells Ive seen that have been legit were 'AW' brand if you buy directly from AW.   They are highly pirated though on ebay. So no safe bets there.

I will be buying these shortly: [url]http://www.bto.pl/B2CProdukt.aspx?id_artykulu=42324]http://www.bto.pl/B2CProdukt.aspx?id_artykulu=42324] [url]http://www.bto.pl/B2CProdukt.aspx?id_artykulu=42324[/url] (actually these, which include PCM http://www.bto.pl/B2CProdukt.aspx?id_artykulu=43537.

I'm gonna check whether they are genuine. The price is 45 PLN apiece for bare cell, which is about 11€. Does that seem real?

Update: I received the batteries. They are not manufactured by BTO.pl but by an OEM company KeepPower. Despite the crappy name and the company being chinese, those batteries are legit. I have tested those and they pumped out 3200mAh until the UVLO kicked in. People in this forum http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?341580-Test-Review-of-Keeppower-18650-3400mAh-(Black) also made a review and results are consistent. Cell inside is Panasinic NCR18650 and protection IC is supposedly made by Sanyo.


Curiosity: recently I found several mentions about Panasonic releasing the NCR18650G cell, which has rated capacity of 3600mAh, which is another industry record for the 18650 form factor.