Is there some kind of widespread CR2032 issue?

[rr100]

10 years ago I used to buy the cheapest 2032 from ebay sometimes even bulk with no packaging at all and all was good.

But now something crazy is going on: they just don't work too long. Car keys (notice the plural) that used to work for years now work for only 2 months, I put one in some pocket organizer and is "battery low" in 6 months without using it, stuff like that.

The voltage doesn't seem too low, around 2.9 or similar (they in fact start a bit above 3V) but probably it's an issue with the internal resistance (although the short-circuit current seemed decent last time, although I can't remember what it was, I think above 100mA).

I tried many brands, all sealed/blister, even some rip-offs from brick and mortar stores.

Any idea what's going on here? Some widespread "fakery"? Some critical ingredient got banned or something?

Last but not least if somebody knows some reliable source (destination=Germany) and a particular model I'm willing to try. The same goes for LR44/AG13s although I'm not using those that much and they are pretty poor anyway and have been like that forever.

[JoeO]

The flakey 2032s are probably pulls from recycled Motherboards.

[Rigby]

Don't buy from eBay.

Buying from eBay is fine, just don't believe that the lots with VASTLY cheaper per-unit pricing are the same as the lots with the going rate per-unit pricing.  They're not.  I don't care if the auction says "GUARANTEED NEW BATTERIES," if they're listed as 1/10th the price of off the shelf batteries they are not new batteries.

[edpalmer42]

Buying from eBay is fine, just don't believe that the lots with VASTLY cheaper per-unit pricing are the same as the lots with the going rate per-unit pricing.  They're not.  I don't care if the auction says "GUARANTEED NEW BATTERIES," if they're listed as 1/10th the price of off the shelf batteries they are not new batteries.

They could actually be new batteries, but have much less of the active ingredients than they should have.  So they show the proper voltage, but only last a short time.  In other words, they're real lithium batteries, but they're fake CR2032s because they don't have the capacity that they should have.

Ed

[linux-works]

its the new trend.  don't give the customer what he paid for, give him less.  he'll be mad and not want to buy from you anymore.  but who cares!  the sale was made and customer satisfaction means nothing to the chinese ebay sellers (and amazon sellers, and so on).  single sales keep them alive and a pissed off customer means NOTHING to them.  the whole nature of company/customer is not what it once was.

cost is all that matters and profit margin.  therefore, make the product as absolutely cut-rate as you can, even to the extent of being unsafe.  but keep that profit margin!

materials quality?  who cares.  again, customer will not be your future customer and some other sucker will be by to buy your crap.

this is way more than just batteries.  its the 'new world economy'.  customers are expected to be the QA dept, now.

[saturation]

You're likely buying old stock sold as new.  Lower electrolyte content per cell could also be possible.

CR2032 are lithium chemistry cells and have a flat discharge curve even as it ages; the only tell tale sign is diminished watt-hours but you need to sacrifice one cell or several cells as a sample box to find out the batch is old.  With a >6.5 digit DMM, you can compare a fresh against older cell under load, as the older cell has a slightly lower Vout under test load vs a new battery, the bigger the load the better; with lesser DMMs you need to load the cell near maximum to detect the V drop.   For each manufacturer, you can check the spec sheets for the like-new Vout under load.  For cells sold with less electrolyte, the discharge curve will look like new except for a watt-hr test but the reduced mass can be detected since each cell weighs less than typical batteries, weight of each cell should be >=3g or per spec sheet of the maker.

LR44 are alkaline chemistry and they have a high slope discharge curve that is worse for older cells sold as new.  So an unloaded cell tested with a DMM that isn't >1.500V at open circuit is very likely old stock.

[AndyC_772]

Don't mess about buying components off Ebay. Seriously, it's so easy to find you're buying junk, and real parts from real suppliers just aren't that expensive. Buying suspiciously cheap crap just encourages the bottom-feeders.

Inexpensive genuine Panasonic CR2032 batteries:

http://uk.farnell.com/panasonic/cr-2032-bn/cell-lithium-cr2032-220mah-3v/dp/5219590?whydiditmatch=rel_1&matchedProduct=cr2032&matchedProduct=cr2032&whydiditmatch=rel_1

[rr100]

I bought recently only "brand" name in blister pack with expiration close to the usual 10 years. And from local companies, although nothing similar to Farnell. I just don't buy anything else from big online suppliers to add those batteries and to buy just batteries isn't justified because of the shipping.

In the end I'll just have to characterize myself some of the batteries I have and also how empty they really are when the devices are complaining. Let's go scientific about this :-)

I was just thinking to get some battery holders to keep them while I load-log them but it just dawned on me that a wooden clip and two screws would work miracles here.

[rr100]

And I wanted for quite a while to get a precision weight scale, this would be a good time :-)

[dexters_lab]

Not seen any issues myself and use quite a few of these cells.

Cheap bulk packed cells from ebay are always going to be suspect.

I have a trade supplier that has a good range of GP (Gold Peak) batteries who import direct and they always seem to perform as well as i would expect.

Not buying unbranded or unknown named makes is the best way to avoid problems.

[Psi]

Inexpensive genuine Panasonic CR2032 batteries:

http://uk.farnell.com/panasonic/cr-2032-bn/cell-lithium-cr2032-220mah-3v/dp/5219590?whydiditmatch=rel_1&matchedProduct=cr2032&matchedProduct=cr2032&whydiditmatch=rel_1

GBP$1.29 (US$2.14) is still crazy expensive.
Get them from digikey,  US$11 gets you a pack of 50 genuine Panasonics CR2032 (22c each)
Hell, they're only 28c each in one offs.
http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/CR2032/P189-ND/31939

[AndyC_772]

Thanks for the link. Any issue with shipping them by air that you're aware of?

[madires]

I see tons of coin cell sets with 6 differents types (6 cells each) for 2-3 Euros. Out of curiosity I bought one and I can confirm that they are cheap by any means. They last about 1/3 to 1/2 compared to a branded cell. Some started leaking after being stored for a year.

[VK3DRB]

its the new trend.  don't give the customer what he paid for, give him less.  he'll be mad and not want to buy from you anymore.  but who cares!  the sale was made and customer satisfaction means nothing to the chinese ebay sellers (and amazon sellers, and so on).  single sales keep them alive and a pissed off customer means NOTHING to them.  the whole nature of company/customer is not what it once was.

cost is all that matters and profit margin.  therefore, make the product as absolutely cut-rate as you can, even to the extent of being unsafe.  but keep that profit margin!

materials quality?  who cares.  again, customer will not be your future customer and some other sucker will be by to buy your crap.

this is way more than just batteries.  its the 'new world economy'.  customers are expected to be the QA dept, now.

New world economy = red China = crap quality.

If the CR2032s come out of there, what do you expect.

Bring manufacturing back home.

[Kryoclasm]

just buy name brand, energizer or duracell, costs more.

[rr100]

I tend to believe there are some VERY copied brands like Varta, Panasonic, Duracell where the market is flooded and you can basically find them at any price. On amazon(.de) it looks like Varta has tons of negative reviews (and not only when bought from Marketplace and obviously the buyer received something else but also when bought directly from amazon).

Energizer has some with higher capacity (something like 240 or 245 mAh) and it looks it isn't so much copied or available at all for really cheap like most others.

I also looked today at two  (different) supermarket brand CR2032 and it looks like there is something fishy, one was expiring in 2016 and one in 2017. That is shorter than even alkalines.

[Rigby]

in the US, the Rayovac brand has an excellent price to quality ratio that is worth looking for.  it's not a première brand, so isn't counterfeited frequently, and isn't priced at the top tier, so people think it is substandard.

I've not done formalized comparison testing, but my anecdotal experience suggests that its the best dollar/watt ratio going in terms of alkaline batteries.

cripes I sound like a commercial sometimes.

[saturation]

For mission critical uses, I'd get cells, particularly Panasonic from an authorized dealer because you can rely on it to work per its spec sheet, they'll be fresh and unlikely counterfeit. 

I bought a many Panasonic coin cells in 2002 from DigiKey, 50+ meet the minimum purchase requirements, various sizes all LiMn02 chemistry.  I keep them in a refrigerator.  Its way past its expiration but tested one just because of its thread; one sample cell gave over >70% of its rated watt-hr, now 12 years old. 

[rr100]

Ok, back with some data.
I ordered some CR2032s from elv.de (some generally decent online german store, one of the bigger ones) and boy that was a surprise. They had their own brand of CR2032 and I said "why not", generally speaking "store brands" tend to be the best from the cheap bunch. Boy, that was a surprise (if I would be Dave you'll have another video rant).

They advertise them as something like "high energy, capacity tested, production supervised, low self-discharge" and a bunch of other certifications and crap. Guess what, they expire in 2015! I already knew from some more shop runs I've had that the expiration date is a good indication of the quality but really 2015 for some cells that are supposed to last 10 years under load (many watches can do at that, and even more than 10 years)! Arghhh. What are they doing, are they getting the crappiest 2032 they can get by the kilo and drop them in their own printed blisters?

I also got some GP and of course they last about 10 years as per their label (like all decent ones). The second and somehow pleasant but irrelevant surprise come from the fact that I also had some "dollar store" equivalent cells (don't know which one, the cardboard is black, it might be tedi.de) and they test significantly higher than the GPs! Albeit for a rather high (and possibly irrelevant) load of 133 ohms (is still some hours per battery, I'm not willing to do 200-1000h or even months or years tests). Here are the results and also the diagram (for the keen eye a nice problem to solve is where is that notch in the graph coming from, on all 3 batteries).

Here are the results

ELV

Ah to 1.95V: 0.01144
Ah to 0.94V: 0.05757

GP

Ah to 1.95V: 0.01851
Ah to 0.94V: 0.06083

noname/discounter

Ah to 1.95V: 0.02765
Ah to 0.94V: 0.08806

[wraper]

Testing with 133R load not necessarily will tell you a lot about particular battery. Just which can hold higher load for a short time. CR2032 batteries are not made for high load, therefore capacity tested will be much lower than real. Also on lower load results can be opposite easily. That is the reason why special photo batteries are made. While they may have lower capacity than a good regular alkaline battery, they will last much longer in the high load conditions.

[VK3DRB]

I bought a uCurrent from Dave, but it needed a CR2032 to power the device. From a specialist battery supplier, I paid a premium $4.50 for a genuine Panasonic CR2032 made in Indonesia (where Panasonic has a plant). Hopefully I'll get 10 years out of it.

That is a better deal than buying some counterfeit CR2032 with melamine mixed in with the chemicals.

[saturation]

To do a load test, simply copy the manufacturer test, many are IEC standards for testing battery capacity.  Fresh batteries perform like the the data sheet.  For example:

http://data.energizer.com/PDFs/cr2032.pdf

[rr100]

Well, as I said I'm not doing those tests. 1263 hours? Thanks but no thanks. Beside that I think I have batteries that might expire by the time I get to them. That was the first lesson, look at expiration date. And I don't think is about "plain old stock", I have a hunch that at least some of those batteries are "born" with a 1-2-3 yrs expiration date as opposed to the ~10yrs "normal" ones.

[saturation]

You don't have to do all of them, the pulse test is only 2 sec long but its qualitative and depends on shape of the curve.  Other tests when I did them some years ago require an e-load like the Array or Maynuo type and it does it automatically, set it up and check the results at the end of the time period.  Pulse drain test takes about 10 hours.

Well, as I said I'm not doing those tests. 1263 hours? Thanks but no thanks. Beside that I think I have batteries that might expire by the time I get to them. That was the first lesson, look at expiration date. And I don't think is about "plain old stock", I have a hunch that at least some of those batteries are "born" with a 1-2-3 yrs expiration date as opposed to the ~10yrs "normal" ones.

[Sionyn]

wow a geuin panasonic battery 

[David Hess]

There are a lot of dodgy lithium coin cell "manufacturers" out there.

[rollatorwieltje]

Funny, I have the same issue with the CR2032 in my bicycle computer. The original one that came with it lasted for 2 years, the current one went "bad" within a year. It still works, but pressing a button or detection of the wheel magnet causes the LCD segments to dim So obviously it can't really deliver any amount of current anymore.

[saturation]

http://www.embedded.com/electronics-blogs/break-points/4429960/How-much-energy-can-you-really-get-from-a-coin-cell-

[rr100]

THAT sounds really interesting!
Especially the capacitor hint versus internal resistance, this would be a critical point for things that deep sleep most of the time (like remote key fobs). In fact I need to check my devices as well, maybe the capacitors go bad (or at least worse) after a while (years).

[saturation]

Its quite the coincidence he did such a detailed check of Wh that's just the core of this discussion; and that so much depends on actual power draw and actual maker of the cell as demonstrated.