We all knew this, but it’s getting worse.
http://www.briandorey.com/post/Testing-18650-Li-ion-Batteries
We recently designed a barcode scanner to use with our online store. To power the scanner, we decided to use 18650 size lithium ion batteries as they are high capacity for their weight and cheap to buy. This was the first project that has used li-ion batteries so we looked on ebay for some that would be suitable and found some UltraFire batteries that were supposedly rated at 5Ah.
So, to sum up the intro, they have a product that needs to run on batteries, so they jumped on eBay and bought some.
The wrapper said 5000mAh (or 5 amp hour).
The device should have run 20 hours, it ran 5. Either the device was way wrong (they designed it themselves) or the batteries were not giving their rated output.
Spoiler. They tested the batteries first. They did not have to test their device.
All four UltraFire batteries were well below their rated 5000mAh with the lowest at only 643mAh and the highest at 930mAh. The two Samsung batteries held a capacity of just over 2.5Ah so they were close to their rated capacities.
Just pause here a moment and think about this. The batteries were sold as 5000mAh, they lasted around 700mAh. 700!!!!!!!!
Total crap! I mean, not just junk, not just mildly useless, but total and utter junk.
The seller had to know this…. I know, I know, I should not be shocked that someone was knowingly dishonest. I mean are you really going to try and return them? Give them a one star rating? Nothing we can do this one time is going to ‘hurt’ them. Nothing. We just have to suck it up, take the loss and move on.
The bottom line is the whole point of this blog…..
The lesson to be learned from this test? Don’t buy cheap batteries from ebay.
To that, I have to add Amazon. Terry and I have had a hard time finding good quality drone batteries even from Amazon.
Another blog – because at this time, I don’t have any proof – but I suspect that ‘we’ (Joe Public) are having a hard time buying good quality Lithium batteries because of the electric car companies are buying all the good stuff for themselves.