Reminds me of the 9000mAh 18650 Ultrafire cells from ebay, which turned out to be AAA cells and a lot of sand... And it's still available in ebay! Bloody scammers!

Similar result when trying to find a replacement battery for my drill as they aren't made anymore. Quick search on Ali and found what looked like the perfect job. Ordered and arrived in a couple of weeks. Everything seemed fine. Charged the battery plugged into the drill and worked great for a few minutes, then died. No power, so knew something was up. The battery was sealed and since it wasn't going to be of any use, used a Dremel to cut it open. Inside was a very small rechargeable battery and two strips of lead glued into the base to add weight. Not impressed. Photos taken and reported to Ali. Actually responded and got money refunded, but the battery was never removed from the site.

I'm happy to hear about both the switch mode power supply, and the Z-80 upcoming videos. The Z-80 has always been my favorite 8 bit CPU. The battery problem is serious and dangerous, thanks for making it more public. More on topic, I tried cheap replacement batteries a few years ago, and found that power to cost ratio usually came out in favor of the OEM battery packs. Add in the likelihood of outright failure out of the box (or first 2 charge cycles) and the "expensive" batteries are well worth the money.

Your average 18650 from the major manufacturers is over 40 grams. 45-47 grams is where most of the quality 3000mAh to 3500mAh cells come in at and perhaps some of the 2500+ mah power cells are also in that low to mid 40’s range. Anything under 40 grams is junk. Wouldn’t even use it. Absolutely not in any kind of tool battery. The only difference between Lipo and Lion on these chargers is 4.10V being used as the max charge voltage for Lion while 4.20V is used for Lipo. All the modern Lion cells (NMC/NCA) are 4.20V max charge voltage. (The programs might also have a difference in minimum discharge voltage but those can vary. Modern lithium ion NMC/NCA are 2.5V or 2.75V almost exclusively. Lipo is typically in the 3.0V to 3.30V range but I haven’t read enough datasheets to be any kind of authority on Lipo) Nothing about the two chemistries is different in their charge/discharge curve. Lipo is just typically a higher C rating due to lower IR but that comes at a cost of the chemistry being more unstable due to the amount of cobalt iirc

'Here in my car I can't drive very far' Gary Numan......cheers.

Switch mode power supply,... from scratch! I cannot wait to see. 👍

I wouldn't risk cheap Chinese batteries. I would spend too much anxiety worrying about them burning my house down. Have you seen how many Chinese EV's are spontaneously catching fire? They try to cover up the ones in China, but they can't do that when they export to other countries.

The first pack looks very similar to the Aldi special no name that's on sale in Australia. Now you got me thinking, Aldi have a new 1.2kW LiFePhosphate for Au499. Wonder if this one's filled with AA's

This will continue until sellers are forced to meet quality and truth in advertising (product labeling) requirements. (Or if insufficient then those need to be improved.) I do sort of blame the intermediary companies as well... where the "Store front" is the intermediary for the actual seller. For example, not having a clearly labeled "report" product button with a list of reason why the product needs to be reported. Verifying reports before punishing sellers. Refunding systems in place to ensure products meet their requirements. Not all sellers are "aware" that their product doesn't meet requirements, but after several complaints, they should be "aware" provided that the problem isn't a small percentage of the product. There's a lot that potentially could be done, that isn't. For example, We see the complaints about Falsely elevated Lumen outputs on Flashlights, outrageous lies about Power output on Solar, etc...

are you charging the li ion cells with the lipo program of the charger? or is that just a generic text on the lcd? my chargers have different settings for lipo and li-ion.

Absolutely ridiculous that the Chinese can sell dangerous products into the UK without any checks or controls and I can't even get a watch battery into Northern Ireland from GB!! Not only that but the Chinese can ship stuff over from China for pennies compared to the many pounds it costs us to send the same item!! There are many good UKposts content creators pointing out how dangerous some of these items are and the consequences for trusting this products in your home around your family.

thank you for a very informative video

I know you guys have better consumer protection. Is there not a regularity body that might be interested in this?

Those cheap batteries are usually reused from old laptop battery packs etc. One YT channel made "reviews" of chinese 24V psu from ebay. There caps had markings they were recycled from old electronics. They even used wax to cover those pliers markings before they put new wrapping.

I have a battery meter and was testing with a 3 watt worklight & wass infuriated at the 7 amp batteries they sent that only did 1.8 amps. 5 of the 10 cells didn't work. Case was shorting almost burned my home down. I gave up on ebay black & decker batteries. In 2021 I got a great 3.9 amp for 20$. Now I can only find 3 amps that barely do 2.8. Quality has gone waaaay down. I have stuff from 2015 made in China thats way better.

So then the question for me is: If you by the cheap CCP crap and spend so much time trying to make it better, would it not make more sense to buy something that costs more that has a better quality and works for what it is intended for? Then at least you get to do the job the tools was intended to do instead of fixing said tool.

Interesting video, but your expectations are greater than mine - batteries are one of those things were sellers can't be trusted and that's been the case for a while. Other things have attained this state - low cost video cameras maybe.

Be intresting to see a distructive test to see how they burn. Bet these types of products the reason for ebike battery fires??? Just my 2c

CCC cheap Chinese crap

What makes you think they are lipo cells, they look suspiciously like liion to me?!

It could be 48 Wh which would equate to about 2600 mAh at 5x3.7v nominal. I would actually give them the benefit of the doubt here and say they are not actually trying to sneak it in as a model number but have simply labelled the Wh capacity and fumbled it.

Nowadays it’s very difficult to find high quality things in general. CC has invaded the world. We should BTW don’t forget that high quality things manufactured in the west side of the world have reached prohibitive prices for the most (if still manufactured ). This reminds me Japanese early electronics which then have been improved a lot becoming leaders of the market.

The purple Chinese cell come in replacement laptop batteries. Rating is about 1700 to 1800, but they are smaller than 18650 batteries. I just throw them away if found.

so basically the pack had crappy cells, good to put in the trash.... just replace the cells with proper 18650 cells 2p5s config to get a 20V 4Ah to 6Ah.

You have no idea what you will get... It is a throw of the dice. I have had excellent batteries cheaply.. They do exist.

Surely, you need a charge-discharge cycle in order to measure the capacity of a battery. Taking a battery in an unknown state and discharging and charging it tells you only how much power it took to charge it, which will be quite a bit more than its capacity.