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How to Spot a Counterfeit Lithium-Ion Battery
- urig 11mo agoLong, interesting, and doesn't actually give you a practical way to spot counterfeit. Click-bait.
- sparrish 11mo agoI read the article... did I miss it? I still have no idea how to spot a counterfeit lith-ion battery without a CT scanner.
- pulvinar 11mo ago"One test, called a destructive physical analysis, involved dismantling small cylindrical batteries. This immediately revealed differences in quality."
- BandButcher 11mo agohulk smash!
- butvacuum 11mo agoLooks like it was half written. But, step #1 is pull up it's spec sheet and replicate their capacity testing method. At least for single cells. For packs there's not much you can do but buy from trusted places- manufacturer, bhphoto (for cameras). 18650batterystore has always been good to me, at least for the 300 Samsung 25R's I bought.
- BandButcher 11mo agoyea they note nothing can be verified visually but one option is to verify the part/mfg #, “For most of these products, they are sold with part numbers that show an equivalency to a manufacturer’s part number." Doubt i'd do that, would probably just source from name brands.
- FridayoLeary 11mo ago[flagged]
- stavros 11mo agoA while ago I wrote a simple Python script to do this testing with an airplane/drone flight controller (they have voltage and current sensors onboard) and a constant load. Here are some of the curves I did of my batteries: https://notes.stavros.io/maker-things/battery-discharge-curves/ https://notes.stavros.io/maker-things/battery-discharge-curv... And here's the script itself: https://gitlab.com/stavros/assault-and-battery/ https://gitlab.com/stavros/assault-and-battery/ As you can see, it's very easy to tell a new, genuine battery from an old or fake one.
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- Tepix 11mo agoWhat‘s the easiest and hopefully cheapest way to get a setup where I can do theses tests myself? Is there a charger / discharger with a USB interface that will let me access this data?
- stavros 11mo agoHm the cheapest cheapest way is to discharge the battery to 3V and then charge it up again with a charger that tells you how much energy went into it. I'm afraid I don't know of an off the shelf way to get the curve, though... The way I did it isn't too hard, but it isn't the easiest either.
- butvacuum 11mo agoAny explanation on the total lack of a voltage plataue around 3.6-3.8v?
- stavros 11mo agoWhat kind of plateau would you expect to see?
- Tepix 11mo agoI think I‘ll try adding Bluetooth to my old Imax B6 charger to get that data. Looks like Atorch DL24 battery tester can be used for that at a cost of around $22 or so. And the Tuya BW150 also has WiFi in and acts as a HID device for a couple bucks more.
- bethekidyouwant 11mo agoI don’t think it’s common for consumers to buy 18650 lithium batteries, I mean I do and I know that they are all fake if you order them online… I’m not really understanding the point of this article. Most consumer products come with the batteries inside them already. The idea of somehow banning the import of unsafe batteries seems pretty unrealistic.
- proee 11mo agoWhat do you mean they are all fake? There are no legit 18650 cells on places like Amazon?
- chihuahua 11mo agoThe conventional wisdom here on HN is that every single item sold on Amazon is fake, without exception. Realistically, there are probably some legit 18650s and lots of fake ones. But it could be difficult to figure out which ones are legit before buying them. Co-mingling of warehouse stock is often cited as a reason why this is impossible: a legitimate seller may list their items, and then some sellers of fakes come along and state that they are selling the same SKU, and Amazon will mix all of these in a single bin in the warehouses, and you don't know which one you're getting in your order.
- J_Shelby_J 11mo agoYeah, my first thought was, “well if it’s on Amazon you should probably just assume it’s fake and not waste time testing it.” Just buy it on mouser or other providers that have direct relationships the manufacturers.
- zipy124 11mo agoYeh, it's kind of insane that most electronics sold on Amazon now are counterfeit, fake or dangerous. How do they have no legal responsibility for the products sold in their store.
- 11mo ago
- javicacheiro 11mo agoObviously the appearance is not enough and it is easy to counterfeit, but measuring the voltage with a multimeter, the capacity with a smart charger and testing the discharge rate can be very indicative. Actually the article does not provide any info about that and it just misses what is promises in the title.
- javicacheiro 11mo agoAsking chatgpt seems more useful than reading the article ;-) - Too light: Counterfeit batteries often weigh less because they use smaller or inferior cells. - Overheating or fast discharge: Fake batteries often fail to hold charge properly and heat up quickly. - Use a charger to measure actual capacity. If it’s far below the claimed value, it’s fake. - Use a multimeter to check actual voltage. If it’s far off from the expected range (e.g., below 3.0V or above 4.2V per cell), the battery might be damaged or fake.
- Saris 11mo agoEhh I'm not sure it did well, the weight is a valid test, as is testing capacity. Voltage is flat out wrong, measuring voltage will not ID a fake cell.
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- beej71 11mo agoThere's (what I consider to be a poorly-named) subreddit with a great resource for buying legitimate 18650 batteries. https://www.reddit.com/r/18650masterrace/comments/qp21o8/buying_18650_batteries_start_here/ https://www.reddit.com/r/18650masterrace/comments/qp21o8/buy...
- Lammy 11mo agoAnd https://old.reddit.com/r/battrees/ https://old.reddit.com/r/battrees/ to enjoy the names of the bad ones
- NooneAtAll3 11mo ago> poorly-named wdym?
- pogue 11mo agoIt's helpful, but it's 4 years old. Are they still actively updating said post?
- ricardobeat 11mo ago> How to Spot a counterfeit battery Section title. Proceeds to not elaborate on how to spot a counterfeit battery (besides CT scanning). Article seems unfinished and this qualifies as clickbait.
- 0xbadcafebee 11mo agoI recently found out something interesting about MC4 connectors for solar panels. It turns out the only legitimate MC4 connectors are manufactured by Stäubli. Every other MC4 connector you see is a clone of the originals, which is dangerous if they are mixed (a male of one vendor, a female of another). Differences in tolerance/fit can create unstable connections which can cause overheating, arcing, even fire. So Stäubli posts pictures so you can try to identify the clones (the easiest giveaway is Stäubli's O-rings are always black). It's such an issue that standards now require you to acquire connectors from one origin, and use the same brand and type. But I think a lot of consumers are buying random solar gear now and just plug in whatever connectors look like they fit together.
- jlubawy 11mo agoSomewhat related work using a blockchain to trace recycled Li-Ion batteries: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2667378925000161 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266737892...
- cyberax 11mo agoBlockchan == straight into the dumpster. How is it better than a git repository? Or even an Excel spreadsheet?
- phantomathkg 11mo agoThe article didn't tell us how
- fnordian_slip 11mo agoAs the article was a bit light on actionable info, I'm throwing my favourite review website in the ring. I completely trust it and therefore don't have to do my own testing, as it is often recommended on sites like budgetlightforum.com: lygte-info.dk/