I wouldn’t mind a reasonable shipping cost but I forgot about customs/tax on your end. Makes sense.
All I’m able to do with my equipment is discharge with a Lii-202 (using that to charge a large portable battery pack) and then charge the cells in a VC4.
Yeah, still better than nothing.
But it could be a 3000mAh cell with high internal resistance for all we know.
If someone in Canada actually took the plunge, I could check.
Do you have some power resistors?
If you can parallel some resistors to get a load of about 10A, then connect and record the voltage instantly, you could easily calculate internal resistance and compare it to HKJ’s measurement.
Just for reference, I ordered 4 x 30Q button top’s from the Banggood sale at the same time all this was going on from the Littokala Aliexpress store in this thread. They arrived last week and all 4 weighed in at 47gr, internal resistance was 20 ohm, capacity 3050 mah at 1 amp charge and discharge, and they have 3 vents each. With the coupon and shipping $22.99.
I also ordered 4 x 30Q button top from LIION Wholesale last week for $23.75, ships within the US in about 1 week. And when they come in, I will post the results here for reference.
They do look different from the ones I got from another AliExpress store, about half a year ago (“Liitokala official store”, the one that has ‘hongkong’ in the store URL)
For your 4-pronged 30Qs, are there markings or codes underneath the pink wrapper (they should still be vaguely visible)
(I have to use photo editing software to adjust the contrast since my budget camera had hard time to pick them up)
(this reads: L0H5 65V21)
(this reads: NMA6 W16)
I believe those markings underneath the pink wrapper are manufacture lot/date codes that should be on genuine Samsung cells.
(anyone knows how to decipher the date for those ‘underneath’ codes?)
Received mine today. 99% certain they are fakes due to the following:
Connected to 10 amp electronic load and could not even pull 850mA of current from the one cell I tried to test. I need to verify my setup tomorrow night. It's late and I have to crash.
There are clear signs that there were previous wrappers that had been stripped off the cans. Remnants of the old wrappers show through the existing shrink wrap.
The shrink wrap is slightly darker and thicker than my real 30Q's. I can not locate any signs of date stamp on the cans through the wrappers, but it's late. I'll check again tomorrow..
I can't see vents (or what appears to be vents) under the button like I can on my real 30Q's.
I have 4 of the cells discharge testing on a Lii-500 at 1 amp rate. I should have results in the morning.
EDIT: I retract the struck out parts above. More testing is required. Please see my post about 4 posts down.
Custom holder with short 18 gauge wires pressed firmly against the cell terminals, but I do need to make sure all my connections are in order. I think I see signs of corrosion on the wires. I'll report back tomorrow.
If anybody else can chime in and test the cells, then we can see what the cells really are:
- Real Samsung 30Qs(hopefully)
- 18650s with characteristics similar to 30Qs, but cheaper(LG HG2 is a bit cheaper usually then the 30Q for some reason on wholesale sites like Alibaba)
- Rebadged high drain lower capacity cell, like an HE4, or a Samsung 25R.
- Real 3000mAh cell, but with very high internal resistance, like a laptop cell
- Recycled cell and not tested for capacity
Ultrafire
BTW, I just received my 6 Samsung 30Qs from Sunway store.
I have to retract my earlier opinion. There is something wrong with my electronic load. It has served me faithfully until now. I'm getting the same odd results with my real 30Q's too. I played with connections and switched carriers and I still can only pull low amperage with even my trusted cells that once performed well in the load.
The raised areas that I thought were remnants of other wrappers turned out to be imperfections in the wrapper itself.
I stripped one wrapper and found no date stamp or any other markings on the can:
In your picture it looks like the top part of the can is different then the top part of the fake cell. I’m willing to bet they saw this thread and changed their picture.
I’ve gone through about 50 Samsung 30qs and I’ve never seen one that hasn’t had date codes on the can there should be 3 or 4 of them. Not a bare Can. They maybe trying to pass off mh1 Cells off. Would give the right capacity and be a 10 amp cell. Just a wild guess on that.
Doesn’t make sense why liito Kala would shoot themselves in the foot and ruin their reputation.
Unless your Lii-500 is not accurate at all (my Lii-500 measures about 2% low, for example), that's a fake cell.
Buying cells whose top is for whatever reason covered (protected cells or with charging ports) makes counterfeiting easier. Cell top shape is the single most differentiating/identificating factor, as when you buy known 3-lobe top cells and you receive cells with 4 or 5 lobes you can smell the presumed rip-off.
Gosh, it stinks for me to see people posting pictures of their received cells but not clearly showing cell tops.
I believe we should do something in this respect here (in the Commercial Seller's Spot), to check if at least some known AliExpress cell sellers have something to say. There's some sort of gang behind the Great Wall which is making money rewrapping cheaper and readily available cells as what they are not.