What do you do when you get low quality batteries from Gearbest.com?

Batteries and Chargers Rechargeable Batteries
1

I did buy quite a few batteries from Gearbest.com when they had their sale on Samsung batteries.
Today I got my first packages, Samsung 26FM, 25R and 32A. I also was stupid to buy 15 x of thees batteries, that was really just trash, under 1000mAh actual, rated at 5000, written in presales that they actually is 4000.
But that was a calculated risk, since I knew that 5000mAh did not exist, but was intrigued by Gearbests reply that they actually was 4000mAh (3500mAh).

When testing the Samsung batteries, the 26FM and 25R checks out. Really good values on them. (not tested all, but 4 of each type). But testing the Samsung ICR18650 32A, I only get around 2800mAh, thats far away from 3200mAh they are rated as.
I’m running 4 more now in another LiitoKala Lii500 tester, so I will see if the result is any different.
If not, what are the normal with Gearbest.com when you get batteries that has lower quality then you paid for?

Had it been Ebay, I had first ask the seller for a refund, or partial refund, if not opened a case, and got all my money back.

If Gearbest.com demands the batteries in return, I have two choices, send it as unregistered mail, without any change of tracing it, and if it is lost in the mail, I get nothing back, and I have paid £12-£15 for the return shipment.
I can send it as registered mail, but that will cost me £28. And if they don’t cover the return fee (like Ebay seller has to) I will pay more to send the battery back, then I paid for the batteries. More or less. (paid $33 for 8x)

Have you here on this forum any experience with how to handle this case with Gearbest.com?

Last question, would you think $32 for 8x Samsung 32A with only 2800 max actual mAh still is a good deal?

2

Are you charging the 32A’s to 4.35v? If you are only charging to 4.2v, that might explain the difference.

3

That can be the reason yes. My BT-C3100 charger stoped working, so I can’t adjust the charger to test with 4.35V

4

sorry to be a bit offtopic .

this is first time i heard of bt failing . can you share your experience may be in a new thread ?

5

I don’t see any issues here or with samsung cells, if you charge them and discharge at manufacturer specified currents they will perform as advertised (if you discharge them at 2A of course you will get lower capacity measurement).
You confirmed that 26FM and 25R are OK.

For 32A, as Woody suggested you need to charge them properly first, if they are 4.35V cells then you need to charge them to 4.35V simple as that.
If, for a car it says: 300 kilometers with full tank (let say 50 liters) and you pour only 40 liters, it would be really dumb to say “hey, I didn’t get 300 kilometers as advertised, this car sucks” wouldn’t it!
As for those cheap blue cells, well you can blame only yourself for that. I would understand buying 1 or 2 pieces but 15 pcs, that I cannot comprehend, if it says on the label: “PURE PLATINUM INSIDE” would you buy 100pcs?
So, I don’t see any GearBest fault here.

BTW, doesn’t Norway have highest average wages in Europe, like 35.000+ euros/year (almost 40K+ in US$)?

6

I will second this want to hear about your OPUS failing.

On the original topic, if you paid with paypal, just start a dispute, but do not close it until they have refunded you.
Let your payment provider deal with GearBest, they sent you some junk, and they will keep selling it unless it costs them more to do that.

7

Those cheapo 5000mah cells make for fun rifle targets. Fairly inexpensive for the decent little “pop” they emit when exploding.

8

Yes thats correct. I earn the double of that on my Government salary. ($79.000/year). But the I have to pay $35% tax on my income, and when you earn what I earn, you have to pay extra 14% on the salary over $62.500 or around there.
Then I have to pay 25% VAT on everything i buy, so you can call it an extra tax.
And if I buy gasoline, bear, liqueur, cigarettes etc, you have to pay 2/3 of the price in special taxes to the Government + 25% VAT.

Still, I do not want to overpay for my products I buy…

9

Have created a new thread for the BT-C3100 charger failure. https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/34743

10

Send it as unregistered mail and they will never admit to receiving it.

11

I’m not sure the Samsung ICR18650 32A’s are off. The 3200mAh rating is probably for when they’re charged to 4.35v. If you only charged to them to 4.2v you could be losing as much as 300mAh or more (looking at HKJ’s review of Basen 18650 3000mAh BS186C they have 330 mAh less when charged to 4.2v).

In addition how the discharges are done (discharge voltage and cutoff) also affects what the capacity is.

From what I see the 32A batteries are spot on.

12

You seem to buy an awful lot of batteries from a wide variety of places…… why wouldn’t you find one reputable dealer and just deal exclusively with them? It seems strange to me to buy large quantities of unknown reliability batteries and then have to backtrack to replace or remedy the quandary you find yourself in…… just my .2 cents.

Out of curiosity how many batteries have you purchased in the recent months? From your numerous threads it seems like a lot of them (and this is coming from me and I have at least 50 18650’s and hundreds of AA and hundreds of AAA etc. etc. .

:bigsmile:

13

It has been two phases. First I did buy some new batteries to my self, just crappy Ultrafire batteries. (I have got refund on all off them now)
The second phase was to buy batteries to a little project, seeing if I can create a bigger marked for 18650 batteries and stuff that uses 18650 batteries here in Norway. So for that project, I have got around 300 batteries. Most from wholesellers at Alibaba, but quite a few from Gearbest.com

Now it’s buying stop for batteries, and I will see if I can sell something. If not, this has been a $2500 failure. But sometime you need to take a risk to create something, but it will take time.

14

+1

15

You did read what I wrote about the 15 x batteries, and that this thread is not about them, but the low rating on the Samsung 32A batteries….

16

and we concluded that you did not chard and/or discharge this cell properly which is the main reason of underrated performances you are getting.
So, all resolved.

17

Yes you can say so…but the average buyers, will they have a charger to charge them up to 4.35V? And when it don’t say anything about that on the info around the battery, how can you know that you need a special charger to get max mAh out of the battery?
Same with batteries with cut off power under 3V. Name me some common charger/discharger that normal people would buy that can go so low as 2.5V?

But we solved the issue around why I get so low numbers, and I also know that I never can use them at full capacity, if I don’t open up my C3100 and switch there every time I going to charge one of thees batteries.

18

Well, if the average buyer is an idiot who doesn’t understand what s/he is doing, and ignores advice that explains how these things work, I’ve little sympathy.

Perhaps if you do sell on all the cells you’ve been buying, you can include a note to advise novices all about these issues.

To reiterate. There is nothing wrong with these cells. You might not get the full capacity from them, but that’s not the end of the world. Everthing is safe. I suspect that most customers have an inkling of what they are buying.

19

This are all symptoms of uninformed buyer.
4.35V cells are NOT for average buyers as well as discharging them to 2.5V.
Lithium Ion (as well as Lithium polymer) batteries are not toys and charging them and especially testing (circling through charging<->discharging) them requires some knowledge.
Before you buy Lithium Ion cells you have to ask yourself what are you going to use them for, there are so many models of Li-Ion cells for different types of applications and you have to know to choose best kind for your use.
For example, if you need cells for battery pack, also called mobile power pack, like Xiaomi battery packs are, you don’t need IMR cells that can deliver high current, but you must use unprotected cells (you can have problems if using protected cells) preferably flat top with highest capacity that you can find, 6A will work just fine BUT on other hand if you need cells for high power multi emitter LED light you will have to look for cells that can support higher current draw and perform well under heavy load. For beginners it is advisable to use protected cells so they couldn’t do something dangerous and destroy perfectly good innocent cell or even worse, suffer injuries…
When you know intended use you can decide if you need protected or unprotected cells, cheaper low drain cells or high drain cells, flat top or button top cells, 4.2V or 4.35V cells, etc…

About special chargers and discharging to 2.5V
As you noticed, for charging cells up to 4.35V or discharging them to 2.5V you need special equipment and this is all done so uninformed users could not accidentally get into dangerous situations, burn down the house or something similar. If every charger could charge up to 4.35V there would be many cases where users would forget to set 4.2V as max V because majority cells go to 4.2V and that would slowly kill cells, cause overheating, maybe even explosion/fire.
Also, discharging to 2.5 v is not common practice and is mainly used for capacity measurement, in real life situation you almost never discharge cells to that voltage, that is pushing the limits. For testing purposes and safe discharging it is recommendable to use balance charger/discharger like Turnigy Accucell 6 (I have this one).

For novices I always recommend protected button top Panasonic NCR18650B cells, for ~6,3$/piece they are excellent buy for many users, you don’t have to know anything about them, they will protect themselves from almost any misuse.

There are many themes here where you can read useful things about batteries, one of the best sources of informations are HKJs tests, he tested almost every battery that you can buy.

20

I think what Woody is trying to say is like if you bought a Bugatti Veyron because it can do 0-60 in 2.4 seconds…. and then are upset because you can’t drive it to the same limits that they were able to do in testing. You can’t then say it was necessarily false advertising on the makers part.

That being said…… I take all battery figures with a grain of salt until I have seen an independent test.