If they exist, they havent been identified. Usually the fake cells can barely get the font and printing correct on the wrapper, I doubt they could make a perfect counterfeit without throwing a bunch of resources at it.
Yes, I saw them. I am not sure you can base a real or fake battery on its BT. Other factors like performance, labeling and info. under the label.
I see that you live in Australia. I can not recommend any credible dealers down under. There are many Aussies on here that could help you with that.I would recommend NOT to buy off of Ebay again.
By the looks of them, my guess is that they are fakes.
The bottom line here is to remove the clear jacket/button top to check the legs on the top of the cell. 4 legs = fake. All the other markings look correct, the 141 is just a manufacturing batch number.
Fair enough — but I really wasn’t questioning Mooch’s recommendations of li-ion retailers.
Well, I was reluctant to do any surgery to the battery. However I did end up buying some more batteries from a reputable seller in Australia (www.techaroundyou.com) which has been recommended on this forum. They arrived and I ran a simple test on them to compare. The short version is that the ones I got from ebay seem legit.
I ordered 3 batteries from this techardoundyou store and I noticed two were batch 141 just like the ones I got from ebay, and one was batch 136. So a very slight difference. Examining them closely, I noticed the batch 141 batteries from ebay looked identical in every way to the batch 141 ones from techaroundyou. Even down to the little unusual looking “Q” character. The battery from batch 136 had a slightly different printing on it which was more consistent with images of batch 136 Q30 batteries I’ve seen online.
What I did was get two 10 watt 1 ohm resistors in parallel, thus producing ~ 0.5 Ohms of resistance. Then while measuring the voltage on the cell I briefly completed the circuit to get some current flowing, and then measured the voltage results. I also ran it through a crude amp meter I had to measure peak amps - not sure how accurate it is since the voltage it reported was vastly different to what my multimeter said. Anyway the results were very consistent across all the batteries:
Initial voltage: 4.18
Voltage under load: between 3.78 and 3.83
Resistance: 0.5 Ohms approx
Current Measured in my power meter: between 6.67 - 6.70 amps
Calculated internal resistance: 0.045 and 0.053
Just for fun I did the same test on some old trustfire and ultrafire batteries I had laying around. They immediately went down from about 4.1v to 2.4v or tripped the protection built in. Terrible.
Along with the Q30’s from techaroundyou, I also purchased some Sony VTC4 high current batteries. They performed basically identically to the Q30’s, presumably because I’m no where near pulling enough amps to make the Q30’s start stressing and sagging voltage too much.
So to my very basic judgement, they seem like legit cells assuming the techaroundyou cells are legit, since they seem to perform identically under about 7 amp loads.
Thoughts?
That’s a good test and looks like you got genuine cells. :+1:
That’s normal. The leads (even good ones) start to become a significant issue when measuring this kind of current with a multimeter, even if the advertised allowable current on the MM is “10A” (pretty common).
I have one MM (a cheap one but it works good enough for this purpose) that I have modded for this reason. I soldered short thick leads directly to the PCB and it is basically dedicated to reading tailcap current draws up to 10A or so, and does a pretty good job.
I ended up stripping the top layer and welded button top off of ALL of my 30Qs from batches 136 and 141(multiple sellers for both batches)
All were 3 leg, all had proper lot codes except for my most recent liionwholesale batch, all measured similar IR on my MiBoxer C412. I dont have any special load testers, but they seem to be ok.
Regardless, im done with the 30q. Ill be doing VT6s with solder blobs the next time around.
Do any of the ones you’ve acquired have the writing on the can under the wrap (especially the one with batch 136)?
I have a couple of 30Qs bought from ebay.au (not techaroundyou though) that seem mostly OK but I have had doubts. They have 3-prong top caps that look identical other Samsung flat tops, and the writing on the wrap shows no variation in typography of the kind that others have reported. They are marked batch 136 like other 30Qs. When new they tested slightly lower capacity than other 30Qs (maybe 7-8% down) but their internal resistance was very similar to other flat-top 30Qs. They seem to deliver good current in use, but that is a subjective assessment and not tested. My main concern has been the absence of writing on the can inside the wrap, like on other Samsungs.
Capacity and resistance testing done on an Opus BT-C3100. My capacity measurements are usually about 3% higher than HKJ’s at the same current draw (done at 1000mA). I have found that resistance measurement on the Opus is much more consistent and closer to those reported by HKJ if I maintain firm pressure on the slide against the back of the cell.
So my question is: is the absence of writing on the cans inside the wrap significant?
andygs, unwrapping at least one of your eBay bought 30Q button tops can shed some definitive light.
This is the sort of cell can markings Samsung 30Q 29E O:) cells come printed with:
Sooner or later you should buy some heat shrinkable sleeves/wraps and learn to wrap batteries anyway, imho.
Tue, 05/19/2020 - 13:47
Does the batch 136 cell you got from techaroundyou have the code printed on the metal can under the wrap?
Select reputable wholesalers to purchase
Then we also have Ali express store, selling genuine 30q batteries 
From Barkuti’s pic: is this genuine Samsung 30Q?
markings:
E9GG
B4C31
the 2nd digit of the first line “9” from “E9GG” should be a “0” for Samsung 30Q, as per my understanding.
(eg. L0I7, L0J4, where the 2nd digit is “0” for 30Q)
The same question applies to the two other cells depicted by Barkuti. Neither of them has the two lines printed across the cell with “0” as the second character on the first line.
On the other hand, I have a bunch of Samsung 20Q cells from Aldi power tools. They have marking across the cell in two lines C0HV / N6D81. That is a zero for the second character on the first line. As 20Qs they have only 70% of the capacity expected of a 30Q.
It is fake 30Q， this is samsung 29E， E9GG，July 2016
These are multiple shots of the same cell.
Good catch and good to know, along with another one I received it in some old early AE order :facepalm: long ago but didn't actually internal resistance tested them; I just presumed what they were with the limited information I had.
I have a 30Q from NKON which I'll shoot and rewrap for a better picture.
A quick look learned that all (28) my 30Q cell’s are marked 136. Bought them from BG and NKON.
Pictures of an actual 30Q (first picture is before rewrapping):
So well, that actually is my only 30Q right now. Time to blow the dust off some VTC5As…
Just for the record, Liionwholesale claims that some recent batches of the 30Q might have weird can markings due to temporary production facility changes. I have a few marked making me think they were 29E’s as well but they have similar IR and capacity to my known legit 30Qs with good can markings.
Sooooo I just realized my two latest batches from Lucky’s Electronics Store on AliExpress sent me 30Qs with the top line of code “L30Q” . This has been my trusted supplier for the last 4 years and is listed on BLF as a trusted source.
I’m just charging a couple up to do a discharge test on my CBA.
I had 100pcs with an added button top arrive genuine but looks like my flat top are fakes.
Genuine always test at 3.40v and these read 3.44v.
.
EDIT: Well, they’re genuine. Tested at 15A and got 2968mAh and it almost perfectly matches the curve of Mooch’s test back in 2018
Just starting fairly recently, I’ve started to record measurements of batteries (from shipped condition: voltage & IR as tested with YR1030 resistance tester, and weight; I haven’t started doing measuring dimensions though).
So far the genuine 30Qs I get arrive usually from around 3.36v-3.45v. and there seem to be 2 sets of IR readings, I think both are genuine.
1 set of 30Qs (“141”) have YR1030 IR reading of around 11.8-12.0mOhms, while the others (“136” and “138”) usually around 12.6-12.8mOhms.