Aliexpress/Banggood Batteries. Worth the Risk?

Yes indeed.

Same thing as experience buying anything else.
Scam artists, financial pyramid charlatans often survive on ‘plausible deniability’ argument.
Meaning that they made happy at least ‘10%’ or so of their clients, that will advertise/support their claim.
So the 90% that had bad experience, will meet the wall of ‘plausible deniability’ reinforced by the 10%.

Then the above, of course, totally inverted for good businesses… where 10% of the unhappy, yet very vocal customers,
will create an impression that the 90% are not happy… And good business will suffer, and value buyers such as us, loose alternatives.

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I second your comment, my experience too. :wink:
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Not saying Banggood was only one at fault but… In good practice one NEVER disposes of packaging of a product if it was DOA even local venders wont take back products without packaging.

I’ve bought many many far to many lights from banggood and not one of them have been “plastic wrapped” either…. just saying.

Returning stuff to China? It’s crazy expensive (no seller will pay for shipping returns on AE) since if you do you want full insurance on it. $30 shipping to get back $100 from a DOA item? Chinese sellers mostly they offer a refund (full or partial) in return for not sending it back and keeping you from griping, but even then it usually falls on dead ears. I am very leery of buying on AE and Banggood for that reason. Ebay is much better since you have eBay buyer protection (which works great), but selection is not as good for flashlights.

I purchase my cells at 18650 Battery Store - Lithium Ion Batteries, Chargers and Accessories. There here in the USA and shipping is fast. I just ordered two 30T cells for 14 dollars and change with shipping and had my cells in 4 days. At 4.99 a cell and 4.81 for shipping, it works for me :smiley:

I think the problem with AE batteries are mostly due to shipping. Many sellers have no idea to ship it properly and the shipment ends up getting confiscated by the authorities.

True. Shipping lithium batteries is tricky for overseas sellers and costs more due to customs. If you check out Convoy store on AE the shipping is more expensive than the batteries in some cases! I wouldn’t trust most Chinese sellers with batteries as far as I can throw them. I would only trust the Shockli Battery Store on AE. Great experience with them. Shipping was slow due to Coronavirus but I did get them.

My last four orders of batteries (averaging 8 cells per order) came from 18650batterystore.com. They have been running SUPER deals all year long and I can’t buy them elsewhere for less after figuring shipping in.

Best of all- they have LEGIT batteries… ALL have tested as OEM should. I never wait more than 3 days for an order. SO shout out to these guys who seem to be running a tight ship with LOW shipping to boot.

:+1: :+1:

You can ask sellers to sell a flashlight with the battery inside, its cheaper and more secure. I agree, the Shockli store is great.

Hmm I didn’t know you could do that. Good to know!

Well, it’s a crap shoot. You could buy those and save $2 per cell for unknown quality/origin, or buy the real thing for a little extra (I’m thinking of shipping cost as well). 30Q
It’s up to you, bit if you want to risk it and test them I’d like to see how they do.

Unno, but all my 30Qs were almost exactly 3000mAH, not as “generous” with their initial capacity.

WTF GTF was known for selling truly $#|+ cells before, so dunno if I’d trust ’em.

Emphasis on “crap”.

Yep, If it sounds to good to be true it usually is. I trust 18650 battery store and Liion Wholesale.

Well, also on my Opus (not on “optimistic” chargers like my Zanflare, etc.), they all clocked in at 3048, 3009, 2989, 3017, etc. Ie, almost precisely within a % or two. Nothing like 3548 or 3392 or anything like that. Those might be “3000mAH” commodity cells, but not 30Qs.

Interesting it got the 3-tab cap on it, though.

I got a bunch of cheap 2000mAH “genuine LK” cells for like 2fitty each. I knew what I was getting into, and these were going into low-stress lights anyway, so they certainly looked nicer than laptop-pulls.

They all clocked in about the exact same, 2000ish, so at least the batch was consistent.

If I were buying batteries on Aliexpress, I trust Shockli for good cells. My experience had been good. Cells as advertised. They have good customer service too. Litokala too much risk.

Me too. Banggood batteries don’t always get here. Banggood refunds the order but it can take time.

AliExpress is hit or miss. I learned the hard way and have several fakes.

Which offical store? There are at least 3. I got fakes from one of them.