I was gonna ask that. If a nominally 3400mAH cell clocks in at, say, 3455mAH on an analysing charger, has a decently low internal resistance, etc., could it be “fake” yet still have pretty impressive stats?
If its a fake then its a good one. I would think if they (china) made a cell to produce the same results as a genuine cell then they would have to use the same quality parts to achieve the same results.
I still question what is the point in making “good” fakes? There can’t be much profit in it. Okay, Wildcat is right that there still might be some advantage to doing it. But, why, when you can make a lot more profit by selling bad fakes, and then opening a new store when too many bad reviews pile up.
Most people (including me in the past), don’t bother doing capacity tests. They just assume that if something charges to 4.2v (they may not even measure that), and works for a while in a flashlight, it must be a good battery. I doubt most people would really figure out the difference between 3000mAh and 1000mAh, if they didn’t do a side-by-side comparison.
It’s just so easy to fool 90% of the people with really bad fakes, why would you care about fooling the other 10% with good fakes?
I think (just my Opinion) its like everything else they do. They copy the design and find ways to make it cheaper.
Letting some one else do all the RD.
Look at this cell. https://liionwholesale.com/products/aspire-18350-battery-10a-15a-1100mah-genuine-and-tested?variant=37706165649
Its probably the best 18350 out there right now. Did you see where it’s made?
Claims of 100% fake are not implausible, but no evidence shown…
Evidence?! Who in our time needs evidence? 
How many times does the store have to sell fake batteries to you to stop trusting him?
Since I mentioned the Aspire 18350 cell from liionwholesale. It got me thinking, so I just stuck one on the icharger 208B and did a 3a discharge test. I got 990mah at 3v and 1111mah at 2.7v. The voltage stayed pretty high considering the size of the cell. I’d say genuine.
Who is selling fakes? First, you need evidence that someone is selling fakes, before claiming it.
You’re saying everyone on Ali is selling fakes, so none of them can be trusted. And you say we don’t need evidence, because they’re all fake. All the Chinese know it, and none of them are telling us. Even the good ones that test as genuine, are still fake.
It’s circular logic. Do you understand why we’re confused?
With evidence everything is idle speculation. Given it’s your claim that they’re all fakes the burden of proof is on you to provide concrete evidence as oppose to what you believe to be the case.
I think the good news here is that many BLF members do buy batteries from Aliexpress and none, as far as I know, have reported any spontaneous combustion from them, which can't be a bad thing.
Oh my God! What about the Panasonics? The LKs? The Samsungs? The Sanyos?
Or we could argue that they are all 100% fakes on ali express and all the blf members who bought them have been spontaneously combusted by the fake batteries and are unable to post on here to confirm that they were all fake 
I got batteries from an assortment ofr Ali dealers (because I can’t get one to consistently ship here). Nitecore and keepower with panasonic and sanyo inside, 30Qs and Lii-35A which are allegedly GAs or 35Es. So far all are up to spec, and besides the lii-35As that I don’t want to strip the wrapping to check, none shows any signs of being fake. But of course, if those are the only one I know, goods fakes will have no trouble fooling me
I’d have to say this is probably one of the worst fakes I ever saw.
Then again, it could be authentic given the name.
Scroll down to post #12 for the best one.
Excellent article, thanks! But it’s much easier to continue to believe in honest sellers selling original batteries with shipping around the world at a price lower than the production price. :person_facepalming:
But the choice of belief is a personal matter for everyone.I will not insist.
Well, the reason I buy from AliExpress is that only some (getting less and less) sellers there ship to my country. (BG/GB/FastTech, etc. don’t ship)
Right now, the more well-known (more feedback) stores have stopped shipping to my country.
So, I’ve been buying from less-feedbacks stores that DO ship to my country.
I have tested the capacity of the ones I got, and they appear to be correct capacity (it’s good to have the MC3000 for this). But I’m not sure how to test other parameters like max current (I don’t have high-end stuff)… Any idea if there are some characteristics to know about to check whether they’re fake or not (for instance, I got some “DaweiKala” LG HE2/HE4/HG2 and they test out correct capacity ~2500-2600mAh for the HE2/HE4 and ~3000mAh capacity for the HG2, using MC3000 with 0.50A discharge capacity to 2.80v)
I’d like to buy LiitoKala INR26650-50A (cyan) which has good review from HKJ, but then either the shipping cost $56
or I just get from another seller that has more or less $10-12 shipping cost… (I got this one but not Liitokala). The tested INR26650-50A (cyan) I got looks similar to the LiitoKala INR26650-50A (cyan) pics and capacity tests at ~5000-5100mAh (MC3000 1A discharge test). Wonder if it’s the same stuff inside or not.
Discharging them at 1 amp gives you the capacity that you can compare it to. But if its a high current cell like a IMR you will have to do 5 amps or more to see if the capacity still holds true. Cheap copy cells generally have more voltage sag than authentic cells and it will show up when you ask the cell to work harder. I use a hobby charger were I can set the discharge current and the voltage cut off point. It tells me the mah at that current. It can also be hooked up to a computer running logview software (free) for data logging with graphs that can be saved as a image. Similar to HKJ’s graphs.
Regarding discharging at higher amps to test voltage sag: that would be good, except would mean more expense (well, we pay to get/experience more knowledge…) So far, I only got the MC3000 (max 2A discharge) and an EBD-USB+ which I hook up to a USB-to-alligator-clip to a battery holder (both of which introduces a bit of resistance)… The EBD-USB+ can discharge at max 4A only (haven’t tested discharging that high yet on an Li-ion battery.)
Other than those 2, any suggestion for a higher amp discharge equipment/hobby charger (that’s hopefully not that expensive) that can do higher amps discharge (5amps? 10amps?) and also interface with a PC for logview?