Lithium batteries out of a powerbank

Batteries and Chargers Rechargeable Batteries
1

http://www.walmart.ca/en/ip/pocketjuice-20k-mah-portable-charger-powerbank/6000196343801
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Pocket-Juice-20000-mAh/181181619

Does anyone have any idea what kind of batteries are in this powerbank?

2

It might shock you, but I’ve pulled cheap 4-2000 mah cells out of a power supply rated for 20000 mah. Chinese lumens and mah run hand in hand. Not my article but the exact same experience Fake capacity power banks exposed, or why you should buy genuine accessories - PhoneArena

3

These are being sold by Walmart and from the description they are from an American company.

But I dont know anything about this stuff so I am just wondering what kind of cells would be in this powerbank.
For 15 bucks for 6 cells it could be a good investment.

4

For $15, those 6 cells can’t be great:

You don’t get what you don’t pay for and the “Tooth Fairy” doesn’t do LiIons.

Phil

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A good cell costs about 4-5$ in chineese stores

If you buy 1000 from the manufactor you get may be 3-4$ per cell

So in a 4 or 6 cell powerbank for 15$ in a US store you cant expect anything good

6

Could it be that it doesnt actually deliver 20000mah then?
I am somewhat surprised that Walmart would sell such a product if it doesnt deliver what it advetises.

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Few people would even know how to check the capacity with even fewer doing it. If it’s pretty close WalMart probably wouldn’t care and at worst would just pull the product and sell it as surplus to the discount chains like Ollie’s and BigLots. And as the cells wear through use, you won’t get the same output any longer anyhow no matter which cells are in there.

It’s just not likely that these are good cells at this price, even with all of WalMart’s buying power involved.

Phil

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use your $15 to buy 3 / 30Qs from battery junction or https://www.imrbatteries.com/18650-batteries/—-they have some good deals on lots of cells—then you’ll know what you have

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I think you’ve been living under a consumer rock. Stores sell this kind of cheap stuff all the time, Walmart one of the worst. You think they actually check the specs? The vast majority of people don’t, nor can they. If it works at all they think they have a ‘great find’.

It absolutely will not deliver 20000mA. Do the math, 20,000/6=3,333mA/cell. This would make them top of the line cells……plus circuitry+components+assembly for that price. Not a chance.

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+1 ,Flydiver !!!

In that sized power bank you'll find some LiPo , flat tipe ones , with no use for flashlights ! And more , the total capacity no more than 8000 mAh at the best..., 50-60% efficiency of the charging circuit will leave you with a real capacity of 4000 mAh !!! , so max. 2 charges for your phone !!!!! Does it worth it ?

This is your choice.., but my grand father had a saying : " Dear , we are too poor to afford buying cheap stuff ..."

11

Last year I bought one of these at “Five and Below” A store where everything is either $5 or less. 90% of the stuff is $5 and is popular with teens. This power bank claims 6600mAh and I suspected it would contain 3 - 18650’s. I bought 1 and opened it up. I was right, it contained 3 - 18650’s, BUT each cell was labeled at 2000mAh each. I tested one of them in my OPUS and it only held around 1600mAh each. So everybody exaggerates. :wink:
But for only $5, it was actually pretty decent and I went back and bought a bunch more. I gave them out at Christmas along with a blutooth speaker that would only run for about 3 hours. This cheap power bank could be used to recharge the speaker several times, or if plugged in, to extend the runtime of the speaker to over 24 hours.
In this case the purchase was very usable, but it would NOT have been a good source to harvest cells.

12

This one speaks for itself:

Made with:

The PCB circuit seems to work very well with quite decent efficiency, at least for low load (0.5A), and has no trouble pumping all the current my smartphone takes, ≈1.2A.

Cheers ^:)

13

Yep 4 Lg he4’s from gearbest …$16 would beat the life out of anything out of a cheap chinese powerbank

otoh snakebit said he found samsung 2600fm’s in a walmart powerbank for a buck …(clearance ) but i wouldn’t hold your breath

14

I purchased 15 of those laptop 9 cell packs($2.25 ea pack) off BLF a good while back—all new Samsung 2600mah—they work great for stock lights,gifting and building battery packs—for my EDC and high amp lights I use newer high capacity cells

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Opened my xiaomi powerbank few months ago and found out that there is three Panasonic NCR B’s inside, but this is not typical generic manufacturer so who knows what you will find in those.

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@BobbyMK: interesting, where and when did you buy this Xiaomi powerbank - is it silver color? I bought over 30 of these powerbanks to source some quality cells for my e-bike project and I found Sanyo NCR18650BL 3350mAh and also some newer had LGABF1L1865 3350mAh. Xiaomi seems to be switching between battery manufactures, but the quality is always top notch.
Btw in Xiaomi 10400 I found mostly LGABB41865, but also some 4-pack of Lishen 18650 2600 mAh cells (interesting choice of brand)

There still seems to be incredible demand for this “old” Xiaomi powerbanks, how can they be selling them for ~$10 is beyond me. 3x high quality 18650 cells + brand name quality TI chip and charging pcb + quality usb cable capable of 2,2A+ well made aluminium housing + ship it anywhere in the world + some profit for Xiaomi + some profit for reseller. How does this add up to $10? Economy of scale is probably the right answer, but still amazing…

Edit: I now opened two Xiaomi 10000 mAh from the recent batch and behold…

All cells made in Japan!

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It is silver color, 10Ah version, bought it from banggood more than a year ago for 13.5usd shipped.

The price and quality are amazing, don’t know how they pull it off but they do and they are successful in it.

Edit: Cool, i always like to see those green wrappers lol.

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one battery site had Panasonic Bs flat tops for $4 each—ready to go — last year I bought twin packs of Riggid drill pks for $9 at HD after Christmas—each pack yielded 6—20Rs——they make awesome battery packs for my grand kids cars—way better than lead acid