Thanks Don for all the hard work here, following your post ordered one set myself to see what all these are about
Ordered from I Cell - look like 2nd gens as you say comparing sanyoâs have on hand here.
Not yet. Nor will there be soon. The quickest way of getting conclusive proof would be to check the business press to see about the details of any deals between Contour Energy (A US firm who own contourenergy.co.uk) and Sanyo/Panasonic. Since I rapidly lose the will to live when looking at biz press releases, Iâm not the guy to do this. There are probably SEC public record filings as well.
But there probably is a public record of Contour Energy (?Systems) doing a deal with Panasonic (Who own Sanyo).
I can only produce indicative stuff depending on the relative performance of some of these against a smaller number of genuine Eneloops from the same generation. (16 Contours & 8 Eneloop Tones (2G))
My opinion is they almost certainly are 2G Eneloops, but I have no data to back this up. Since I can only discharge one set of eight a day, and they are still in their first couple of cycles, itâs going to take a while to get the data.
The limiting factor is the Maha C808M Iâm using to charge them - for maximum charge the cells need to spend 24 hours in it.
I could change the regime and use a hobby charger to charge all 16 at a time but that would rather invalidate the previous results. Iâll have a think about charging regimes while Iâm on holiday in about an hour from now.
Chicken drumstick -
Having both sets here to compare myself all I could say is the physical characteristics,similarities in the end caps, same size, colour and appearance in grain effect of steel they look pretty close, it isnt scientific conclusion however at ÂŁ3.99 pack delivered was worth a risk.
The way I read it DCC acquire companies and brands, doesnât look like the make anything themselves more a service provider with no manufacturing facilities.Contour doesnât actually say (cant find) they have own mfg facilities beyond Test and R & D facilities iâm bit pushed for time to wade through pages of stuff.
My monies on from Panasonic/sanyo they provide OEM services for others, they look so similar to me, although there is a raft of other known manufacturers such as Sony Fujicell, Yuasa,Mitsubishi,Hitachi.
Would the bigger japanese players be cloning other competitors products ? Iâm out on that one
Itâs a little simpler than that. Would you, if you were Sanyo let someone call their batteries âthe worlds best batteryâ unless they had your cells inside?
Yes, but what I mean is the fact that they would not be allowed to call them the âworlds best batteryâ unless their competition agreed with them. Or supplied said cells of course. Sanyo eneloops are generally considered the best, therefore so are Contour. To me without them actually being eneloops they could not make that statement without a very large court case.
Iâm with Woody, i donât think a marketing slogan can be read too far into. After all, why are Eneloops the best? They certainly donât give the best capacity. Not a dig at Eneloops they are my fav NiMh but things can be easily spun
I will hopefully get some internal impedance readings soon, properly done with a dedicated industry standard, calibrated meter.