goeduck
Super Member
I'd be worried about cheap Lithium batteries starting a fire.
Project Farm, counterfeit batteries.
OP
dodge man
Super Star Member
I assume most of these fake batteries are coming from overseas. It’s tough to shut them down or sue them. If you do lock them out they just change the company name and keep going.
CliffordK
Veteran Member
- Joined
- Mar 8, 2013
- Messages
- 2,109
- Location
- Eugene, Oregon
- Tractor
- Toro D200, Ford 1715, International 884,
Companies like Alibaba or AliExpress don't seem to care.
E-Bay is a mess because they don't actually handle the merchandise. Still, they could prioritize quality if they wished.
Amazon has their Fulfilled by Amazon. If they mix products from different vendors, then it could well be a mess, but they would seem to have the most to lose if they're intentionally looking the other way.
Unfortunately, the packaging of some of the fakes looks very good.
They could do quality control, and randomly sample say 1 out of 100 products from each vendor, especially new vendors.
ponytug
Super Member
That was my original hope. I opened it up expecting to find a series pack that I could replace a bad cell or the whole set. Like @California's experience, the design had each cell individually embedded into the board with irregular tabs and measuring the voltages across the cells wasn't informative. I suspect that the board equalizes each cell, because the appliance, a Black&Decker "Flex" hand vacuum, runs out of juice, shuts down and then 30 seconds later has more juice, lather, rinse, repeat.
The board and cell integration was the most complicated that I have ever seen, although the board itself was a very low cost board. My apologies for not taking photos.
All the best,
Peter
OP
dodge man
Super Star Member
The factory battery packs he cracked opened had chips and circuit boards in them. I think these are called BMS (battery management systems?). I think these control the charge rate, maybe slow it down for the last 10%, and help keep the batteries more equally charged. I’ve learned a lot of this from e bike forums which sone of the e bike battery packs can cost $1000 or more.
I suspect the fakes don’t contain this or if it does lower quality and that’s why they lack in performance.
I suspect the fakes don’t contain this or if it does lower quality and that’s why they lack in performance.
LittleBill21
Elite Member
all lithium cells, use a bms correct, what it does is charge each cell individually so they don't become "unbalanced" this can cause stress to the individual cell which can ultimately cause it to catch fire. the bms can also monitor the amount of current allowed, the temperature of the pack, and the voltage cutoff point so the cells don't go bad.
