ebay r-lsales sending dud Li-ion batteries to customers.

[Alaskan]

Dead 26650 battery from R-LSALES on ebay

Please forgive the double post (the following day), but as an update, I received the two batteries from R-LSales on ebay last night at work, unable to get to them until this morning to see if they are any good. This time, one of two is completely drained, zero volts, the other battery was at 3.79 volts. A note inside the package says "Must charge before use" - true, if the battery is good, but a zero volt Li-ion will not charge, I tried it before and it wouldn't do so and will try again, but I doubt this will come back, nor should it.

Batteries look in great shape though, even if one is a dud.

Here's an article regarding dead Li-ion batteries, it appears there might be a charger out there which can turn them back on, under certain circumstances if they have not discharged too far, but I believe these are too far gone. I'm certainly not going to buy a special charger to make up for this seller sending duds!

http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/low_voltage_cut_off

 

[GSS]

Re: Dead 26650 battery from R-LSALES on ebay

1 good battery out of 4 is not a good ratio for a company to sell. Unrespectable even for a cheap ebay company that sells the blue no name ones like I bought a few from a while ago I bought 6 of these cheapies and only 4 were good but I wasnt surprised one bit as it was expected just like you expect a 1 bad green laser out of 2. Yup I tried charging these 0 volt ones and not even bite. Alaskan i'm curious of what steps your going to take, not really the money part but more verbally or some type of a company review?

 

[Alaskan]

OK, so it appears lots of the batteries they get from China are bad, or they self discharge sitting on their shelf too long to where the protection circuit turns them off, but my question is, why don't they check the batteries before they ship them? Or, is this part of their policy to mix in bad batteries with good due to the number of clueless buyers just accepting the loss?

By the way, I've ordered four of these batteries from him now, ordering twice, the ratio on failures is 75% for these 26650 batteries, three bad to one good.

Edit: Regarding your question, I would need a larger sample base to do a review on this company, but I suspect, at least with these batteries, he is sending out a lot of bad ones. I've ordered from this same seller several times over the last two years and until these, they were good. However, he just sent me two bad 26650 batteries with the same markings two weeks before, so he knows some of them are likely bad from that, so wouldn't you think he would check the batteries from this batch before sending them to another customer who had (as far as he knew) never ordered from him before?

 

[InfinitusEquitas]

It's probably more a question of self discharge. Even very reputable sellers typically don't test EVERY battery, but they will test a large random sample.

Suggest sticking to US based sellers if possible, you'll pay a small premium yes, but won't have these kinds of issues if you get a dead battery. For example the owners of illumination supply are both members here. Owner of mountain electronics is an active member on blf.

 

[GSS]

I did forget to mention that one of the DOA battery had black marker writing on it with what looked like the word bad "it looked more like the word lad" but obviously it was thrown back into the mix after testing, was it a mistake who knows? 75% failure on your side wow...By the way I bought mine from Tmart.com and they credit me $1 on my next purchase

 

[Alaskan]

This guy is a US based ebay seller in Utah, I mentioned China because I'm fairly sure that is where he is getting them from. Oh, I just double checked the battery, "Made In China", but aren't all of the Li-ions made outside the USA?

 

[InfinitusEquitas]

Yeah, pretty much all of them are coming from China now.

 

[Alaskan]

I don't understand why this guy tried to say I destroyed the battery last time, and this time he is sending a refund for the bad battery, but that is what he is telling me now:

Hi. Partial refund sent for the bad battery. I have had a few of this brand go bad. Efest of the same mah has had some issues. The 5500mah from Imren and the 4200mah from efest seem to be a better battery. Basen is a new one and it also has done well. I doubt the Imren one with .1 volts will even charge even on a 0 volt activation charger.

Thanks Randy

Edit again, and again... as usual.... A few more thoughts; maybe I shouldn't have opened a case with ebay last time.. I know, someone, maybe several here are going to say, well you AH, that's why you were treated roughly! Thing is, I wanted to send them back, they sure weren't any use to me as duds, but to send them back without opening a case first puts the buyer in a bad spot, everything has to be tracked back using ebay's system to get the refund, and as far as I know requesting a return through ebay does not negatively affect the seller in any way, except they must pay return shipping. Although, I could have given him a shot at correcting it first, but he didn't answer my email as fast as I would have hoped, so I sent in the request to return to get a post paid shipping label, I didn't see that as a negative act.

 

[OVNI]

AFAIK, Sellers get dinged for any behavior that's not 5-star feedback. I'm not a frequent Seller but I see that Seller's are very motivated to get nothing but 5-stars. It would seem eBay's Seller fees are pretty sensitive to their ratings overall. Just opening a case is frowned upon but I would've done what you did. You need traceability if something goes amiss.

 

[Pman]

Ugh, feel for you guys. I honestly can't remember ever getting a dud from anywhere and I have hundreds of cells. I only buy batteries from the US and fasttech.
I not happy as the ebay seller I was buying 6 efest 10440 at a time from doesn't have any left. The few US sellers want a lot more for them. Just used up 12 of them on pen builds. At least I have a bunch of LiFePO4 in the AAA size that I could use instead (a lot of those came from fasttech).

 

[RedCowboy]

Panasonic 26650's are 20 dollars each, holly snikie

New Original 26650A 26650 3 7V 5000mAh Li ion Rechargeable Battery for Panasonic | eBay

I have E-fest but who makes the best 26650?

LG makes great INR 18650's

 

[Trendkilla254]

As a side note, not that is is safe or recommended... but it does work. If you take a Nicad charger's positive and negative and BUMP charge the cell (not necessarily safe) you can get it back up enough to charge it with a Lipo charger. I've also heard of people using a 12v car battery to bump charge it. This is not safe and should only be done outside on concrete and expect it to blow up. But if it doesn't you have a good battery afterwards. I've done it once with a 2 cell lipo for my RC cars.

 

[Gadget]

What I have done in the past (not recommended!) is to parallel the bad cell with a fully charged cell for a few minutes at a time, until the charger will accept it. It usually works, but the recovered cell will sometimes not have a very long life.

-G

 

[Alaskan]

I already tossed it, I've had a lead acid battery blow up in my face once, enough excitement

 

[Pman]

Well I just took a chance on buying 4 Efest 10440 from them as the seller I usually buy them from has no batteries for sale now and they had the best price. I'll report any issue and of course take any action necessary to deal with any issue

On a side note I noticed that when I REP someone now it immediately changes their REP without me having to refresh On the downside there are not a lot of active members and those that are active and deserve it can't be Repped when they deserve it. Oh well, I'm glad it's at least back to something more reasonable.

 

[RedCowboy]

I almost bought some of those from r-sales, I may have bought from him before but I can't remember, but I won't buy from him anymore.

We all know that the highest Mah is no good if the max sustained drain is low and the cells sag, our drivers have a minimum working voltage and low resistance cells are needed.

Running my 44 I see about a 3.4a draw running a 4.5a SXD and 2 x 26650 IMR in series, the sag is minimal, but I recharge by the time the cells idle falls to 3.6v as the driver's cutoff is 6.8v.

I have been using these

The Green 4200Mah above claim 20/50amp, I have also tested the cheap crudfires rated at 8800Mah and into 1 ohm they will put out 7 amps but the sag is from 8.3v for 2 cells in series is down to 7.1v where the Efest will drop from 8.3 to 8.0 and hold 8 amps into 1 ohm.

So even though the crudfires claim 8800Mah they are no good for high drain applications, in a cheap flashlight they would be ok, but the SXD cutoff is 6.8v I do believe.

I just ordered both of these to see what will hold up the longest under the nubm44's load.

2 Authentic Imren IMR 26650 High Drain 60A Amp Li MN Battery 5500mAh Purple | eBay

2X Efest Purple 26650 4200mAh 40A 60A High Drain IMR Rechargeable Battery Li MN | eBay


Does anyone recommend a new super cell that I have not seem yet?