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Shenzhen Basen Review

Yes. Thanks for the suggestions. I'm not sure I could participate in a group purchase since our projects are in The Philippines/South Pacific and not in North America, so individual shipping would be required. I'm hoping to get a deal since I will be buying at least 64 for our critical load system and possibly another 32 for one of our water systems. What I'm gathering here is that most of the sellers on Ali are not actually the manufacturer but resellers. Right? That's about it. the dog
 
From what I've seen on this forum, even the "good" suppliers have bad moments. None of these suppliers are selling new Grade A cells. These are grey market "reject" cells of varying quality and the pricing reflects that. They advertise them as "new, grade A" rather than describing what they really are. That's just the way it seems to work. I assume all the suppliers end up with some good cells and some bad cells and they are going to ship them all to customers and deal with with the issues. Partial refund seems to be their preferred resolution. Anyone thinking they are getting top quality 280Ah cells for under $100 each is delusional.

If you want real grade A new cells, just call the battery company and get a quote. If they won't sell in the quantities you are looking for, they will probably point you to a legit distributer. This is how to get new grade A cells and the pricing will reflect it.

I ended up going with the group buy on this forum for 16 272Ah lishens because I figured Michael was buying a lot of volume and the suppliers might be less likely to ship bad cells on those orders (and Michael could deal with the supplier if there were issues). It turned out positively for me. Basen was the supplier on my order and the cells met my expectations (not perfect, but great for the price). You might check out the group buy thread (in the for sale section) and ping Michael if you are interested.
Not all the suppliers advertise them as grade A cells. I respect Shenzen Luyuan honesty in not doing this. As far as I am aware they have never made this patently unrealistic claim.
 
Yes. Thanks for the suggestions. I'm not sure I could participate in a group purchase since our projects are in The Philippines/South Pacific and not in North America, so individual shipping would be required. I'm hoping to get a deal since I will be buying at least 64 for our critical load system and possibly another 32 for one of our water systems. What I'm gathering here is that most of the sellers on Ali are not actually the manufacturer but resellers. Right? That's about it. the dog
The group buy isn't really the normal group buy. Michael is basically acting as an intermediary with the vendors. Each persons's order is individually ordered and shipped. I don't think it's limited to US. You may have a little buying power with a 64 or 96 piece order, but not really if they think you are a one-time customer. You could probably work a little better deal directly, but I personally wasn't as concerned about the price as increasing my chance of getting good cells. Whether the group buy increases the chance of getting good cells or not is up for debate.

These vendors are not the manufacturers and I don't think they are official distributers (meaning you don't get the manufacturer's warranty).
 
Not all the suppliers advertise them as grade A cells. I respect Shenzen Luyuan honesty in not doing this. As far as I am aware they have never made this patently unrealistic claim.
From what I've seen, Luyaun is one of the better ones and they don't describe all of their cells as new grade A. They do it though, see below.

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From what I've seen, Luyaun is one of the better ones and they don't describe all of their cells as new grade A. They do it though, see below.

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Ah. I stand corrected. These are their new premium EVE cells. I suppose if they were really grade A EVE would be selling them directly.
 
I bought 8 Lishen 202Ah cells and 2 Daly Smart 100Ah BMS's from Shenzhen Basen Technology on January 15th. Have a look at the tracking information early this week. It turned out that the cells had arrived in the Netherlands and were in a depot 30 kilometers from my hometown, but could not be sent further because the address details are not correct. Contacted Alex from Basen immediately. It turned out that they had not passed my house number to the carrier. He would inform the carrier about this. I also immediately informed the carrier. Got a message back that they had passed it on and that I would still receive the shipment. Not so. When I looked up the tracking information again I saw that the packages were being returned. Contacted the carrier about this again. Response: "I see that the package has been returned to the sender. In this case, I advise you to contact the sender of your package, who can decide to send you a new package. Etc."
I had provided the correct address details, but unfortunately I was not able to check whether they had used them correctly. Now just wait how this will end.:mad:?
 
I had no luck to order from them, and it was a second try. Several days ago contacted them on Alibaba, made an inquiry for 4pcs LISHEN 280 since they did not have EVE. Negotiated details. Placed order accordingly, then contacted Aimee to approve, so far no aproval for several days.
Afterall made order for 4pcs CATL 310 at Shenzhen Mushang Electronics Co., Ltd. They had a new batch of those just arrived and already sent me video with my cells where they test V/IR. That was third try.
In January had my first try to order cells to Russia. At that time it was AliExpress. Basen franchise store. Now it is blm something. Same way negotiated, paid, got tracking, but had no movement for 1 month. And no answer from the seller on my questions at all. I understand CNY, COVID but still pretty unpleasant. After contacting their other store Blm official finally got feedback and agreed on dispute to return funds. No problem there.
Looks to me that this Blm store on Aliexpress is Basen as the products are quite identical and those stickers with capacity are the same. Dont know why they changed name from Basen to Blm on Ali.
 
It rather sounds like they don't actually list all the "reviews" on Alibaba, maybe just the good ones. I've had similar problems with suppliers with no response, incomplete shipping and not taking payment etc. The non response and not taking the payment is they are trying to get you to do a wire transfer so they can bypass Ali costs and warranty, sometimes the shipping problem is the shipping company. Here we have lots of problems with UPS. Our office is listed on Google maps. As soon as you start to type it, all of our buildings show up by name as well as our offices by name. UPS sometimes won't deliver because they say the address is wrong, other times they have no problem. We found they actually put their sticker over the address and covered up the city. So it could easily be the delivery company. That's about it. the dog
 
UPS sometimes won't deliver because they say the address is wrong, other times they have no problem. We found they actually put their sticker over the address and covered up the city. So it could easily be the delivery company. That's about it. the dog
I assume phone numbers are written on the package, very strange why they dont call to re-confirm the address. Actually have no experience with UPS, but I think it is not the cheapest servirce.
 
In the US, UPS and FEDEX are the best with most people preferring UPS. Here in The Philippines they have just undergone a local downsizing due to less shipping and they are completely messed up. We had an order of panels and a charge controller sitting in their office at the port for about 2 weeks, nether us nor the supplier could get anywhere with them, they finally shipped them to one of our other buildings about 50 miles from here. Then they gave the order to a local interisland container shipper and they had it here the next day no question. The driver told me "It was easy to find, I just looked on Google maps!" So it's not always Ali or suppliers, sometimes the shipping company, is, let's say, "less than competent". That's about it. the dog
 
My damage isn't in that same location - I have uploaded picture of my dent. Given that these cells enlarge and contract when charging, I view this dent as a weakness. It is also big enough that I won't be able to compress this cell with another.

I just wrote Michael to let him know. I would ask for replacement if I had ordered directly from company - good news that you had favorable outcome from Basen. I will follow up...

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I have a similar dent in one of mine. That may be why they are grade B and sold so much cheaper. I would not be that worried.
 
Just thought I'd report that my 8x 280Ah cells arrived today in California from Basen. I ordered February 21 and paid $988 inclusive of shipping and all fees, so it took 48 days via boat then Fedex. Sheila was the contact, although I just ordered from one of their listings without contacting anyone in advance. I wonder if some people complaining about Basen are trying to negotiate special treatment or too good a deal, and then they get sent worse products in response. Just a theory based on reading other peoples' bad experiences with Basen; entirely unproven.

The cells appear to all be in good condition; the packaging was good. Based on the eye-shaped terminals, I believe they are EVE cells. All measured 3.28V out of the box except one which was 3.27V on my cheapo multimeter. That one also had a small blue sticker of heatshrink tape material on both sides near the top; possibly a mark of some type that they use internally? I hope that one doesn't cause problems down the road but it's too early to tell.

I'm currently top-balancing and will be for the next couple days as I only have a 6A power supply and didn't want to charge them in series then disassemble and reassemble in parallel for top balancing.
 
I have similar experience as the thread starter....

I ordered 4 x Lishen 272Ah cells plus 6 bus bars and 200A DALY SmartBMS from Basen Tech. It took me so much time to decide which type of cell to order for my application. I wanted the cells that could take the highest discharge current for my bow-thruster application.

So I decided on Lishen because in the spec sheet it states that they can supply 60 secs discharge at 2C (540A or so) where EVE can handle 2C discharge for 30 secs.

When I received that package and checked the cells I could immediately see that the vent on the cells were blue and not gray and also the terminals are different between Lishen end EVE cells.

So they sent me EVE instead og Lishen!

Then I had several hours of communication with Aimee and then Alex because I said we are getting no where.

They offered to pay me back when I return the cells - but I cannot wait 2-3 months again.

They agreed that the Warehouse had made an error and shipped the wrong cells.

PS... I get a bit annoyed then Aimee writes: "Dont be angry - every day is a nice day!"
 
Why do you all have a brand preference for Lishen over EVE? EVE appears to have bigger customers and makes good cells...they have a contract to make BMW’s batteries!
 
Why do you all have a brand preference for Lishen over EVE? EVE appears to have bigger customers and makes good cells...they have a contract to make BMW’s batteries!
I went for Lishen because of the higher discharge rate than EVE just to be sure for my high amp bow thruster.

EVE: 2C 30 secs Lishen: 2C 60 secs
 
I don’t know if that is really different at all or just two groups of engineers and marketers set an arbitrary threshold based on their own tests and degree of conservativeness. Those numbers are way too “round” to be anything but a ballpark estimate.
 
I had ordered 16 EVE 280's from Aimee Lee DDP to Canada. VERY HAPPY pending capacity testing..
Feb 17 - ordered and paid
Feb 26 - Shipped
April 9 - Richmond BC , UPS tracking
3 day >> SNOW STORM DELAY
April 14 - Received
All cells are excellent condition. 2 cells have very minor tape overs 1/4" squares. All terminals are immaculate.
All resistances are in spec. Weights are extremely close +/- 190 grams , QR codes intact and appear to be from the same facility, with 3 cells being of a different batch. < I need to do some digging to verify.
Voltage variance of +/- .015 .
Had I known then what I know now, I should have bought all 32 at once. With the mixed reviews Basen was getting, I ordered 50% of my planned capacity.
 

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Add me to the list. I had the same experience as the OP. Ordered 280ah EVE cells, as advertised, from Basen. After shipping they advised they were out of EVE and shipped 272ah Lishen. Got the refund via PayPal no problem. They pulled the EVE ad after the fact. There was no reply to my statement they should have not substituted product without the customer's approval. My cells had no dings and were well packed. One of the eight cells apparently has lower internal resistance as it charges faster than the rest but I can't expect recourse for this so it will work with frequent balancing. I had chosen Basen because of favorable reviews here but with lots of competition for them I will look to another vender on the next purchase based on what I see on this forum.
 
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