Purchased from "BATTERY FINDS"

After reading here on DIY Solar forum the proper method of verifying condition and then assembling a 48vdc battery bank, I have ordered the following from "BATTERY FINDS". I selected them over the "18650 Battery Store" because they as well have a US based warehouse (City of Industry California) plus they offered free shipping, thus beating the pricing from the other suppliers. I am hoping these CATL units have as good a reputation as the EVE brand, we will see.

For our offgrid cabin:
16 units CATL 302Ah LiFePO4 plus JBD LiFePO4 6S~21S 200A Smart BMS

For our 1987 VW Westfalia house battery:
4 units CATL 173Ah LiFePO4 plus the JBD LiFePO4 S4 Smart BMS

Ordered on 3/7 received FedEx delivery info today for Monday the 11th, that is definitely a US warehouse type delivery schedule.

I will update once received and packaging & product have been inspected.

Not a fair comparison when you have Grade A cells with test reports from 18650 (Yes I know they aren't currently sending them....but they used to) vs Battery Finds who is selling grade B Catl Cells that probably have altered QR codes and no test reports.

Hopefully you get good cells but you can't compare a thrift store to an official outlet.

Well I can only hope that when they list their products as grade A that they are.
I will be scrutinizing these products closely as they are delivered

Jake59 said:

Well I can only hope that when they list their products as grade A that they are.
I will be scrutinizing these products closely as they are delivered

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Hi Jake,
Yes. And no need to let random strangers tell you otherwise. Some people just like to cast doubt.

Good luck with your project. Sometimes I wish I had the determination to build a battery pack instead of buying it. I'm not there yet.

You don't say, well than Battery Finds must be the first vendor ON EARTH that is selling grade A CATL cells because CATL does not sell to the DIY MARKET and only does OEM sales.

Which is why all CATL cells on the market are either grade B, have been removed from existing packs, or have counter fit qr codes. So lets see how this Battery Finds Scammers go about claiming grade A CATL cells turn out. I hope the OP post pics of the qr codes, and remove the black label so we can ensure no re-lasering or sanding or other bs is going on...

Alkaline said:

You don't say, well than Battery Finds must be the first vendor ON EARTH that is selling grade A CATL cells because CATL does not sell to the DIY MARKET and only does OEM sales.

Which is why all CATL cells on the market are either grade B, have been removed from existing packs, or have counter fit qr codes. So lets see how this Battery Finds Scammers go about claiming grade A CATL cells turn out. I hope the OP post pics of the qr codes, and remove the black label so we can ensure no re-lasering or sanding or other bs is going on...

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I’m a little confused and concerned by your comments. Before I ordered my battery cells, I had searched this forum for any information about Battery Finds and there not a single post, so I went ahead with my order.
I will promise to post detailed photos when they arrive.

CATL does not have a DIY supply chain, only these vendors do (that I know):

1) RUIPI REPT
2) EVE
3) HITHIUM
4) WINSTON (hard to find)
5) Battero (Same as REPT again hard to find)
6) ETC (hard to find)

There may be others but here are the ones that DO NOT have a DIY vendor supply chain:
1) GanFeng this company only sells to OEM like EG4 / SOK
2) CATL the largest battery company in the world they deal with customers like Tesla / BYD / BMW and others. Battery Finds is not some one they would be dealing with.
3) BYD. Big Battery was using grade B BYD blade cells in there thin battery, again this company uses its own cells
4) Tesla, any Tesla cell you find online is either used, been pulled out of a battery, or some other issue, its not new or grade A.

All grade A cells come with INDIVIDUAL TEST reports such as this:

A thread to read:

Grade B now has a B mark and many vendors go and sand off / relaser the B to hide the fact they are B:

So I stand by what I said, there has NOT BEEN A SINGLE vendor online that is selling grade A CATL cells, I don't think CATL even allows this. So if you do find CATL its either used, and if someone is claiming they are grade A they are full of it.

Normally I would not care, but your original post had a comparison between 18650batterystore (a known good vendor with test reports) vs battery finds (typica chinese seller with grade B cells) so I was compelled to answer. The number of grade B sellers to grade A sellers is a ratio of 50:1

Well I received the first 3 boxes containing 4 of the 302ah units and 4 of the 173ah units. They look absolutely perfect, no scratches and no bulging and there does not appear to be any funny business with the QR labels. But there were no test reports included, but they did come with all the hardware, labeling, terminal covers (real nice ones for the 302ah units) and even glass separation sheets & filament packing tape. I checked voltage on the the 173ah they were all exactly 3.29v, and the 302's were all exactly 3.28v. I'm not quite sure how to check internal impedance with my Fluke 70 III multimeter or check capacity until hooked up to a load and view the BMS BT readout.

Now my main concern is the fulfilment of my order.
Here are some photos.

Alkaline said:

Not a fair comparison when you have Grade A cells with test reports from 18650 (Yes I know they aren't currently sending them....but they used to) vs Battery Finds who is selling grade B Catl Cells that probably have altered QR codes and no test reports.

Hopefully you get good cells but you can't compare a thrift store to an official outlet.

Click to expand...

18650 still offers test reports?

Do they even ship what you ordered anymore, lol

Jake59 said:

Well I received the first 3 boxes containing 4 of the 302ah units and 4 of the 173ah units. They look absolutely perfect, no scratches and no bulging and there does not appear to be any funny business with the QR labels. But there were no test reports included, but they did come with all the hardware, labeling, terminal covers (real nice ones for the 302ah units) and even glass separation sheets & filament packing tape. I checked voltage on the the 173ah they were all exactly 3.29v, and the 302's were all exactly 3.28v. I'm not quite sure how to check internal impedance with my Fluke 70 III multimeter or check capacity until hooked up to a load and view the BMS BT readout.

Now my main concern is the fulfilment of my order.
Here are some photos.

Click to expand...

Not so fast champ,

Those look re-lasered to me, they all look nice with the cover on them and then you remove the cover and clean with rubbing alcohol once you do you see proof of sanding re-lasering.

You can read this thread:

all wonderful and nice and then to truth is revealed.

So unless you are going to remove the covering you will not know. Get to it.

740GLE said:

18650 still offers test reports?

Do they even ship what you ordered anymore, lol

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Ya they are screwing up... but I'm giving them legacy cred; if they don't change then I can't recommend them any more...

One more thing that capacity sticker on the side, is the halmark of a grade B cell from a grade B testing farm:

So would battery hook up be selling new, but B grade CALB cells as well? They have some odd AH sizes right now that may indicate they where supposed to be "X" capacity but fell short? I'm considering the CALB 180ah cells for mobile application.

Alkaline said:

Not so fast champ,

Those look re-lasered to me, they all look nice with the cover on them and then you remove the cover and clean with rubbing alcohol once you do you see proof of sanding re-lasering.

You can read this thread:

Docan Power bad experience, beware.

Hello! Having read here on this forum a lot of positive feedback about Docan Power decided to buy from them on Alibaba. Ordered 84pcs of Eve LF280K cells from Docan in January. Sales rep was Jenny Wu. Cells were sold as "brand new Grade A". I paid almost USD12K for them, USD141 per cell...

diysolarforum.com

all wonderful and nice and then to truth is revealed.

So unless you are going to remove the covering you will not know. Get to it.

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You are more concerned with being right than helping. Just putting that out there in case you can't see it.

Before we see who is right or not, lets wait for the OP to do his investigation and then we can decide. For those wondering currentconnected carries CALB with test reports but they are very expensive.

Okay now you got the better of me thinking about these batteries. The pricing was excellent, if truly grade "A" so, so if not. The other reason I ordered these was that the 173ah were a very unique case size, at at 174-207-40 mm. This size would allow me to place 4x173ah in our VW Westfalia house battery location without any modifications to the vanagon. It has been a challenge just to fit a 100ah OEM battery (Renogy, Eco-Worthy, Battleborn) in that location. This DIY forum has opened up so many possibilities.

So let me start by saying these batteries look gorgeous, came well packaged (with UN3480 labels even) flat cases, clean terminals etc. but the comment about dual laser P/M got me to peel one of the 173ah units top laminated cover off. Below are two photos, the label one could see as they were received the other was found under the top cover. Question, What solvent can I use to clean the adhesive off without damaging the casing so I can get a better photo? Are these codes a web link to what? test reports? place/name of manufacture? manufactures internal tracking?

I am not ready to through these guys under the bus until I have a chance to do a load test, so back to AMAZON to order a $60 load tester .

Rubbing alcohol or wax and grease remover (available in most auto body places or autozone) should work. The rubbing alcohol from walmart/target it takes a while to clean up you have to take your time with it and be careful.

One of your images clearly shows signs of sanding already as you can see: https://diysolarforum.com/attachments/img_6725-jpg.201715/

I think people get so wrapped up in this.
Do they function and capacity test as expected?
Do they serve the purpose of the purchaser without issue?
If yes to both, the rest is like pissing in the wind

G00SE said:

I think people get so wrapped up in this.
Do they function and capacity test as expected?
Do they serve the purpose of the purchaser without issue?
If yes to both, the rest is like pissing in the wind

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Exactly!
And that is why, until I perform a load test to verify the advertised ah, I will hold my trap shut

@G00SE is correct. A, B, C it doesn't matter if you paid for what you got. Just because they look good doesn't mean they are. Just because they are scuffed doesn't mean they bad.
OP, please do a thorough review by testing the capacity and then post the cell specs. List how they were advertised and if they met advertised specs. There are almost no A grade cells in the DIY market because big manufacturers buy them first! DIY gets the leftovers and those can be just about anything!