cheap AliExpress experiences

[xcentric]

Anyone have any experiences trying out cheap Aliexpress/baba suppliers for batteries. E.g.

10kWH for <£600 including shipping - seems too good to be true, and may indeed be - but as batteries are standard build and technologies, it may be possible to produce stuff this cheaply and it be ok, so am wondering what people's experiences might be?

 

[OffGridForGood]

Advice across the forum - never buy batteries from Aliexpress. Do a search if you want to see the horror stories.
To good to be true
UK members talk about Fogstar quite often, maybe a forum search will provide other options. @SeaGal will know...

 

[xcentric]

Yes, just bought a Fogstar one (with thanks to @SeaGal) - but was wondering about these others- even if ⅓ the life they seem cost effective, but I'll try another search and read some more.....

 

[Mattb4]

Anyone have any experiences trying out cheap Aliexpress/baba suppliers for batteries. E.g.

10kWH for <£600 including shipping - seems too good to be true, and may indeed be - but as batteries are standard build and technologies, it may be possible to produce stuff this cheaply and it be ok, so am wondering what people's experiences might be?

All my batteries I have bought off Aliexpress. They all work reasonably. However you have to be careful of who you buy from and also that item description may be for one of the choices on the webpage but the headline price is for another choice. Your link is a prime example of this. It says 10kWh for $758 but the choice for that price is a 2.56kWh battery. The 10kWh one is actually $2004.

So it is not too good to be true. What is too good to be true is the method of listing several choices with the cheapest item price. Always check and double check you make the right selection when ordering off Aliexpress.

 

[xcentric]

Interesting. In summary: Shopxxxxx stores to be avoided, t'oo good to be true' = avoid, pay using credit card protection. BUT there are actually quite a lot of positive stories about purchases, especially for smaller items, though LiFePO4 larger batteries are a danger zone. As my initial search seemed to show, which I've just re-checked, it's not such a disaster area as might be expected.

HOWEVER - the quoted price on the one I linked was actually for the 2.5kW one - 10kW is £1600 which is not really better than Fogstar! They don't make it obvious. My bad. (edited to add @Mattb4 beat me to it!)

 

[Mattb4]

I think one of the biggest areas of unhappiness with LiFePO4 batteries off Aliexpress that were cheap is that they often do not have the stated amp-hours when tested. Some of that is that cells are not balanced and need to be conservatively charged and discharged for a while. Some of it is the fact low cost cells/batteries are factory Auto quality rejects. Not A grade. There are some total scams though that attempt to sell lower amp-hour cells as being higher amp-hour ones.

However many of those same inexpensive batteries that you see at Aliexpress are imported into your country and a label from the importer/reseller is affixed and sold as a supported brand. Rebranding is so common for Chinese factory produced products it makes it difficult to follow all the names.

 

[SeaGal]

Anyone have any experiences trying out cheap Aliexpress/baba suppliers for batteries. E.g.
10kWH for <£600 including shipping - seems too good to be true, and may indeed be...

LOL... it's not even true.... if you click on the options, the £600 is only 2.56kWh = 50Ah. The 10kWh one is £1600+

Solution... stop browsing the Internet at 2.22AM

@SeaGal will know...

I don't know everything!

Edited to add... and I see you already spotted that, thanks to @Mattb4

 

[Mattb4]

I don't know everything!

Not yet. Give it time. That last 1% is hard to obtain.

 

[Quattrohead]

You should have been put off by now but if not, only spend what you can afford to lose in case it goes tips up on you.

 

[kommando]

After reading a lot of posts on here I bought my DIY cells from Fogstar.

 

[SeaGal]

only spend what you can afford to lose in case it goes tips up on you.

... is that an American phrase you've picked up over there... or are you just being polite?

 

[Quattrohead]

... is that an American phrase you've picked up over there... or are you just being polite?

My phone was being extra polite, possibly because I'm currently in the UK haha