This is a followup to my other thread about a "cheapest battery available on Aliexpress". The dispute has ended. I've got my money back and I returned the battery to the seller(even though he didn't want it). I'm starting a new thread, because here I'd like to focus on evidence, pictures etc while the other thread has quite a few pages so many people researching this seller may miss it. It
is important to raise awareness of such products for everyone.
To the point, What is the problem?
- Battery has <75% capacity at 0.2C
- Battery has insane DC internal resistance making is suitable for keeping a small aquarium heater on during a power cut (100W) and definitely not many hundreds of watts of load people assume to be able to run with a 24V 100AH battery, and it is not a fluke, one off bad item. The seller has a datasheet showing even worse DC IR for this cell pack.
- The seller wanted me to return ship the battery to his address instead of Aliexpress which would leave me at his mercy regarding the refund. I can't say if he would return my money then so I'll leave it at that as a notice to others - never send back to an alternate address on Aliexpress.
Now, the presentation of the battery. It actually looked pretty good despite coming in a bare cardboard box, wrapped in cling film with no padding at all:
So a bunch of tests followed including the voltage drop test and a capacity test. Oh boy! Yes, that is 75ah at well under 0.2C.
And here you have DC resistance:
So I decided to have a peek inside wondering that maybe a screw got loose and I can just tighten it and have a good battery, who knows?
When I opened it I saw what looked pretty good actually. Well marked 100ah cells in a nice pack, well spaced in a typically airy case, without being filled with foam, a typical underrated BMS (80A while 100A is advertised), but if I could just tighten a screw, and recover my lost 30% capacity and improve the DC resistance 10 fold I'd have kept it. The cells looked well connected with nicely welded wide aluminium bus bars. My QR code reader claimed manufacturing date in 2016, but that couldn't be right, right?
So the conclusion? The pack was made in 2023 from likely very much older cells and was sold in a battery case to this seller specifying DC resistance up to half of an ohm... How can anyone sell a battery like this and say it is for an RV, a trolling motor, etc? I have to conclude this seller really doesn't know what he is doing, why else would he send me the datasheet showing the half ohm DC IR?
But then, we have the conversation we had about the return (if this is unreadable please save as and open locally, I'm not sure how to attach such a long picture and make it better to view) :
And once I returned the item using Aliexpress "free return" choosing "no longer needed" as the reason he disputed my free return (I didn't want to have to proove how the battery is well under capacity and well over DC resistance so I choose "no longer needed", but I provided good evidence why I decided so). It is good that I included the evidence anyway, despite choosing the "no product fault" return. Here is the return history as proof I'm not imagining things. Normally this should've been refunded after it reached the warehouse.
Before I encountered this problem I thought the main scam to be aware of when purchasing cheaper lifepo batteries was capacity. Now I know the "Ampere scam" as another buyer on aliexpress called it is as prevalent as other scams. Hopefully this post spreads awarness of it.
is important to raise awareness of such products for everyone.
To the point, What is the problem?
- Battery has <75% capacity at 0.2C
- Battery has insane DC internal resistance making is suitable for keeping a small aquarium heater on during a power cut (100W) and definitely not many hundreds of watts of load people assume to be able to run with a 24V 100AH battery, and it is not a fluke, one off bad item. The seller has a datasheet showing even worse DC IR for this cell pack.
- The seller wanted me to return ship the battery to his address instead of Aliexpress which would leave me at his mercy regarding the refund. I can't say if he would return my money then so I'll leave it at that as a notice to others - never send back to an alternate address on Aliexpress.
Now, the presentation of the battery. It actually looked pretty good despite coming in a bare cardboard box, wrapped in cling film with no padding at all:
So a bunch of tests followed including the voltage drop test and a capacity test. Oh boy! Yes, that is 75ah at well under 0.2C.
And here you have DC resistance:
So I decided to have a peek inside wondering that maybe a screw got loose and I can just tighten it and have a good battery, who knows?
When I opened it I saw what looked pretty good actually. Well marked 100ah cells in a nice pack, well spaced in a typically airy case, without being filled with foam, a typical underrated BMS (80A while 100A is advertised), but if I could just tighten a screw, and recover my lost 30% capacity and improve the DC resistance 10 fold I'd have kept it. The cells looked well connected with nicely welded wide aluminium bus bars. My QR code reader claimed manufacturing date in 2016, but that couldn't be right, right?
So the conclusion? The pack was made in 2023 from likely very much older cells and was sold in a battery case to this seller specifying DC resistance up to half of an ohm... How can anyone sell a battery like this and say it is for an RV, a trolling motor, etc? I have to conclude this seller really doesn't know what he is doing, why else would he send me the datasheet showing the half ohm DC IR?
But then, we have the conversation we had about the return (if this is unreadable please save as and open locally, I'm not sure how to attach such a long picture and make it better to view) :
And once I returned the item using Aliexpress "free return" choosing "no longer needed" as the reason he disputed my free return (I didn't want to have to proove how the battery is well under capacity and well over DC resistance so I choose "no longer needed", but I provided good evidence why I decided so). It is good that I included the evidence anyway, despite choosing the "no product fault" return. Here is the return history as proof I'm not imagining things. Normally this should've been refunded after it reached the warehouse.
Before I encountered this problem I thought the main scam to be aware of when purchasing cheaper lifepo batteries was capacity. Now I know the "Ampere scam" as another buyer on aliexpress called it is as prevalent as other scams. Hopefully this post spreads awarness of it.
