Eve MB31 Cells from Jenny Wu of Docan Technologies

[Emily Wong]

After watching @RayfromTX 's video on Eve MB30 / MB31 cells (video link HERE) I placed an order with Jenny Wu of Docan for 8 cells delivered from China to Toronto Canada, here is my review.

Order was placed with Jenny June 7th 2024 and the batteries were on my doorstep July 22nd - just 6 weeks, well under the 8 week estimated window!

Cells were packed 2 per box, with the boxes well labelled with "No Rolling" and "This Side Up" instructions:

The cells are protected very well inside the boxes, the foam inserts having proper cavities to protect the cell terminals. Each box contains 2 flexible busbars and 2 protective cell sleeves:

The last box also contained another baggie with 4 extra busbars and serrated nuts - a nice bonus!

Total cost (including shipping to Toronto Canada and Alibaba protections charges) was $783:

Overall the process with Jenny was seamless and I'm completely satisfied - she was quick to respond to my emails and answer any questions I had, and shipped the cells and provided tracking info within days of my order. Very happy with Jenny's service and I highly recommend! Thanks also to @RayfromTX for the video alerting me to this great deal, can't wait for your next vid Ray!!

Those cells looks great. We have EVE MB31 cells in China as well in California warehouse. We've secured a competitive price on EVE MB31 314Ah cells from our California warehouse.

• EVE MB31 314Ah: $90/cell (DDP)
• EVE LF280K: $86/cell (DDP)

 

[Fluff34567]

Docan is jenny wu correct? I thought jennyvwas the person to go to?

If not who is the go to supplier?

 

[Luk88]

Docan is jenny wu correct? I thought jennyvwas the person to go to?

If not who is the go to supplier?

It depends where you are and such advice is not "forever".

In Europe in last 2 months I've had good results with Shenzen Qishou on Alibaba (on forums the company is sometimes called QSO). I'm still waiting for my current order (arriving beginning of September).

They have a warehouse in Poland and when stuff is in stock one can get it overnight in Poland and within few days/up to a week in the rest of Europe. But currently it is sold out so I'm waiting for restocking.

I've had 18650 (a reseller from Netherlands) recommended by others, but I never used them myself. Mainly because, the alternative (QSO) has their warehouse here. If this "sold out" situation carries on I might explore the possibility of 18650, but last time I checked they too were all out of stock (delivery times over a month).

If you search for experiences you'll find there is one or two threads with bad experiences after buying from QSO. There is one from 2021 and there may have been one from 2023. I think both were from the USA (but I can't locate these threads to confirm).

Unfortunately there seem to be periods of time that many suppliers can't get genuine cells that pass the quality standard (so called grade A) and they get rejects often relabelled. I can't be sure this is what happened in these two cases. I think there would be more reports if this was the case. It is also possible some employee in China swapped good cells for shit ones to make a quick buck on the side. Or they were scamming back then because they couldn't get good cells...

The point I'm trying to make is that I chose to give them a try because I have good buyer protection and it's not devastating to me financially to get scammed for one purchase if worst came to worst.

Then it seemed they are amongst conpanies the have least of such reports (for those that have overnight shipping in my country) . And so far it has been fine for me. Is this a guarantee they don't start scamming/ selling rejects tomorrow? No, they might. Who knows, until I received them I can't be sure about the cells I'm getting in September.

In this business one has to be very careful.

Having said that Docan, Luyuan and Eve themselves are a small shortlist I'd be researching deeper(despite the bad experience from an earlier thread) if I was unhappy with QSO.

Whatever you do steer clear off buying cells on Aliexpress. Search for my threads to find out why. Also always buy on a visa/mastercard card. It doesn't have to be a credit card (many people in Europe including myself don't own one) . But these cards often give you online buyer protection. Check first!

 

[Fluff34567]

It depends where you are and such advice is not "forever".

In Europe in last 2 months I've had good results with Shenzen Qishou on Alibaba (on forums the company is sometimes called QSO). I'm still waiting for my current order (arriving beginning of September).

They have a warehouse in Poland and when stuff is in stock one can get it overnight in Poland and within few days/up to a week in the rest of Europe. But currently it is sold out so I'm waiting for restocking.

I've had 18650 (a reseller from Netherlands) recommended by others, but I never used it myself. Mainly because, the alternative (QSO) has their warehouse here. If this "sold out" situation carries on I might explore the possibility of 18650, but last time I checked they too were all out of stock (delivery times over a month).

If you search for experiences you'll find there is one or two threads with bad experiences after buying from QSO. There is one from 2021 and there may have been one from 2023. I think both were from the USA (but I can't locate these threads to confirm).

Unfortunately there seem to periods of time that many suppliers can't get genuine cells that pass the quality standard (so called grade A) and they get rejects often relabelled. I can't be sure this is what happened in these two cases. It is also possible some employee in China swapped good cells for shit ones to make a quick buck on the side.

The point I'm trying to make is that I chose to give them a try because it seemed they are amongst conpanies the have least of such reports for those that have overnight shipping in my country. And so far it has been fine for me. Is this a guarantee they don't start scamming/ selling rejects tomorrow? No, they might. Who knows, until I received them I can't be sure about the cells I'm getting in September.

In this business one has to be very careful.

Whatever you do steer clear off buying cells on Aliexpress. Search for my threads to find out why. Also always buy on a visa/mastercard card. It doesn't have to be a credit card (many people in Europe including myself don't own one) . But these cards often give you online buyer protection. Check first!

Thank you very much!! I'm also in EU so any company with a warehouse in eu somewhere is a great interest vs importing direct from China.

There will always be some complaints about a company somewhere somehow but all depends how severe. I will check prices for tbe 18650 and QSO. And compare.

 

[Luk88]

Thank you very much!! I'm also in EU so any company with a warehouse in eu somewhere is a great interest vs importing direct from China.

There will always be some complaints about a company somewhere somehow but all depends how severe. I will check prices for tbe 18650 and QSO. And compare.

You're welcome. One thing to add. My positive experiences are all with regards to MB31 and MB30 EVE cells. (MB31 mostly, I only got 8 MB30 in the beginning).

I can't say about other types of cells.

 

[wepower]

18650 has these in stock for $105/cell with official EVE terminals. https://www.18650batterystore.com/products/eve-mb31-grade-a-cells-3-2v-lifepo4-314ah-battery

Unfortunately these are not official EVE terminals. Now the market is flooded with the cells equipped with pseudo EVE terminals. But they are easy to distinguish from original ones. Factory EVE terminal has stainless steel thread inserts while fake one has thread cut straight in aluminium.
I have numerous reports from battery assemblers that you can easily brake this aluminium thread even with a screwdriver.
Another downside of these fake terminals is that they often fall off easily. You can see on the pictures that on the original terminals welding is very solid while on the fake ones it's only a ring of not so deep laser welding on top of the terminal. You can check this German YT video where this problem is explained.

 

[Alkaline]

Well that is not good at all, is EEL supply 18650 battery store? If so they have some turds on there hands. This makes the docan little donut terminals look much better.

 

[wepower]

Well that is not good at all, is EEL supply 18650 battery store? If so they have some turds on there hands. This makes the docan little donut terminals look much better.

It's not only EEL. Now Nkon.nl also sells boatloads of cells with these terminals. Other resellers also offer them.
Some factory in China started mass production of these terminals and now they are everywhere.
Resellers are trying to copy the look of original factory EVE cells but this time something went wrong.

 

[Alkaline]

Avoid 18650 battery in USA then. I told everyone they better be careful and stick to cells that have been out in the market! looks like 280K V3 still have original eve terminals.

 

[740GLE]

Post in thread 'You can put the lugs back on the EVE batteries - CAREFULLY.'

Sep 17, 2024

Where did you order these cells from? These look like knock off eve dual threaded terminals.

Do you see threaded inserts in each of the terminals? Looking at the picture it sure looks like it’s non threaded insert, just bare threaded aluminum.

I got them from the 18650 Battery Store - Here's the battery
There are no inserts in any of the lugs, just two 6x1.0 threaded holes in each aluminium lug. (metric spelling of aluminum because they're metric threads )

• K-fab

• 

Another report of how weak fake dual threaded hole welds are.

 

[Luk88]

Post in thread 'You can put the lugs back on the EVE batteries - CAREFULLY.'

Sep 17, 2024

Where did you order these cells from? These look like knock off eve dual threaded terminals.

Do you see threaded inserts in each of the terminals? Looking at the picture it sure looks like it’s non threaded insert, just bare threaded aluminum.

I got them from the 18650 Battery Store - Here's the battery
There are no inserts in any of the lugs, just two 6x1.0 threaded holes in each aluminium lug. (metric spelling of aluminum because they're metric threads )

• K-fab

• 

Another report of how weak fake dual threaded hole welds are.

It is a pretty large piece of aluminium. I can imagine it acts as a heatsink during laser welding and many shops get a shallow crappy weld that barely holds.

I love the huge contact surface of this style terminal, but it makes me wonder if the design is flawed from the start.

For one unless you counter hold the terminal with a wrench (good luck doing that on an assembled battery in a cramped space) it magnifies torque applied to the cell post. If I was a manufacturer I'd think very carefully if I want to make an impression of a "strong thread" by adding a helicoil insert.

I'd prefer people actually used a torque wrench and stayed below 6Nm rather than making the thread stronger and then getting failures on the aluminum weld.

I never had an issue with 6mm thread in aluminium on all my other cells (with a torque wrench set at 5.5Nm), but i do wish for more contact surface.

 

[Mr. Eddie]

I just received my order of 8 EVE MB31 cells from Docan. All arrived in the same packing as the OP's did. No damage, and with the laser welded threaded studs instead of the newer "lugs", which I am not interested in working with. I'll put the battery to a capacity test and post the results. I was pleased with the free shipping from the US warehouse, and got them 10 days after ordering them.