Hey
New Member
- Joined
- Jun 25, 2021
- Messages
- 4
Hi all
I would like to share my last battery cell shopping experience with you.
Short version:
I was shopping for EVE 280Ah cells at Aliexpress. Instead of sending me Eve, the seller Ninthcit sent me Lishen cells without prior notice. I was not happy in the first place because I have spent more on an offering that explicitly stated EVE in the title. For 20 USD less (at that time) the seller had an offering for 280Ah no-name cells that was pretty much identical. I got in touch with the seller, got a 50 USD refund and I am happy now. And I found out by chance that "Ninthcit" and "BLS" are actually the very same company.
Backstory:
Two years ago I was brave enough to order 190Ah aluminum cells from "BLS Officical Store" at Aliexpress to build my first 12V camping battery pack. This was even before Will had published his first video about that type of cells and I was pretty nervous hitting that buy button. When I got the cells, everything seemed to be fine at the first glance, but I quickly realized that the internal resistance of the cells must be pretty high and I was not able to pull significant amps without a lot of voltage sag. I actually had good reasons to complain, messaged the seller and attached this chart:
I was inexperienced and BLS Official Store managed to make me believe that this is a normal behavior and there is no reason to complain. Dumb me not to file a dispute and believe the rubbish they have been telling me. Later on I got the opportunity to use an iCharger to test for internal resistance and this is the result. Rember, the spec was between 0.1 and 0.3 mOhm:
Fast forward 2 years: The voltage sag got worse and even my coffeemaker, which only pulls 500W, triggered the low voltage protection on the BMS. So I was clearly ripped off and got very bad cells with a huge spread of internal resistance across the pack. Cell number 3 being the worst. So it was time to overcome my fears of being ripped off again and order new cells. The camping season already had started and I was looking for cells in a European warehouse to speed up delivery. Also I have seen a lot of praise for the Eve cells, so I was looking for that specific brand.
Ordering of new cells:
After some research it turned out that three stores offer 280AH cells with fast shipping in the EU: Ninthcit Official Store, BLS Official Store and Lifepo4 BATT Store. Obviously I did not want to buy from BLS under any circumstances. Nithicit was the only store that offered EVE cells, so I went with them. All stores where using the same pictures and style, so the offerings visually looked all similar. Since chinese companies have a reputation for not caring too much about intellectual property, I just thought they where stealing the ad content from each other (spoiler: I was wrong).
Three business days later I got my cells shipped from Poland to Germany. I was stoked, I never got an Aliexpress delivery nearly that fast. But my joy tuned into anger when I unwrapped the cells and saw that they do not match the images and appear to be Lishen instead of EVE.
So was I ripped of again? Since I was in a hurry to get the pack up and running I did not perform individual cell tests but formed and balanced a pack asap. But I did use the same iCharger to check for internal resistance before. Turns out that two cells show up as 0.3mOhm. For the other two cells I did not get a result. It seemed like the resistance was below the threshold the device is able to measure. At least I was hoping for that.
As a next step I was running a full discharge test for the whole pack from 3.65 V down to 2.5V. Load (space heater on inverter) was about 100A / 0.3C and I was measuring with a Victron Smart Shunt configured with Lithium settings recommended by Victron.
The test went pretty well, I pulled 275Ah. Not > 280Ah as advertised but still decent and within specs for Lishen. And more important for me: No big voltage sag and pretty uniform behavior of all cells. After that I did a full charge with a 60A charger and replicated the results.
Still I was dissatisfied with the seller Ninthcit since I got a different brand, capacity was lower then advertised and all the photos in the ad also have been showing EVE cells. So I messaged the seller and asked for a 20€ refund. I did not want to ask for a lot of money because the cells are still decent, but I tried to get compensated for selecting the more expensive EVE offer.
First the seller was hesitant and was trying to talk me into believing I could have been discharging down to 2.0V (what?!) or that maybe the temperature was not right during my measurements, yada yada yada. I did not buy any of this BS, I had leaned my lesson. So I told him that I was only pulling 0.3 C and so at 1C the cells would even show less then 275Ah at any temperature. I made it clear that this would be his last chance to do a refund and that my Aliexpress and DIY Solar Forum review was already in preparation. It seems like he realized at this point that I knew what I was talking about and that his reputation was in danger. The tone changed to super friendly and he offered me to refund 50 USD over Paypal, which is twice as much as I have been asking for. So I took the money and thanked the seller although it felt like accepting hush money.
The tiny but interesting detail: BLS == Ninthcit
When I got my refund over paypal I immediately noticed that the payment was coming from "BLS". WTF? I asked them in the chat, if they are brands of the same company and they confirmed. So there you go. Even when I tried to avoid them, I was buying from BLS a second time.
My recommendation:
So what does all that mean in the end? I think this whole Aliexpress battery business is still a bit shady. At least this time BLS apologized and sent me a refund. But why do they not just change their ads and sell Lishen when they have Lishen in stock? Currently the momentum for this brand of cells is big and EVE is out of stock. Lishen seems to be a good alternative and they would attract a lot of happy buyers.
If you are from Europe and need some Lishen cells fast, I guess I can recommend BLS / Ninthcit with their Poland warehouse. Just go fo the cheapest offering and ask in advance what you will get. If they lie to you, immediately message them and if this does not help, ask for a refund or file a dispute.
Also the EU offerings seem to be expensive at a first glance, but be aware that all the taxes, handling fees, etc are included. If you buy from China, this can be a hefty sum to pay on top and you might even need to personally go to the customs office.
I would like to share my last battery cell shopping experience with you.
Short version:
I was shopping for EVE 280Ah cells at Aliexpress. Instead of sending me Eve, the seller Ninthcit sent me Lishen cells without prior notice. I was not happy in the first place because I have spent more on an offering that explicitly stated EVE in the title. For 20 USD less (at that time) the seller had an offering for 280Ah no-name cells that was pretty much identical. I got in touch with the seller, got a 50 USD refund and I am happy now. And I found out by chance that "Ninthcit" and "BLS" are actually the very same company.
Backstory:
Two years ago I was brave enough to order 190Ah aluminum cells from "BLS Officical Store" at Aliexpress to build my first 12V camping battery pack. This was even before Will had published his first video about that type of cells and I was pretty nervous hitting that buy button. When I got the cells, everything seemed to be fine at the first glance, but I quickly realized that the internal resistance of the cells must be pretty high and I was not able to pull significant amps without a lot of voltage sag. I actually had good reasons to complain, messaged the seller and attached this chart:
I was inexperienced and BLS Official Store managed to make me believe that this is a normal behavior and there is no reason to complain. Dumb me not to file a dispute and believe the rubbish they have been telling me. Later on I got the opportunity to use an iCharger to test for internal resistance and this is the result. Rember, the spec was between 0.1 and 0.3 mOhm:
Fast forward 2 years: The voltage sag got worse and even my coffeemaker, which only pulls 500W, triggered the low voltage protection on the BMS. So I was clearly ripped off and got very bad cells with a huge spread of internal resistance across the pack. Cell number 3 being the worst. So it was time to overcome my fears of being ripped off again and order new cells. The camping season already had started and I was looking for cells in a European warehouse to speed up delivery. Also I have seen a lot of praise for the Eve cells, so I was looking for that specific brand.
Ordering of new cells:
After some research it turned out that three stores offer 280AH cells with fast shipping in the EU: Ninthcit Official Store, BLS Official Store and Lifepo4 BATT Store. Obviously I did not want to buy from BLS under any circumstances. Nithicit was the only store that offered EVE cells, so I went with them. All stores where using the same pictures and style, so the offerings visually looked all similar. Since chinese companies have a reputation for not caring too much about intellectual property, I just thought they where stealing the ad content from each other (spoiler: I was wrong).
Three business days later I got my cells shipped from Poland to Germany. I was stoked, I never got an Aliexpress delivery nearly that fast. But my joy tuned into anger when I unwrapped the cells and saw that they do not match the images and appear to be Lishen instead of EVE.
So was I ripped of again? Since I was in a hurry to get the pack up and running I did not perform individual cell tests but formed and balanced a pack asap. But I did use the same iCharger to check for internal resistance before. Turns out that two cells show up as 0.3mOhm. For the other two cells I did not get a result. It seemed like the resistance was below the threshold the device is able to measure. At least I was hoping for that.
As a next step I was running a full discharge test for the whole pack from 3.65 V down to 2.5V. Load (space heater on inverter) was about 100A / 0.3C and I was measuring with a Victron Smart Shunt configured with Lithium settings recommended by Victron.
The test went pretty well, I pulled 275Ah. Not > 280Ah as advertised but still decent and within specs for Lishen. And more important for me: No big voltage sag and pretty uniform behavior of all cells. After that I did a full charge with a 60A charger and replicated the results.
Still I was dissatisfied with the seller Ninthcit since I got a different brand, capacity was lower then advertised and all the photos in the ad also have been showing EVE cells. So I messaged the seller and asked for a 20€ refund. I did not want to ask for a lot of money because the cells are still decent, but I tried to get compensated for selecting the more expensive EVE offer.
First the seller was hesitant and was trying to talk me into believing I could have been discharging down to 2.0V (what?!) or that maybe the temperature was not right during my measurements, yada yada yada. I did not buy any of this BS, I had leaned my lesson. So I told him that I was only pulling 0.3 C and so at 1C the cells would even show less then 275Ah at any temperature. I made it clear that this would be his last chance to do a refund and that my Aliexpress and DIY Solar Forum review was already in preparation. It seems like he realized at this point that I knew what I was talking about and that his reputation was in danger. The tone changed to super friendly and he offered me to refund 50 USD over Paypal, which is twice as much as I have been asking for. So I took the money and thanked the seller although it felt like accepting hush money.
The tiny but interesting detail: BLS == Ninthcit
When I got my refund over paypal I immediately noticed that the payment was coming from "BLS". WTF? I asked them in the chat, if they are brands of the same company and they confirmed. So there you go. Even when I tried to avoid them, I was buying from BLS a second time.
My recommendation:
So what does all that mean in the end? I think this whole Aliexpress battery business is still a bit shady. At least this time BLS apologized and sent me a refund. But why do they not just change their ads and sell Lishen when they have Lishen in stock? Currently the momentum for this brand of cells is big and EVE is out of stock. Lishen seems to be a good alternative and they would attract a lot of happy buyers.
If you are from Europe and need some Lishen cells fast, I guess I can recommend BLS / Ninthcit with their Poland warehouse. Just go fo the cheapest offering and ask in advance what you will get. If they lie to you, immediately message them and if this does not help, ask for a refund or file a dispute.
Also the EU offerings seem to be expensive at a first glance, but be aware that all the taxes, handling fees, etc are included. If you buy from China, this can be a hefty sum to pay on top and you might even need to personally go to the customs office.