A Dangerous Game
For about a year we have been experiencing a shortage of Li-Ion battery cells around the world. Large manufacturers such as Samsung SDI, LG Chem, Murata (Sony) and Panasonic (Sanyo) are unable to meet demand with their production capacities, and at the same time the lack of raw materials is causing another price explosion.
With a lot of criminal energy and without shame, some retailers copy the well-known brand cells and bring plagiarism (fakes) onto the market, which, through the product description and images, suggest to the customer that they are original products.
As long as it was just a matter of product piracy, one could have said, well, a “fake” but serves its purpose. Unfortunately, that is not the case here, because these plagiarisms are not only inferior in their quality (low capacity, not even close to current carrying capacity compared to the original battery cells), but also dangerous in their construction.
John Mooch already posted a video on YouTube at the beginning of 2020 , but apparently his video did not find the necessary impact.
In this quick guide, we would like to give you the tools you need to distinguish between original battery cells and plagiarism on the basis of 2 characteristics, even without the corresponding measuring devices.
Here is a picture of 3 of the most popular battery cells by vapers:
- Overpressure valve – this is located under the plus pole (crown) in the middle. To see this, you have to remove the shrink and isolation ring. This is “MUST HAVE” and extremely important if the battery cell experiences a thermal runaway.
- Second rill – this rill, embossing or ring below the positive pole on the cup is fairly easy to recognize.
In the following picture we have marked the features in red:
If you have purchased battery cells that do not have these features and they were sold to you as Murata US18650VTC6, LG Chem INR18650-HG2, or INR18650-30Q, be careful. Please do not use these battery cells under any circumstances!
Main image by Foundry Co from Pixabay
