Spotting fake batteries?

[mozzarella]

I've been in the Li-Po world for long enough to know that the generic/chinese batteries advertise ratings that are nowhere near the actual capacity of the cell. I'm familiar with the cylindrical cells like 14500, 18650 16340, but when it comes to "packs" like copters use, I'm not sure what's fake and what is real and I don't have a connector to put these types of batteries on the hobby charger to test them.

There are a few on amazon from $2.50-$3.80 per battery with "brand" names like E-wonderful and Wayln and capacity claims of 650mAh, 720mAh, and 850mAh.

The reviews seem to mainly be from people who wouldn't know if they were using a rock with wires glued to it or a car battery.

I need a 3.7v for an X5C and am currently using a "600mAh" that came with it.

What can I look for to tell if I'm buying a quality battery pack?

 

[Alwil]

It is really hard to tell just looking at them. The battery is the heart of your system. It does you no good to spend
hours and hours building (not to mention lots and lots of dollars) to have a cell short out or get 5 minutes flying time
when it should have been 15 or 20. When you see a deal where they sell a 3s or 4s for $10.00 run away fast.
I just try to buy from name dealers that take pride in selling good products. The batteries are not cheap but
the dealer will stand behind their product. Means a lot to me.

 

[mozzarella]

It is really hard to tell just looking at them. The battery is the heart of your system. It does you no good to spend
hours and hours building (not to mention lots and lots of dollars) to have a cell short out or get 5 minutes flying time
when it should have been 15 or 20. When you see a deal where they sell a 3s or 4s for $10.00 run away fast.
I just try to buy from name dealers that take pride in selling good products. The batteries are not cheap but
the dealer will stand behind their product. Means a lot to me.

I'm messaging the seller to get the weight of each battery, then going to compare weight to my 600mAh.
Going with the general idea that higher capacity batteries are heavier.

My "600"mAh is 17.062g.

Anyone have a true capacity battery that they could give the weight of as a reference?

Sent using Tapatalk.

 

[John Doecliff]

A 1S 600mah battery is pretty entry level and shouldn't cost a lot so you will be able to stand a little trial and error. When you graduate up to bigger packs you need to be careful.

 

[mozzarella]

A 1S 600mah battery is pretty entry level and shouldn't cost a lot so you will be able to stand a little trial and error. When you graduate up to bigger packs you need to be careful.

I have some knowledge of the bigger packs with many cells in a series/parallel.
Another reference to my OP, through experience in fixing and salvaging 18650 cells in laptop batteries.

It's just these low capacity ones that are giving me issues.

But you're right, 6 cells+charger for $20 is cheap enough to experiment.

I'd like to find the plug type so I can use it in my hobby charger to test capacity.

I might make another post soon to help me pick my next quad/hexacopter to graduate up to.

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[Paul-H]

The general rule for batteries is if you buy them from eBay or Amazon they will either be fake or counterfeit in some way.

Either low quality with a well known brand counterfeit label, or a fraction of the claimed capacity or even a totally different low quality/capacity battery within a battery case.

I once did exhaustive tests on LiPo camera battery's, test genuine one supplied by the camera makers with generic branded and no name batteries from eBay and Amazion.

In every case the only ones that came anywhere close to the claimed capacities where the camera makers, almost all the others didn't even provide half their claimed capacity, with some only supplying a small fraction of the claimed capacities.

Buy from a known good supplier and buy well known names and youbshould Ber OK.

Go with the low price options and you will regret it.