Post by thread:[EE] Counterfeit Sony NimH batteries ???

I recently purchased 20 x Sony AA NimH 2100 mAh batteries. Or so I thought. That's a box full. Packed in nicely printed Sony box. Packed in nicely printed Sony dual blister packs. Packed in nice dual plastic cases. Batteries nicely printed with Sony blurb. Lots of work on presentation Look just like the pictures on web. Battery is NH-AA-DI Dual pack is NH-AA-2DI The capacity seemed low at first, but NimH are for the 1st charge or two, so that didn't bother me. They seemed to stay low though and I wondered. A friend (Rod) and I looked at them today. He or I suggested they might be counterfeit. He suggested we weigh them. Holding 8 of mixed older ones of around 1800- 2000 mAh in hand you could feel the difference. These weigh 18g. Others are 27g. RS book says all NimH they have around this capacity are 27g. Google. Sony say NH-AA-DI weigh 27g! AND that they are 1750 mAh typical, 1650 mAh minimum. Inspection of main box shows one place where they have 1750 and 2100 above each other and say "1.2V AAA type". These are AAs. Mr Sony, says Rod, does not make typos. I'd tend to agree. All else is utterly pretty and professional in appearance. I've yet to run a formal mAh test, but I'm reasonably sure what I'll find. I'll be taking this up with the suppliers, at least. If they are fakes I doubt that they know. Has anyone else met fake NimH before? RM ================= This is Philippines page as it was their only one in english. Weight is 27g as expected. Capacity is 1750 typical, 1650 minimum. http://www.sony.com.ph/products_detail.asp?product_id=230&cat_id=2&subcat_id=7&subcat2_id=36 Here is Sony global home search for this battery which gave me the above link http://www.sony.net/cgi-bin/search/search.cgi?q=nh-aa-di&restrictoption=global&lr=&ref_script=this All web references to NH-AA-DI say 1750 mAh. There is a 2100 but it is NH-AA-DA. ____________________________________________

> >I'll be taking this up with the suppliers, at least. If they are fakes I >doubt that they know. >Has anyone else met fake NimH before? Not exactly the same, in my case they were "suppo" batteries that were supposed to be "just as good" as sanyo HR-AUC batteries. They weren't. They were prone to unprovoked thermal runaway incidents. You might consider that faked cells almost certainly won't have a good vent structure, or enough catalyst or excess plate capacity to support 1C charge, and they end up either leaking away the electrolyte water through the vent, or as pressurized metal cans of rocket fuel. ____________________________________________

> And, what about the price, Russe? Wasn´t it "too good" to be true? > Or, it was just a regular one? They were at about 20% below normal cost from a reputable supplier who often offers excellent pricing. They offfered this price if you bought a box of 20, which I did. That's not cheap enough in that quantity to suggest by itself that they are gfake. > > I ussually tend to avoid some "1/4 off the regular price" offers just > because of the danger of ending up with something that who might know who > built it. Maybe sometimes I loose good oportunities but living in south > america gives you 10 times the odds to get lots of counterfeits. When they are offered as Sony brand, in this country they MUST be Sony brand, or you have complete come back. I'm more disappointed in the wextra effiort that's going to be required. And amazed at how much effort they have gone to IF they are fakes. if not fakes then Sony have managed to get 2100/1750 x 27g/18g = 980% more capacity per mass than from the previous version of this battery. Pretty good ! :-) RM ___________________________________________

On Sun, 24 Oct 2004 00:51:36 +1300, Russell McMahon wrote: >...< > Has anyone else met fake NimH before? Maybe, matbe not, but I've had Li-ion batteries that were *advertised* in such a way as to suggest that they were Sony (for a portable MiniDisk recorder) and IBM (for a Thinkpad laptop) and in each case they were not. The IBM ones are very cleverly made to look like real ones, except that where the originals have the IBM logo, these say "For IBM". I also had some "Sanyo" NiMh AAs recently that were completely useless - the best ones kept a charge for about half an hour and the worst had no battery-like activity whatsoever - they could have been a lump of wood for all the good they did. They were supplied with a laser level ("Batteries Included" for a change), and the price of the unit was so low that it wasn't worth the hassle of trying to get them changed. Whether they were counterfeit or genuine Sanyo I have no idea. British law makes it illegal to import couterfeit items, even if you aren't intending to deceive anyone (so people coming home from the far east with $10 "Rolex" watches are a bit peeved to have them confiscated at Customs) and I guess this may be true in NZ too. Cheers, Howard Winter St.Albans, England ____________________________________________

At 12:51 AM 10/24/2004 +1300, you wrote: {Quote hidden}>I recently purchased 20 x Sony AA NimH 2100 mAh batteries. >Or so I thought. >That's a box full. Packed in nicely printed Sony box. Packed in nicely >printed Sony dual blister packs. >Packed in nice dual plastic cases. >Batteries nicely printed with Sony blurb. >Lots of work on presentation >Look just like the pictures on web. >Battery is NH-AA-DI >Dual pack is NH-AA-2DI > >The capacity seemed low at first, but NimH are for the 1st charge or two, >so that didn't bother me. They seemed to stay low though and I wondered. > >A friend (Rod) and I looked at them today. He or I suggested they might be >counterfeit. He suggested we weigh them. Holding 8 of mixed older ones of >around 1800- 2000 mAh in hand you could feel the difference. These weigh >18g. Others are 27g. RS book says all NimH they have around this capacity >are 27g. > >Google. >Sony say NH-AA-DI weigh 27g! >AND that they are 1750 mAh typical, 1650 mAh minimum. > >Inspection of main box shows one place where they have 1750 and 2100 above >each other and say "1.2V AAA type". These are AAs. >Mr Sony, says Rod, does not make typos. I'd tend to agree. > >All else is utterly pretty and professional in appearance. > >I've yet to run a formal mAh test, but I'm reasonably sure what I'll find. > >I'll be taking this up with the suppliers, at least. If they are fakes I >doubt that they know. >Has anyone else met fake NimH before? No, but there are a LOT of manufacturers of NiMH cells in China, it might not be all that hard to find one that would not be adverse to some labelling changes to boost sales. I notice that similar items are showing up on eBay from Hong Kong. Fudging on the capacity seems to be fairly common too. If true, good catch-- 99% of consumers would never know they'd been rooked, just that they didn't work quite as long as they'd expect... You might want to contact your local Sony office- if they agree, they'll probably want to get some off of you, and if they are counterfeit they'll deal with the situation very promptly, I'm sure. It's possible that your supplier got taken in too-- they thought they were buying "grey/gray market" goods that are often cheaper in places like Hong Kong, and instead got shipped counterfeits. Best regards, Spehro Pefhany --"it's the network..." "The Journey is the reward" spam_OUTspeffTakeThisOuTinterlog.com Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com Embedded software/hardware/analog Info for designers: http://www.speff.com ____________________________________________

The safety people (UL, CSE,TVU sp?) are very interested in counterfeit Li-Ion batteries, as a few have blown up while being used/charged in cellphones and injured their purchasers. --Bob Spehro Pefhany wrote: {Quote hidden}> At 12:51 AM 10/24/2004 +1300, you wrote: > >> I recently purchased 20 x Sony AA NimH 2100 mAh batteries. >> Or so I thought. >> That's a box full. Packed in nicely printed Sony box. Packed in >> nicely printed Sony dual blister packs. >> Packed in nice dual plastic cases. >> Batteries nicely printed with Sony blurb. >> Lots of work on presentation >> Look just like the pictures on web. >> Battery is NH-AA-DI >> Dual pack is NH-AA-2DI >> >> The capacity seemed low at first, but NimH are for the 1st charge or >> two, so that didn't bother me. They seemed to stay low though and I >> wondered. >> >> A friend (Rod) and I looked at them today. He or I suggested they >> might be counterfeit. He suggested we weigh them. Holding 8 of mixed >> older ones of around 1800- 2000 mAh in hand you could feel the >> difference. These weigh 18g. Others are 27g. RS book says all NimH >> they have around this capacity are 27g. >> >> Google. >> Sony say NH-AA-DI weigh 27g! >> AND that they are 1750 mAh typical, 1650 mAh minimum. >> >> Inspection of main box shows one place where they have 1750 and 2100 >> above each other and say "1.2V AAA type". These are AAs. >> Mr Sony, says Rod, does not make typos. I'd tend to agree. >> >> All else is utterly pretty and professional in appearance. >> >> I've yet to run a formal mAh test, but I'm reasonably sure what I'll >> find. >> >> I'll be taking this up with the suppliers, at least. If they are >> fakes I doubt that they know. >> Has anyone else met fake NimH before? > > > No, but there are a LOT of manufacturers of NiMH cells in China, it > might not be > all that hard to find one that would not be adverse to some labelling > changes to > boost sales. I notice that similar items are showing up on eBay from > Hong Kong. > Fudging on the capacity seems to be fairly common too. > > If true, good catch-- 99% of consumers would never know they'd been > rooked, just that they didn't work quite as long as they'd expect... > You might want to contact your local Sony office- if they agree, they'll > probably want to get some off of you, and if they are counterfeit they'll > deal with the situation very promptly, I'm sure. > > It's possible that your supplier got taken in too-- they thought they > were > buying "grey/gray market" goods that are often cheaper in places like > Hong Kong, > and instead got shipped counterfeits. > > Best regards, > > Spehro Pefhany --"it's the network..." "The Journey is the > reward" > .....speffKILLspam@spam@interlog.com Info for manufacturers: > http://www.trexon.com > Embedded software/hardware/analog Info for designers: > http://www.speff.com > > > > > ______________________________________________

>Date: Sat, 23 Oct 2004 20:14:08 -0400 >From: Spehro Pefhany <speffKILLspaminterlog.com> >To: "Microcontroller discussion list - Public." <.....piclistKILLspam.....MIT.EDU> >Subject: Re: [EE] Counterfeit Sony NimH batteries ??? > > >At 12:51 AM 10/24/2004 +1300, you wrote: {Quote hidden}>I recently purchased 20 x Sony AA NimH 2100 mAh batteries. >Or so I thought. >That's a box full. Packed in nicely printed Sony box. Packed in nicely >printed Sony dual blister packs. >Packed in nice dual plastic cases. >Batteries nicely printed with Sony blurb. >Lots of work on presentation >Look just like the pictures on web. >Battery is NH-AA-DI >Dual pack is NH-AA-2DI >No, but there are a LOT of manufacturers of NiMH cells in China, it might not be >all that hard to find one that would not be adverse to some labelling changes to >boost sales. I notice that similar items are showing up on eBay from Hong Kong. >Fudging on the capacity seems to be fairly common too. Feels good to blame the 'far east' and 'China' eh? No consideration for Dubei or Eastern European or Russian or south American origin. I see the uniquely American need for enemies emerging here. The USA always has to have someone to 'hate'. I was at the Shanghai Electronics Show 2 weeks ago and was again surprised at the electronics boom. I will make some predictions and give one piece of advice: 1. after the USA does a Vietnam-style retreat from Iraq then capitalist China will become the new enemy. 2. Within a couple of years it will be westerners caught industrial spying in Chinese factories rather than the reverse which starts to happen. 3. and the advice: for young people starting out in electronics forget the 'west' for long-term employment. Move to China. That is where the action is. Learn Mandarin, get a nice Chinese mate and be in an exciting, thrusting upward environment. All it takes is the courage to do it. 4. At the Show I saw 40 pin wide slot 3M gold plated ZIF sockets on sale in bulk (1K) for $US1.15. There you can blame the 'far east' for counterfeit ZIF sockets. peter regards, DIY Electronics (HK) Ltd PO Box 88458, Sham Shui Po, Hong Kong Factory: voice 852-2304 2250 Fax: 852-2729 1400 M/F, 97 Fuk Wa Street, Sham Shui Po, HK Home: voice 852-2720 0255, Mobile: 852-6273 2049 Web: http://www.kitsrus.com Email: EraseMEpeterhkspam_OUTTakeThisOuTkitsrus.com Chinese/Thai language emails to peter5998spam_OUTnetvigator.com --------------------------------------------------------------- ____________________________________________

I wrote >>I recently purchased 20 x Sony AA NimH 2100 mAh batteries. >>Or so I thought. ... Someone else said > >No, but there are a LOT of manufacturers of NiMH cells in China, it might > not be > >all that hard to find one that would not be adverse to some labelling > changes to > >boost sales. I notice that similar items are showing up on eBay from Hong > Kong. > >Fudging on the capacity seems to be fairly common too. Peter said > Feels good to blame the 'far east' and 'China' eh? > No consideration for Dubei or Eastern European or Russian or south > American origin. I see the uniquely American need for enemies emerging > here. I made no comment on WHERE the batteries were made, and I have no way of telling. But I think that the writer was reflecting reality ***as we have experienced it mostly so far***. I'm absolutely certain that the Chinese and the far East in general are not the only one's who are capable of counterfeiting quality products BUT - So far most technological counterfeits that we see in NZ that are identified as coming from somewhere specific usually come from China. - To counterfeit something as well as these batteries have been you need to be producing a quality product, at least packaging wise. The first point is a reflection of reality to date and the second point is a compliment and an acknowledgement that China at large is climbing the curve from shoddy copier to innovative producer of quality products. Which is the point that you were making. Along the way there will always be those who turn such capabilities to illegitimate ends. If whoever produced my cells had done as good a job of counterfeiting the cells as they did on the packaging I would still be a happy customer. If the cells had been over 2000 mAH capacity then so far at least they would have not been noticed by me. For them to be so low in capacity that they drew my attention to their performance, they must be closer to 1000 mAH than 2000 mAH. This may not be the case but I hope to build a capacity tester this evening and run a few tests - something fairly simple that allows me to easily change constant current discharge rates and endpoint voltages and log the result. I need to set a discharge rate that reasonably approximates camera usage (which is where i noticed the 'problem".) Ideally this would be a pulsed discharge with a recovery period, but while I could easily enough implement this with software, it would probably be more useful to start with a constant current continuous discharge at about the C/4 rate - ie about 500 mA continuous. It would be interesting to know what sort of 'bogus" products come out of Dubai, Eastern European, Russia or South America. Has anyone had any known experience of this? What sort of presentation quality is achieved? Russell McMahon ____________________________________________

> >Feels good to blame the 'far east' and 'China' eh? > >No consideration for Dubei or Eastern European or Russian or south >American origin. I see the uniquely American need for enemies emerging >here. The USA always has to have someone to 'hate'. I was at the Shanghai >Electronics Show 2 weeks ago and was again surprised at the electronics >boom. I will make some predictions and give one piece of advice: Well, in my case, these came from Suppo, a chinese company, who in fact told us that they make batteries for Sanyo. Sanyo was very interested to discover this. Although they do make batteries in china, they do it in sanyo owned facilities, and the particular cells we were talking about are only made in japan. I have also locally seen "Dunacell" batteries, made in China (marked as such on the outer shipping carton, but NOT the retail package). They mimic very closely the gold and black case colors, text fonts, and lettering of the american Duracell brand. The obvious intent is to mislead the consumer. An engineer I know, went to china sourcing batteries, and was told by several chinese companies, that they could make for him "duracell", "energizer", or any other brand he wanted. There is NO way that is legitimate.. I also have had problems with rare earth magnets, that came from a Chinese source, who were producing rare earth magnets, supposedly under licence of a patent from a US company, but the material we got was not produced according to that patent, and as we found out, they never did actually licence the patent. The samples were great, the production was abysmal. Chinese firms are frequently caught producing counterfeit software, and movies. Of course the Taiwanese, Japanese, and the Koreans have done the same for years, but they have pretty much given it up.. At one time there was an "Olympos" camera made in Korea, that looked identical to the much higher quality Olympus camera made in Japan. >4. At the Show I saw 40 pin wide slot 3M gold plated ZIF sockets on sale >in bulk (1K) for $US1.15. There you can blame the 'far east' for >counterfeit ZIF sockets. Only if they say "3M" on them, but aren't actually produced by 3M. Otherwise, they are just a low cost substitute. There may be patent issues, but that's a separate issue. ____________________________________________

At 05:03 PM 10/25/2004 +1300, you wrote: >It would be interesting to know what sort of 'bogus" products come out of >Dubai, Eastern European, Russia or South America. Has anyone had any known >experience of this? What sort of presentation quality is achieved? I've seen counterfeit semiconductors, apparently from Eastern Europe, some years ago. Motorola is known to have had discrete semis knocked off (complete with the bat-wing logo). Presentation quality was poor, however they worked well enough- they were voltage regulators. The initial voltage was typically poorer tolerance than genuine parts, however they did not have noticeably worse reliability, and they were not outside of data-sheet specifications. Best regards, Spehro Pefhany --"it's the network..." "The Journey is the reward" @spam@speffKILLspaminterlog.com Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com Embedded software/hardware/analog Info for designers: http://www.speff.com ____________________________________________

>And amazed at how much effort they have gone to IF they >are fakes. I am not surprised. When I worked for a company that sold cassette tapes, back when they were the new rage current thing that everyone must have, the company had offers from counterfeit manufacturers in SE Asia who, on being told that the items they were offering were not "Brand X" asked how to make them more like "Brand X". They were told to go jump, but there are companies out there that will go the extra mile to try and get every detail correct. As a side issue to this, the Electronics Weekly magazine here in the UK has an article just about every week about counterfeit semiconductors rearing their ugly head again. ____________________________________________

>-----Original Message----- >From: KILLspampiclist-bouncesKILLspammit.edu [RemoveMEpiclist-bouncesTakeThisOuTmit.edu] >On Behalf Of Alan B. Pearce >Sent: 25 October 2004 12:17 >To: Microcontroller discussion list - Public. >Subject: Re: [EE] Counterfeit Sony NimH batteries ??? > > >>It would be interesting to know what sort of 'bogus" >>products come out of Dubai, > >Not exactly bogus, but at least one of the countries in that >area (I cannot remember if it is Dubai, or one of the others) >was investigated a while back, and a documentary shown on TV >here in the UK, as a clearing house for cars stolen in Japan, >shipped to this Arab state, and from there "exported" to other >countries which use RHD cars. It has been a large problem for >grey market cars in the UK. It was (and possibly still is) Dubai. Mike ____________________________________________

At 12:17 PM 10/25/2004 +0100, you wrote: > >It would be interesting to know what sort of 'bogus" > >products come out of Dubai, > >Not exactly bogus, but at least one of the countries in that area (I cannot >remember if it is Dubai, or one of the others) was investigated a while >back, and a documentary shown on TV here in the UK, as a clearing house for >cars stolen in Japan, shipped to this Arab state, and from there "exported" >to other countries which use RHD cars. It has been a large problem for grey >market cars in the UK. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/2154688.stm ...al-Qaeda apparently involved in exporting counterfeit Vaseline from Dubai to Britain. Most of the seized goods came to Europe by air and were produced in Thailand, China, Turkey, Hong Kong and the Czech Republic. http://www.thewestonmercury.co.uk/archived_material/2004/week_34/news/asp/04-08-20Bootleggers.asp "customs officials seized about eight tons of fake Vaseline products bound for Britain from Dubai." www.iprights.com/publications/articles/article27.asp?articleID=27 In general terms, from our experience over the past 6 years of practical enforcement of IPR in China, the trend of IPR infringing acts has shifted from random, low-quality and one-off infringements to more systematic and "professional" production of high-quality counterfeits. These counterfeiters have large scale production and resources, secure and regular customers, efficient production and distribution. They are experienced in avoiding detection and reducing the damage if they are caught, either through very dispersed or secretive production, or through disguising their production under the guise of producing their own brands. The counterfeits, while being of inferior quality and materials, are nevertheless often indistinguishable from the genuine to an untrained eye. IME, Fake UL markings are not uncommon.. and, especially when combined with shoddy goods, you can have expensive problems (I've been burned). Best regards, Spehro Pefhany --"it's the network..." "The Journey is the reward" spamBeGonespeffspamBeGoneinterlog.com Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com Embedded software/hardware/analog Info for designers: http://www.speff.com ____________________________________________

Next stage: RM ================================= From: "Fla... Team" <info@fla...> To: <> Sent: Thursday, October 21, 2004 4:00 AM Subject: Fla ..... Final Order Followup Email > Dear R... > > Thank you for your order with Fla.... . This is a final > followup email to ensure you are completely happy with your Fla ..... > purchase. Regrettably, I'm not. I bought a 512 MB CF Flash card and it behaves superbly. It actually records substantially faster write times in my camera (Minolta 7Hi) than another card with a nominally superior spec. And the price was good too, so I'm entirely happy about that. However, I also bought a box of 20 x Sony AA-NH-DI batteries (boxed in sets of 2 as AA-NI-2DI). These are Sony NimH, AA 2100 mAH cells. I have opened and used only some of the cells in sets of 4. They appear to be substantially lower in capacity than I would expect compared to other cells I have used before. At first I put this down to them being new, as my experience is that NimH do not have full capacity for the first cycle or two but rapidly attain full capacity. However, these still seem to be of substantially lower capacity than expected after quite a few discharge-charge cycles. Has anyone else reported problems with these batteries? What should I do? R McMahon 25 October 2004 ___________________________________ ORIGINAL ORDER DETAILS: Order Number: 27... .... ____________________________________________

Hi Russell, Farnell sell Energizer NiMH cells. I ordered a pack of 2 x AA from the recent Select 23 specials page 12, order code 10-445-6865. They say 2100mAh in the mailer, but what was delivered have 2300mAh printed on them, type NH- 15AA. NZ$11.83 for a pair wasn't too bad. Haven't used these to check the capacity yet, but I've been very happy with a pair of energizer 2100mAh cells bought previously. Just checked the energizer.com website, data sheet section, and they now the list NH15 at 2500mAh, all previous capacities are obsolete and interestingly all used the same type code of NH15. Weight is 28.1g for this one, all lesser capacities were 27g. Guess they keep fine tuning their technology and lift the mAh rating as they are able to. -- Brent Brown, Electronic Design Solutions 16 English Street, Hamilton, New Zealand Ph/fax: +64 7 849 0069 Mobile/txt: 025 334 069 eMail: TakeThisOuTbrent.brownEraseMEspam_OUTclear.net.nz ____________________________________________

First test at ~ C/8 (250 mA) gave about 900 mAh for 1st batch. It woke me up with its low voltage trip alarm at 6:30am when it should have gone for another 4 hours or so ! That batch now on charge again and 2nd batch under way. A few cycles like this will show whether this is the terminal capacity or if it rises a bit with cycling. IF this is anything like consistent with how they are going to repeatably cycle then there must be a lot of undiscerning customers out there who don't know what 2100 mAh should feel like. (44,000 photos gives you some feel). Recall, these are labelled 2100 MAh and the "real" Sony equivalents are 1750 mAh so either way the quality of the battery-copy is not marvellous. Lashup constant current source (LM324 driving FET with resistor in source) had current within 1% of original at a trip voltage of about 0.9V/cell. Just to be 103% certain I must change chargers at one stage to "prove" that charger has not gone bellyup and terminating charge early. RM ____________________________________________

> >Recall, these are labelled 2100 MAh and the >>"real" Sony equivalents are 1750 mAh so either >>way the quality of the battery-copy is not marvellous. > Are you going to check your original cells as well, to get a comparison? Yes. > My > thinking is that you may want to compare these suspect ones with whatever > other ones you have, to get a feel for how the charge/discharge cycle > compares to their mAh rating. I am in the process of doing a cycle on some old batteries niow. These are nominal 1800 MAH units that have been thrashed severely. They were the 1st I bought when I got the camera that took the too many photos, so they are well used. I bought the new "Sony" cells to replace these older cells as their capacity was dropping so it will be interesting to see how they compare. I can see that a few new "real" cells will be needed. RM ____________________________________________

>> >Recall, these are labelled 2100 MAh and the >>>"real" Sony equivalents are 1750 mAh so either >>>way the quality of the battery-copy is not marvellous. > >> Are you going to check your original cells as well, to get a comparison? > > Yes. Just completed a test of some old cells. 240 mA constant current load. Endpoint is about 3 volts as the tester is set at present BUT all cells sets tested (4 in series in each case) drop very rapidly from over 4v at the end of the run, so setting at an endpoint of say 4V would make little difference. This set were 3 x GP 1800 mAh cells and 1 x Sanyo 1850 mAh - all have been VERY well used. Time taken was exactly 7 hours to give 7 x 240 = 1680 mAh ! :-) If old and tired 1800 mAh cells can return 93% of their rated capacity at a C/8 (actually C/7.5) load then a new set of cells run at 2100/240 = C/8.75 rate should obviously do better than 900 mAh ! I think this is the final demonstration of the grossly inferior nature of the cells concerned (and not just of the labelling). I have a new set on slow / trickle charge at present and will see if that improves them any. I don't hold out much hope. The supplier is being "cooperative" so far, having been given all the facts available, but last night the cells concerned were still for sale on their website. Russell McMahon ____________________________________________

>I think you mentioned at the beginning that the suspect cells were > significantly lighter than the 'real' ones. Have you considered > 'destructively testing' one to see if there are sub-size cells inside, > inside of a standard size shell? That may be what they do. At this stage I'm not going to dismantle anything. Waiting to see what the seller does now I've given him all available information. cells still for sale on their website now 1/2 business day after they have been informed. But I also that they may be NiCds. For the 1st two hours of discharge they are equal or better in terminal voltage than true NiMh but when the NiMh flattens out at about 1.1 V / cell the other keeps falling. RM ____________________________________________

At 01:38 PM 10/28/2004 +1300, Russell McMahon wrote: >>I think you mentioned at the beginning that the suspect cells were >>significantly lighter than the 'real' ones. Have you considered >>'destructively testing' one to see if there are sub-size cells inside, >>inside of a standard size shell? > >That may be what they do. At this stage I'm not going to dismantle >anything. Waiting to see what the seller does now I've given him all >available information. cells still for sale on their website now 1/2 >business day after they have been informed. I'd advise against it. nasty chemicals, and VERY unlikely that this is the case. The old radio shack "D" cells were pretty unique. ____________________________________________

>>> I think you mentioned at the beginning that the suspect cells were >>> significantly lighter than the 'real' ones. Have you considered >>> 'destructively testing' one to see if there are sub-size cells inside, >>> inside of a standard size shell? >> That may be what they do. > I'd advise against it [...] and VERY unlikely that this is the > case. The old radio shack "D" cells were pretty unique. Not that unique. About 5 months ago, I noticed some Eveready NiMH batteries in C size at local Target (US department store chain). C battery had the same mAH rating as their AA battery. C size felt like they weighed the same per battery as their AA size. Cost was based on physical size (i.e. C was twice the price of AA). I didn't buy them. AA and C are essentially the same length. So I made some sleeves out of PVC pipe to hold a set of AA units in the correct position in my old electronic flash(*) which takes C batteries. Works fine and I can use my existing stock of AA NiMH batteries & chargers. Lee Jones (*) similar size new models now usually use AA size batteries. ____________________________________________

> >Not that unique. About 5 months ago, I noticed some Eveready NiMH >batteries in C size at local Target (US department store chain). >C battery had the same mAH rating as their AA battery. C size felt >like they weighed the same per battery as their AA size. Cost was >based on physical size (i.e. C was twice the price of AA). I didn't >buy them. Very doubtful that they were "recased". They simply have less "jellyroll" in the battery, or the roll is less dense. Squeezing that last bit of capacity into the can requires great precision in manufacture. Too much electrolyte means not enough space for the gas produced, too high pressure, and venting. Too little electrolyte gives reduced performance. The difference is a fraction of a mL in an AA cell. To tolerate overcharge, an expensive catalyst is needed, and excess plate capacity. ____________________________________________