[Solved] Source for "button" or "flat" top 18650 Li-Ion

@inq We were born at the wrong time.

Yes, Will is pretty amazing especially for his age, but that is all he does pretty much all day long. I like his openness, not afraid to diss the big boys. I learned a lot from him.

Posted by: @darup

So now, what is a reliable source for an equivalent 18650 xx; where xx is a type that will be usable, safe, and, most importantly fit-and-work!

In another thread I wanted a recommendation for a source of 18650 cells.  Brainstorm - Maybe I should start a thread for that.  Hmmm... this while notifications were coming at me from this thread.  OH!  Look at the title Inq.  As a contributor to the A.D.D. or (Senior Moments), I feel obliged to re-center this thread.  Although marked [Solved] I did not see any specific vendors.  The closest we got was:

Posted by: @zander

I get mine (10 on the way nbow) from Aliexpress. Be CAREFUL however, anybody claiming mnore than about 3400mAh is a fraud, I saw some 9,900 and 19,900. Remember,  batteries are chemistry, you can literally ballpark a batteries capacity by weight and/or physical packaging.

Which is like exactly saying, "I got mine from China."  It doesn't narrow down the field much.  And the disclaimer - What happens when some brain-child in China realizes they can sell more of their junk cells if they just claim they produce only 3400mAh?! 

And just because the Ali-Express add says Panasonic and is being sold by a no-name with No stars and only 101 sales... Yeah Buddy! I'm going to jump on that one before it gets away! 😜 

And for anyone that goes for that one... I have a deal for you... I have this Rolex I got in the Swiss hub of Jamaica I'll sell to you discounted for $5000! 

What We Learned From This Thread

• Several good things about how to reply on this forum
• When adding a link, it'll sometimes give a picture and sometimes it'll give you the link.
• That we have a lot of A.D.D. around here.  Me included.
• That other forums repeat the thread title on each and every post to help keep the posters focused!
• Don't look for LiFePO4 18650 cells - They don't exist OR see my great sale on Rolex watches.

What We Didn't Learned From This Thread

• Source for "button" or "flat" top 18650 Li-Ion

VBR,

Inq

P.S. - This was all tongue-in-cheek, so try not to get bent about it... except about the Rolex.

@inq Similar to when I was in college nobody wanted to buy Japanese products. 

@zander

Posted by: @zander

@inq Similar to when I was in college nobody wanted to buy Japanese products. 

I believe you (in that occurred), but that was most likely due to anti Japanese sentiment due to world war actions.  Since then, and these days however... I find that the Japanese have to be one of the most friendliest and honorable people on the planet.

Lets not dwell on the past - Every country has skeletons in their closet 😉

For the Non-eBay Haters

I would typically assume everyone already knows these things.  But there might be one babe-in-the-woods.  I have had good luck on eBay, but I follow several rules. 

• Never buy from someone with less than 99% Positive Feedback
• Pay one or two percent more if I can get a 99.8 or 99.9.
• Never buy from someone with less than 100K sales

Out of a couple hundred purchases (many waiting for the slow boat from China) I have had 3 screw ups.  Two instantly gave me full refunds and one got belligerent. 

Two interesting stories came out of that:

Good Intentions

Of the two, one I ordered 10 of the HC-SR04P (The special 3.3V variant).  I received 7 HC-SR04P and 3 other devices I had never heard of.  I had this picture in my mind of some poor little Chinese guy having an Oh $#!+ moment and substituting something of higher value.  As I only needed 4 for the project, I messaged the seller and thanked him for the different pieces.  Something got lost in the translation as he instantly gave me a refund.  I tried to rectify the problem, to no avail.  I added him to my preferred vendors list for future reference.

Not So Good Intentions

I purchased an aluminum drive unit to replace the plastic one on a 3D printer.  Although the plastic one was working fine, I felt it was a weak link needing fixed.  I received something totally different and incompatible.  I sent him a picture of his Ad and a picture of what he sent me.  I asked for a refund.

Instead, he said he'd ship out the correct one that day by expedited.  As he was being so accommodating, I let it slide.  The second arrived in 7 days from China!  I was impressed... until I realized it was the same WRONG one.  I again requested a refund... and he came back and said I needed to return both units for a full refund.  Of course that isn't an option with sub $10 pieces.  I instead chose to keep the items and give him a negative review with specifics about the sale.  I could have gone to eBay arbitration, and certainly would have won, but... you see... if the sale is refunded (by the seller or arbitration) the transaction goes away and the negative score is no longer part of his tally.  

Until it fell off his wall, he hounded me every couple of days to take the review down.  Finally offering to give me a full refund.  I replied, I'd rather eat the $10 and keep the review posted.  It cost him far more than $10 in sales.

Point being - eBay sellers are highly motivated to please you.

Another point - I've actually started using Amazon with a Prime account.  Free shipping and one or two day shipping has been more gratifying than the savings from China.

VBR,

Inq

Posted by: @zander

@inq Similar to when I was in college nobody wanted to buy Japanese products. 

You're up early!... or are you doing the Insomnia thing?

@frogandtoad No doubt, but the words were 'cheap Japanese'. I worked at a now defunct big retailer for a college job and one of the fellows on the floor was a survivor of the war in the Pacific. He was quite emotional about us selling the enemies products.

Back then, there were still American brands in competition but even they were transitioning to offshore manufacturing due to increasing labour costs in North America.

Even in the made in China world some products are crap, some are not. I know that about 1998 Mercedes and Chrysler were in China. IIRC, the Chinese auto workers made a few dollars a day vs the NA workers making about $200. Where would you choose to build?

People are weird, somebody did a study many years ago and discovered all travellers thought the people in the places they were visiting were more friendly than those 'back home'. You can probably guess that 'back home' was the vacation destination for some of the other participants. There is a name for this but I can't remember. It's origins is in workplace improvement, anybody know?

I bet that 99.99999% of the people who claim they don't buy Chineses own a lot of products made in China for the simple reason that they are not made anywhere else. Have you seen the toaster factory?

@inq I buy mostly from Amazon.ca as well. I am on the spectrum so instant gratification is #1 with me. My experience with eBay has been bad, while my experience with Aliexpress has been almost all good. I have never looked at any of the metrics you mention although I can see why you do. I guess I have been lucky. The problem with eBay is shipping and living in Canada. Our PO is super expensive and the border is a HUGE challenge made ony worse when we started to have to fill out paperwork to ship stuff back by post. MANY times I find exactly what I want on a US site but they can't guarantee the cost of crossing the border. It's almost always $0 except for local sales tax but the entire Canadian market for almost any product is no more than Chicago as an example. This was also true when I was involved in selling $5M computers. We are 10% the size, scale matters.

I pretty much stopped using eBay when it changed from person to person to business to person.

@inq My wife starts work at 6AM on Mondays, she gets up at 4 and I can't go back to sleep once I am awake. It's ok, I am most productive in the morning anyway and I sometimes catch a nap.

@zander

Posted by: @zander

@frogandtoad No doubt, but the words were 'cheap Japanese'. I worked at a now defunct big retailer for a college job and one of the fellows on the floor was a survivor of the war in the Pacific. He was quite emotional about us selling the enemies products.

Back then, there were still American brands in competition but even they were transitioning to offshore manufacturing due to increasing labour costs in North America.

Even in the made in China world some products are crap, some are not. I know that about 1998 Mercedes and Chrysler were in China. IIRC, the Chinese auto workers made a few dollars a day vs the NA workers making about $200. Where would you choose to build?

People are weird, somebody did a study many years ago and discovered all travellers thought the people in the places they were visiting were more friendly than those 'back home'. You can probably guess that 'back home' was the vacation destination for some of the other participants. There is a name for this but I can't remember. It's origins is in workplace improvement, anybody know?

I bet that 99.99999% of the people who claim they don't buy Chineses own a lot of products made in China for the simple reason that they are not made anywhere else. Have you seen the toaster factory?

 

I'm pretty sure we're all on the right track... it's not race that we should care about, it's the bastard governments that we as human loving beings should be against in unison!

There are so many amasing beautiful people all over this world, and we should embrace them all, even though we despise what their governments do!

Cheers

@frogandtoad 

I'm pretty sure we're all on the right track... it's not race that we should care about, it's the bastard governments that we as human loving beings should be against in unison!

There are so many amasing beautiful people all over this world, and we should embrace them all, even though we despise what their governments do!

Cheers

On this we can AGREE 100%. Well except for the amasing part, otherwise it's amazing!

Posted by: @zander

I am on the spectrum

Pardon my Canadian ignorance.  I read you saying this a couple of times.  What does that mean?

VBR,

Inq

P.S. - I'm sure quite a few of the phrases coming out THE South (there is only one) might stump you as well.  Apologies to our Aussie members.

@zander

Posted by: @zander

@frogandtoad 

I'm pretty sure we're all on the right track... it's not race that we should care about, it's the bastard governments that we as human loving beings should be against in unison!

There are so many amasing beautiful people all over this world, and we should embrace them all, even though we despise what their governments do!

Cheers

On this we can AGREE 100%. Well except for the amasing part, otherwise it's amazing!

 

LOL 🙂

@inq Thanks for asking. Nothing Canadian about it. I am on the autism spectrum due to birth trauma. Mostly aspergers but some ADD as well. My aspergers 'gift' is the ability to quickly find computer bugs and related to that is to tune computer systems. I once held the world record for fastest stock market transaction processor. Think of me as Sheldon. When I first saw that show I didn't understand why there was laughter at some of the comments and had to ask my wife. I learned a great deal about myself as a result of that show. 

I'm not quite sure if a Cool or My Sympathies are appropriate as both come to mind.

So, I'll just finish off...

VBR,

Inq