Gearbest Experience

[titusmc]

Hi ES,

I thought I would share my recent experience ordering 18650 cells from gearbest.com so others can benefit from it. I ordered 28 LG HE4's on 02-11-2016 and they just arrived today 03-04-2016 (23 days later). These are 2500 mAh 20A discharge cells. I paid $3.65/cell with free shipping to the USA. The first thing I did was test the 1 kHz AC IR, and they are 20 milliohm as the spec sheet indicates, which I think is a reasonably good indicator that they are authentic. I am currently running a 1A capacity test on a Foxnovo 4S.

Anyway, I am pretty satisfied with my first gearbest order - I am still awaiting NCR18650BF's from fasttech that I ordered earlier than these (01-27-2016 and they still aren't here!)...

 

[delta_19]

Hi ES,

I thought I would share my recent experience ordering 18650 cells from gearbest.com so others can benefit from it. I ordered 28 LG HE4's on 02-11-2016 and they just arrived today 03-04-2016 (23 days later). These are 2500 mAh 20A discharge cells. I paid $3.65/cell with free shipping to the USA. The first thing I did was test the 1 kHz AC IR, and they are 20 milliohm as the spec sheet indicates, which I think is a reasonably good indicator that they are authentic. I am currently running a 1A capacity test on a Foxnovo 4S.

Anyway, I am pretty satisfied with my first gearbest order - I am still awaiting NCR18650BF's from fasttech that I ordered earlier than these (01-27-2016 and they still aren't here!)...

have you tested to make sure the batteries are legit too?

 

[titusmc]

have you tested to make sure the batteries are legit too?

Yes - the 1 kHz AC IR is 20 milliohm and all batteries have a 1A capacity of between 2550 and 2600 mAh. That seems legit to me - I have no other tests to perform except perhaps weighing the batteries, before I just build a pack.

 

[parabellum]

Thanks for sharing. Keep us updated, how they perform over time. Till now looks legit to me.

 

[Golyo]

I wouldn't recommend buying a box of matches from Gearbest. It is completely okay with them to not send you something, and to not tell you that they haven't sent it, and to not give back your money, just some credit that you can use on their site.

edit: on the other hand nkon.nl is a brilliant vendor that ships worldwide afaik.
for non-EU countries: https://ru.nkon.nl/

 

[titusmc]

Wow - that sounds horrible. Was this your personal experience? I have another larger shipment of LG HE4 coming from gearbest soon. I hope it arrives!

Anyway, I just figured that people benefit from hearing if sites are actually shipping authentic cells in a somewhat timely fashion. I've seen many people rave about nkon.nl, but I have yet to try ordering from them.

 

[iangreenhalgh]

I recently bought some of these from gearbest:

http://www.gearbest.com/batteries/pp_190732.html

They seem to me to be authentic. I already had a load of 26F cells from new laptop packs and the Gearbest cells charge and discharge identically, so I'm happy. Delivery was about 2 weeks to UK.

 

[Golyo]

Wow - that sounds horrible. Was this your personal experience? I have another larger shipment of LG HE4 coming from gearbest soon. I hope it arrives!

Anyway, I just figured that people benefit from hearing if sites are actually shipping authentic cells in a somewhat timely fashion. I've seen many people rave about nkon.nl, but I have yet to try ordering from them.

Yes, that is my experience. Afterwards, I read several similar stories about Gearbest, you can do a search on Google, and will see them. I have no idea how PayPal hasn't kicked them out yet.

 

[titusmc]

On Monday 4/4/2016 I received package 1 of 3 from second shipment of LG HE4 from Gearbest (ordered 2/18/2016 - 46 days from order to receipt). They also seem genuine.

2 packages of 3 from a fasttech order for Sanyo NCR18650BF also appeared on my doorstep this past Sunday (ordered 1/27/2016 - 67 days from order to receipt). I have not confirmed they are genuine, but they appear identical to cells from a previous order that I verified as authentic.

So, in short, gearbest seems to be supplying genuine LG HE4 (I've thus far received 56 out of 112 ordered for a 14S8P build - 52V/20Ah/1040 Wh), but it takes a LONG time to ship.

All in all, 112 HE4 cells cost me $408.78 with free shipping ($3.65/cell). For comparison, lunacycle (great USA supplier) offers a Samsung 25R 52V/20Ah for $649.95 + $40 fixed shipping. Assuming a BMS and other balance of battery costs to be approximately $50, let us adjust the cost of the DIY gearbest pack to $458.78 - a savings of $231.17 over closest lunacycle battery. It takes me approximately 5 days to capacity test cells in order to build a well-balanced pack, and another 10 hours to assemble and solder - call it 6 extra days to a usable battery. Lets assume that a lunacycle battery would take at most 6 days in transit (I'm in NY). That means the $231.17 in savings comes at the cost of at least 46 days (I still need 2 of 4 packages) of delay to a usable pack. If you don't have a working battery, $231 seems very reasonable to pay for roughly 2 months faster shipping, guaranteed authentic cells, professional construction, and service/support. This isn't even considering labor.

 

[okashira]

If that is a 4-wire measurment of ACIR, 20mohm is too high. Should be like 11-14 or so.
20mohm is the DCIR