SeRiusRod
Member
- Joined
- Jul 4, 2020
- Messages
- 56
I'm opening this post in the hopes that my experience serves as an example for all the newcomers, like me, that would want to start their powerwall project.
Getting those cells is not an easy task nowadays. Perhaps for someone that works for a recycler or in his work has the opportunity to let aside a big load of them. But I, for example, live in a country that is known to penalize people that adopt a recycling position by themselves, like a past law that taxed for private harvested solar energy, even when offline. Also there are too many people in this country that rapidly gets all loads of items for resale at a high price when they firstknow it will be wanted or fashioned.
So, as the cheaper price I was getting for unknown laptop packs was 200/100, and those with months of research, I decided to buy them already checked and selected from a company or relative reliable source.
So I got a link on this forum that pointed me to an ebay shop from Netherlands that was supposedly selling good 2nd hand cells. It had sale items that stated that those where received a nice processing, like "We check every cell for voltage, appearance and damage" or"Very precisely, spot-welds are milled out, allowing the cells to be welded again"
So I talked to the seller to get a quote, as their items didn't have a fixed price, and get instructions on how to proceed. I must say that the communications were not as good as I would want. And I had problems getting him to respect the prices he posted in this same forum. Even at the point of committing the buy I had to quotehis own offer that he sent me by email for him to process the sale.
So I bought 1400 units of 2200mAh tested cells and I received them on 27 July.
They were nicely packed in 100u boxes and that rapidly showed that one was missing. Not a big deal.
A further inspection showed that more than 160 units had physical damage, even several where already leaking. It seems to me that the seller tried to improve it's harvesting procedure and used some kind of milling machine to remove the nickel bars. It seems that he initially did a hole in the cathode of those cells and after he realized it looked bad, he sanded.
The surface become so damaged that those cells literally blowed during the first charge.
(fiveof them didn't receive the sanding, so I could inspect the hole precisely. After reordering cells like in that third pic, they where two boxes.)
Curiously, all Sanyos aren't physically damaged, and those that are, are the rest of them. Samsungs, etc... all that aren't red, yellow or white.
So I left it all and tried to contact the seller. As I thought there were issues only two boxes, I thought I could send them back and receive a replacement. To the date the seller still hasn't responded.
I didn't want to make a problem, I'm not that kind of person, so I waited for a week and then raised a complaint for those two boxes. The seller still hasn't attended the complain, and after another week my only option is to force it.
I stood thinking some more days and inspected the rest of cells. Well, as you can see in the images, he sent me five boxes of sanyo cells. There are lots of re-wrapped cells, like the yellow and white ones, that they don't have markings, so I couldn't know brand or specs.So I started to check them all.
The yellow ones must be all Sanyo, because they are all heaters. The Sanyo obviously are.
So this seller sent me heaters and damaged cells for almost 1000. I'm now convinced that hesent me his leftovers.
Now I have three options. Continue the complaint about two boxes, eat 1000 Sanyos and abandon the project. Raise a Paypal complaint for the total amount and send them back when requested. Or...
What do you think?
I put all my savings for the past three years on those cells, and my solar setup needs a battery to operate. Obviously if thosecells are waste, that leaves me with nothing.
PS: I have setup a drive folder with pictures of those cells HERE
Getting those cells is not an easy task nowadays. Perhaps for someone that works for a recycler or in his work has the opportunity to let aside a big load of them. But I, for example, live in a country that is known to penalize people that adopt a recycling position by themselves, like a past law that taxed for private harvested solar energy, even when offline. Also there are too many people in this country that rapidly gets all loads of items for resale at a high price when they firstknow it will be wanted or fashioned.
So, as the cheaper price I was getting for unknown laptop packs was 200/100, and those with months of research, I decided to buy them already checked and selected from a company or relative reliable source.
So I got a link on this forum that pointed me to an ebay shop from Netherlands that was supposedly selling good 2nd hand cells. It had sale items that stated that those where received a nice processing, like "We check every cell for voltage, appearance and damage" or"Very precisely, spot-welds are milled out, allowing the cells to be welded again"
So I talked to the seller to get a quote, as their items didn't have a fixed price, and get instructions on how to proceed. I must say that the communications were not as good as I would want. And I had problems getting him to respect the prices he posted in this same forum. Even at the point of committing the buy I had to quotehis own offer that he sent me by email for him to process the sale.
So I bought 1400 units of 2200mAh tested cells and I received them on 27 July.
They were nicely packed in 100u boxes and that rapidly showed that one was missing. Not a big deal.
A further inspection showed that more than 160 units had physical damage, even several where already leaking. It seems to me that the seller tried to improve it's harvesting procedure and used some kind of milling machine to remove the nickel bars. It seems that he initially did a hole in the cathode of those cells and after he realized it looked bad, he sanded.
The surface become so damaged that those cells literally blowed during the first charge.
(fiveof them didn't receive the sanding, so I could inspect the hole precisely. After reordering cells like in that third pic, they where two boxes.)
Curiously, all Sanyos aren't physically damaged, and those that are, are the rest of them. Samsungs, etc... all that aren't red, yellow or white.
So I left it all and tried to contact the seller. As I thought there were issues only two boxes, I thought I could send them back and receive a replacement. To the date the seller still hasn't responded.
I didn't want to make a problem, I'm not that kind of person, so I waited for a week and then raised a complaint for those two boxes. The seller still hasn't attended the complain, and after another week my only option is to force it.
I stood thinking some more days and inspected the rest of cells. Well, as you can see in the images, he sent me five boxes of sanyo cells. There are lots of re-wrapped cells, like the yellow and white ones, that they don't have markings, so I couldn't know brand or specs.So I started to check them all.
The yellow ones must be all Sanyo, because they are all heaters. The Sanyo obviously are.
So this seller sent me heaters and damaged cells for almost 1000. I'm now convinced that hesent me his leftovers.
Now I have three options. Continue the complaint about two boxes, eat 1000 Sanyos and abandon the project. Raise a Paypal complaint for the total amount and send them back when requested. Or...
What do you think?
I put all my savings for the past three years on those cells, and my solar setup needs a battery to operate. Obviously if thosecells are waste, that leaves me with nothing.
PS: I have setup a drive folder with pictures of those cells HERE