You know, I consider myself to be a pretty street smart guy.
I get dozens of phishing emails every week.
I've never once fallen for one of those.
I've traveled to all sorts of developing countries,
and I've never once been taken in by any of the street scams.
And I actually kind of enjoy messing with robocall scammers.
When they call me, I clean it Yeah, I would love to have my doubts clean.
Uh huh.
Yeah. Yeah.
We don't really do square feet here in Canada.
The closest thing I could give you would be cubic hectares.
Does that work for you?
But this time. Well, this time.
This time.
I got it.
So if you miss my last video from a month or so ago, I mean,
this battery powered Bluetooth speaker and that battery powered part.
That's important.
So I bought all of the speaker components as a kit, but I ordered them
from an American website.
And for whatever reason, they didn't want to ship the batteries across the border.
No big deal.
I figured I'll just order my own batteries here in Canada.
I knew the particular type of cell that I needed was an 18 six 15 lithium
ion battery.
They kind of look like a jumbo sized double AA battery.
So I punched that into Amazon
and I found a bunch of different vendors that were selling 18, six 50 cells.
I started comparing different capacities and prices
and trying to figure out the best deal possible.
Eventually I landed on what I thought was a pretty good deal.
I bought six of these ultra fire batteries for $37.
Each one is rated for 5000 minimum hours.
It's got overcurrent protection, discharge protection.
And they even threw in this free flashlight.
Awesome. Right?
Well, it would have been, except for the fact
that all of those selling points were a complete lie.
Except for the flashlight.
They did actually send me a real flashlight.
Now, here's why I actually really like social media.
I know, I know.
It gets a bad reputation
for poisoning people's minds and turning everybody against each other.
But there are some positives that come from it, too.
So I was in the shop and I was working on my speakers
and I was doing a bunch of Instagram stories about the process.
Almost immediately I had like three or four people reach out to me and tell me
that the brand Ultra Fire has a horrible reputation
So that prompted me to go home and do some research.
And what I found is that the lithium ion battery world is rife
with tomfoolery and scams.
The batteries that I bought were in fact, complete junk.
And there's a ton of other brands trying to pass on junk
as high quality merchandise to these cells are really popular.
And I know a lot of them are going to end up
in people's DIY projects, and some of them are downright dangerous.
So I wanted to make this video as a warning to the community.
All right.
Let's break down some of the claims that these batteries make.
The first one is the capacity of the batteries.
It's stated to be 5000 million hours, which as a layperson
sounded plausible to me.
However, I've seen some independent tests by other YouTubers that pegged
that number much closer to 500 or 700000000 hours and control tests.
So we're talking like 10% of the standard capacity.
And that's not even the most egregious lie that ultra fire told
when it came to these batteries.
We'll talk more about that later now.
How do you do a little bit of research beforehand?
That 5000 amp number?
That would have been a huge red flag to me because here's the thing.
The highest capacity 18 six 50 cell in the world is the Panasonic NCR.
1860 5G.
That's a mouthful which is rated at 30 600000000 hours.
So 5000 lab hours isn't even possible.
At least not with today's technology.
But I didn't know that.
And most Johnny come lately is off the street.
Won't know that either. And you know what's funny?
Ultra fire isn't even the worst brand when it comes to this.
There are plenty of other 1860 50 cells out there
with stadium capacities of 9000 or more million hours.
Anyways, the point is, if you're shopping for an 18, six 50 cell
and you're seeing any number north of 3000 lab hours,
I would start to get very suspicious very quickly.
Okay.
Next, we're going to tackle the other two marketing claims
that these batteries make together because they kind of go together.
We're going to talk about overcharge protection and discharge protection.
So basically what that means is that there's a PCB or
electronic circuitry inside the battery that protects it from being overcharged,
which can cause the battery to overheat and potentially explode.
And it also protects the battery from being completely discharged,
which effectively turns the battery into a paperweight.
To be clear, it's not uncommon
for 1860 50 batteries to be sold without these protections built in.
Basically, all major manufacturers do.
If you're going to be using the batteries in a device
that's smart enough to monitor their health.
That extra layer of protection becomes redundant.
But you need to know what you're getting,
because if you put a dumb battery in a dumb device, assuming
they'll protect themselves, you can have a big problem on your hands.
I found all sorts of reports of people
tearing down these specific batteries and surprise, surprise.
There was no PCB or electronic circuitry of any type
to be found anywhere inside them, which means that these are dumb batteries
with no built in overcurrent or discharge protection.
Which I assume is probably
why these things have such a reputation as a fire hazard.
Oh, okay.
Let's set aside these things and focus on what you
the consumer can do to make sure you don't get ripped off like I did.
Basically, your only choice is to buy your 1860 cells from reputable
brands, brands with reputations that they've established over decades
and that have a lot to lose by selling you a battery
that doesn't do what it claims to do.
But how can you know which brands are the reputable ones?
I'm glad you asked because it's actually really easy
if you've bought a TV any time in the last 20 years.
You probably already know all of the best battery manufacturers.
There's LG, Panasonic, Samsung, Sony, and there are some less
known brands out there too, making good sells like eight core Fenix.
But the problem with those brands is that if you're anything like me,
you've probably already forgotten their names.
So next time you're shopping for batteries, just remember life.
Very simple and easy to remember motto.
If they make TVs, it's okay to buy their batteries.
It's corny, but it works. And you know what the funny thing is?
The high quality batteries look cheaper than the low quality batteries do.
This Panasonic battery that cost me five times as much as the ultra fire one did.
It looks generic as hell
because Panasonic doesn't really intend for these to be retail products.
They aren't trying to lure you in with flashy graphics and good design.
They just work.
All right, everybody. That's it for this video.
It was just a short one because I wanted to get the word out there
as quickly as possible so that you don't end up getting scale like I did.
If you enjoyed this video, I think you know what to do at this point.
Big thank you to all my patrons.
Ford, as you can see, listed on either side of me right here.
That's it for me.
And I will see you in the next video piece.