We concentrated on the most-frequently counterfeited Canon batteries, namely the LP-E6, used in many popular Canon SLRs like the 7D, 5D Mark III, and other pro- and semi-pro models, and the LP-E8, no longer used in current camera models, but the mainstay of Canon consumer SLRs for years (from the T2i through the T5i). We'd heard of this tactic by counterfeiters, but actually encountered it in two third-party replacement samples. Such as high-tech enterprise with "Technology Innovation Award" and state-level high-tech enterprise. (Seriously!) (No joke; puncturing a Li-Ion battery will amost inevitably lead to an internal short, thermal runaway, and the resulting violent smoke and flames.). This was a very delicate process; cutting just a tiny bit too far would have resulted in smoke and flames! If mainstream companies like Apple and Sony have had problems with Li-ion batteries, how much more likely is it that an internet counterfeiter selling dirt-cheap knockoffs would have them? Can you guess which is which? AAA+++. (To add insult to injury, this maker also showed a higher mAh rating on the case than Canon's own.). When you're trying to figure out whether a battery pack is counterfeit or not, it mainly comes down to the price, as all the ones we encountered were selling for well below the cost of the genuine article. Even that's probably just the tip of the iceberg, though, given that it only represents the goods DHS managed to intercept. First, lithium metal begins plating out on the graphite anode, which can drastically shorten the battery's life. We concentrated mainly on Canon LP-E8 and LP-E6 batteries, as these are apparently two of the most widely counterfeited products. Are inexpensive third-party batteries worth their price? Unfortunately, this is an area we're just not able to test: It would involve hundreds of charge/discharge cycles on dozens of batteries, requiring a lot of channels of automated test equipment to accumulate enough data to be meaningful. Even with legitimate third-parties, though, we found that pack construction is often several (large) steps down from that of Canon, Nikon, and other mainstream companies. (And as noted, some batteries we tested had cutoff voltages well into the range that would result in permanent damage to the cells and shortened life.). Great service, good communication, accurate description, fast shipment, works perfectly! (That is, it. There are more sophisticated units on the market, but the CBA IV worked fine for our purposes, to test basic capacity. I was curious, so ordered a pair of them, to see how they actually performed. I wish I'd had the time to run electrical tests on the counterfeit chargers. JavaScript seems to be disabled in your browser. - item as described fast shipping thanks!! The bottom image shows these probes plugged into an LP-E6 pack.). As you might expect, eBay is the Wild West, when it came to counterfeit battery products. Compared to the competition, they looked much more carefully constructed. The three meters measure (from left to right) discharge current, battery voltage, and charging current, with the transistor on the black heatsink in the right rear acting as a variable load. The same is true for third-party compatible replacements, as both sell for a fraction of the price of the OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) batteries. ), so we couldn't devote a lot of time to testing, but we did run 28 different batteries (both genuine and fake) through a couple of charge/discharge cycles, to measure their capacity. So it's possible that some battery packs may have slightly more capacity when brand new than those from the camera makers themselves, but you can pretty well count on them dying a lot sooner as a result. There's also an integrated circuit inside that communicates with the camera and charger, to tell the battery's state of charge. This is a sure giveaway that the seller isn't to be trusted. Also visible here is the very robust construction of the OEM batteries, with fat solder joints and thick insulators over the ends of the cells. Note the black rubber padding filling the case on either end of the cells, and between the two cells. As noted earlier, we found at least some form of protective circuitry in all of the packs we opened, and as far as we could tell, they operated as they should in the case of overcurrent and overdischarge (trying to pull too much current from the battery or to discharge it below the point at which the cells would be damaged.). This photo shows the guts of a genuine Canon LP-E6. (Maybe Canon and US Customs have cracked down more on LP-E6 counterfeits?). Google adds RAW photo editing to Android Snapseed app, Ricoh Theta S Review: Keep the moment alive with 360-degree spherical panoramic stills and video. I will be back. Fast shipping. Many batteries came in just a padded envelope and plastic bag, with no manufacturer-branded packing material, but several arrived with replica Canon retail boxes and safety-instruction inserts just tossed in bags with the batteries themselves. The LP-E6s showed less obvious differences, although the genuine products once again had more robust, heavier solder joints, and interestingly, their contacts for power and communications were part of the protection-circuit circuit board, slipping easily out of the outer casing. (We won't dignify the counterfeits with the time required to test them). The more dangerous case is overcharging, though, meaning continuing to charge the battery beyond its "full" condition. Besides the obvious impact of counterfeits on legitimate jobs, some fake products can be actively dangerous. We tested the batteries in two ways. (A note for electronics geeks: The probes I used were thin pieces of stainless steel, with two layers for each terminal, separated by insulating tape. (This shows a Seiko-Epson S-8252, but it's typical of the basic circuitry inside most 2-cell camera batteries.) Charge capacity comes down to the luck of the draw. Remember: If it seems too good to be true, it probably is. - Great service, good communication, accurate description, fast shipment, works perfectly! The real corker came when we cracked open an LP-E6 replacement pack from the same maker. Got here quickly and the price looks good! One channel of a lab power supply was connected to the base of the transistor, controlling the current flowing through the load, while another was used to provide charging current. As we showed earlier with the example of the LP-E6s, it can be nearly impossible to tell a counterfeit from the real thing just by looking at them. The resulting pack would obviously feel too light in the hand, so the maker taped a chunk of steel on top of the cells, to give it the heft of the genuine article. Just tape a steel weight on top, to bring the weight up to where it should be! As noted earlier, some third-party batteries even claim almost 2x the capacity of the genuine articles, but there's essentially zero chance of that being the case. The first line of defense is protective circuitry that sits between the battery pack and the outside world. Product photos for very few eBay offerings were obviously different from those of genuine batteries; the vast majority we saw looked just like the genuine article. If you start out with a camera and battery that have been sitting in a hot car, and then try to record video or fire off hundreds of shots in quick succession, a battery with high internal resistance could edge over into the danger zone. What was amusing, though, was how little effort some of the makers made to maintain the "genuine" impression. (Seriously, don't try this at home!) Genuine Canon LP-E8s, made with top-quality Panasonic cells internally have a rated capacity of 1,120 mAh. At present, we take environmental production as our priority and devote ourselves to high performance battery development. If these circuits see too much current being drawn or a voltage level that's too high or too low, they disconnect the battery cells from the external terminals until the problem goes away. The official Canon chargers had circuit boards packed with components, including multiple integrated circuits. Perhaps not, else we'd be seeing daily news stories about melting cameras and exploding batteries. The standard for the types of cells used in most camera batteries is 4.2 volts/cell, or 8.4 volts for the pack. Capacity (in mAh) was all over the map, ranging from a low of a bit under 43% to 99%, with many in the range of 60% or so. Lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries pack a lot of energy into a small space, and lithium is a highly reactive element. - 35,247 positive feedback in last 12 months, - 134 negative feedback in last 12 months, Batteries exactly as described. We found that about the only way to crack open the cases was to very carefully slice along the seams with a bandsaw. If you charge beyond that point, two things happen. Besides protecting the cells, the circuitry here communicates with the camera, to tell it how much charge is left. Here again, you have to figure that camera makers aren't just tossing in all those parts for the sake of spending money. Lithium-ion batteries are simple in concept, but manufacturing them requires careful design and rigorous monitoring and control of the manufacturing process if you're to achieve good capacity and safe operation. Here's a counterfeit charger for LP-E8 packs, next to a genuine one from Canon. The encyclopedic Electropaedia site lists no less than 15 categories of potential manufacturing problems for lithium batteries. Thermal runaway problems are what's behind all the burning-computer videos we've all seen on YouTube. One of these is a fake, can you tell which? You can't see it here, with all the pieces stacked together, but there were also more layers of insulators and tape on the genuine product than in the fake unit. In the US, the CPSC (Consumer Protection Safety Commission) has logged more than 40 product recalls for lithium batteries in the last 12 years, from companies as prestigious as Acer, Apple, Dell, Fujitsu, Gateway, HP, Nikon, Sony, and Toshiba, all based on reports of spontaneous meltdowns. Finally, the Canon LP-E8 packs had little fuses in the leads coming from each battery cell, seen in the bottom image. Several suppliers provided reasonably authentic-looking retail packaging - but couldn't be bothered to open the boxes and put the batteries and safety literature inside! In general, the genuine samples showed better construction techniques, especially the Canon LP-E8s vs their knock-off competitors. If an internal short happens, pressure-relief vents (which cheap cells may not have) plus a carefully controlled manufacturing process and quality checks will help reduce the risks of an explosion. With counterfeiters, the real manufacturers are falsely hiding behind the camera companies' names and reputations, so have no accountability to produce even marginally reliable products. As just alluded to, a big part of the value of a battery is how long it'll last in use, day after day, week after week. These circuits prevent too-high current drain, too-low discharge voltage, and too-high charging voltage from reaching the battery cells themselves. To our mind, third-party brands are one thing, but counterfeiters are entirely another. You can to some extent trade off cycle life against higher initial capacity by using thinner electrodes to pack more surface area into the same volume. Testing under realistic load conditions showed them to have a capacity of only 686 mAh. It's easy to understand Canon's concerns: Besides the obvious issue of lost revenue, companies need to protect their brand reputation, and shoddy batteries and chargers with the Canon name on them (albeit without their permission) would reflect poorly on the company as a whole. Counterfeit batteries are only half of the equation, though; the market is saturated with counterfeit chargers as well. This was pretty much a spare-time project (yeah, right, "spare" time? Most counterfeits look similar, but the individual cells are no-name cheapies that may have half or less the capacity of the brand name product. Are they really dangerous? This third-party unit instead had two thin rectangular cells in their place, filling maybe half the volume inside the case. We all have an image in our mind of the shady guy selling "genuine Rolex watches" out of his trenchcoat on a New York streetcorner, but until I researched this article, I didn't realize just how big the counterfeiting problem is. Will a counterfeit battery melt down, explode and destroy your camera? The first step is to protect the individual lithium cells inside the battery pack against electrical abuse from the outside. (People are apparently willing to pay more for counterfeits than legitimately-branded third-party units, probably because people think they're getting the genuine product.) What are the real differences between both categories of products and the genuine articles? The counterfeit and third-party units all had wires connecting directly to contacts lodged in the case, requiring wires and connections to be cut, to free the battery and protection circuitry from the case. Another result of a battery maker cutting corners is high cell resistance. We have passed ISO9001 quality system certification and ISO 14001 environmental management system certification successively. This wasn't even the closest match we found; one was almost impossible to tell from the real thing, but it unfortunately was one of the packs sacrificed to our disassembly, before we shot these photos. There was one obvious trick, though, that we found particularly amusing: An easy way to save on production costs is to simply not put as much battery-stuff inside the case! Of course, safety isn't the only issue with counterfeits, or for that matter with third-party "compatible" products. KastarUSA Inc. an enterprise with more than 19years of manufacturing experience and excellent reputation, is a famous and professional manufacturer in lithium-ion batteries, polymer batteries, Ni-MH batteries and chargers. Even though it didn't explode, that battery's capacity is likely now permanently reduced, due to lithium plating on the anode. Of course, external protection circuits are no help if the battery cells themselves fail. Based on our limited testing, you may get something close to stated capacity, or you may get less than half: The worst counterfeits we tested had only 43% the capacity of the genuine products. Genuine Canon LP-E8s go for $47.49, while third-party versions are as cheap as ~$4 each, and eBay counterfeits ranged from ~$11-$20. Differences between counterfeit batteries and genuine ones were sometimes subtle to the eye, but with chargers, the counerfeits' shortcomings were blatantly obvious. It's probably no surprise, but one thing we noticed when we took the batteries apart was how much better-constructed the Canon samples were than the counterfeits. In contrast, the counterfeits were built with a sparse collection of discrete components, with nary an IC in sight. There are no products matching the selection. Our products have passed UL, FCC, CE, ROHs and CCCcertifications. The solution? Also a Vivitar-branded unit, this LP-E6 replacement used smaller rectangular cells, rather than the big cylindrical ones used in the real thing and all the counterfeits we happened to test. AAA+++, - Batteries exactly as described. What we found inside was again a mixed bag. We wanted to get some idea of what was out there in counterfeit-battery land, so purchased a number of samples through both eBay and Amazon. The Canon LP-E8s had very obviously more robust internal connections, more layers of insulating tape and spacers, what appear to be fuses in the leads coming off of each cell, and a plastic separator. This was a very painstaking process, because we knew that cutting into the cell bodies themselves would almost certainly result in smoke and flames. Recommended seller! Don't try this at home! How likely do you think it is that these third-party replacements selling for $6 each actually have almost 90% more capacity? Products like theVencon UBA5 provide for charging as well as discharging, automated scripts, etc. Two of these LP-E8s are real, two are fake, can you tell which? Secondly, though, the plated lithium doesn't get deposited smoothly, so the "dendrites" that are often formed can lead to internal shorts and thermal runaway. ), Even though we found protection circuits in all the counterfeits that we cracked open, that doesn't mean that every fake product you might find on eBay will, and I still wonder a bit about the reliability of the units we tested and tore apart: Counterfeit integrated circuits are every bit as rampant in China as counterfeit batteries, so there's no telling if the circuits inside the batteries we examined were actually manufactured by the companies whose names they bore. We'd hoped to use a UBA5 for our testing, but it was outside our budget, and Vencon was just leaving for their summer company shutdown when we were starting this effort. Imaging Resource 1998 - 2022. Combine that with the site author Barrie Lawson's often-hilarious account of Buying Batteries in China, and it's frankly amazing that we don't see more cases of exploding batteries on the nightly news. Counterfeit batteries are just a tiny blip in the overall counterfeiting landscape, but they're the one that probably affects us photographers most directly. We very carefully sliced open the battery samples, so we could see what was inside and how they were constructed. If the price seems to be too good to be true, it probably is. I didn't remotely have time to trace the circuits of the counterfeit chargers, but pretty much any design built with discrete components could fail into an always-on mode from a cold solder joint. Camera batteries obviously aren't in the same category as counterfeit drugs or contaminated food products, but we've all seen photos of melted-down computers and cell phones and videos of burning batteries on the Internet. Most people would be surprised to see how much circuitry is inside a typical battery pack. - Nice doing business with a great ebayer! These shots show the circuit board from inside a Canon LP-E8 that contains the protective circuitry, the front view on top. We'll admit that we've used third-party batteries in our own lab in the past, especially on the lens-testing side, where we shoot many hundreds of images a week. Since battery life is a competitive spec when comparing cameras from different manufacturers, camera makers naturally want to have the highest possible battery capacities consistent with safety and reasonable cycle lives. It's also virtually guaranteed that the cells inside aren't made with nearly the care or quality of materials found in mainstream products. Here's a shot of an LP-E8 replacement pack sold under the Vivitar brand, that we sourced from Amazon. There are a lot of ways a battery maker can cut corners with the cells themselves that you'd never see, even if you took the packs apart like we did.

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