Misrepresented mAh Ego Batteries

[Fleabag]

Myself and another member here have found that eGo style battery casings have contained much smaller batteries than the advertised mAh.

These batteries were considerably smaller than the casing, with foam rubber pieces attached to the end to fill the spare space.

I would like to appeal to all eGo owners to open up their dead/broken/unused units and report the size/mAh (if known) of the battery inside and what the advertised capacity was. Photos would be useful, but not essential.

It would also be very useful to have details of type of outlet these were purchased from, whether it was part of a starter set and whether they were clones or official, branded eGo batteries.

Mine was sold as a 900mAh eGo, in a 56mm casing. Inside there was a battery of 35mm with a diameter of 12mm with 18mm of foam rubber glued to the end. The battery was branded but had no mAh stated. Based on mAh ratings/sizes of other batteries of this brand, we estimate it has a capacity of no more than 300mAh.




Thanks in advance for your help

 

[Colonelboom]

As agreed on the other thread. Here are two images with batteries from units I have sold or am currently selling, both 1100mah batteries (although I might pop a 900mah kit open too for the sake of being thorough)

Worth pointing out here - purely because blister packs get bad press or disregarded so often on here - these were both batteries that were available singly or packaged up in blister packs as kits and hopefully will show that not all eGo batteries should be held under suspicion.

Kit 1 : I won't go into the manufacturer because quite frankly they are a shower of bastards and do not deserve to even get their brand mentioned, certain products were good but other were just shite and their way of dealing with feedback and issues got my back up - so I told them to do one. That said, I only had 1 battery go faulty from them (their charger leads were a different story, as were their CE atomisers). I am actually still using the original sample 900mah eGo I bought 5-6 months ago and it is going strong and yet I would still not recommend them as a supplier on aftercare alone.

This is the packaging the blisters came in, you will see the exact same packaging used by hundreds of other sellers from low priced to what you would consider market price. My advice is if the price seems cheaper than normal and is from a seller you have not heard of, avoid on the side of caution (yes I am talking about the market stall buy an ego kit plus 3 liquids and a mains charger for £15 type deals). The problem is that you simply cannot see if it is from a genuine wholesaler or some back alley knockoff and all you can go on is trust with the vendor.



Kit 2: My current supplier for batteries and atomisers and the patent holders for the GS-H2/GS-H5 etc. You will note actually that the battery cells are very similar, only really different in the long number which indicates a batch/date of manufacture. I have yet to have a failure on these kits (atomisers too) so it is reassuring that they do indeed appear to be made by the same battery brand - something I did look into before buying stock and a brand that I was aware of as high quality.

Below is the packaging you would expect to see from this kit brand and unless they are being copied are the only company selling their items packaged in this way.



That should hopefully give a couple of reference points, if I can find an even older eGo I bought off a market (as research when setting up PlumeBlu) I will get photo's of that but let's just say the cells were not as professionally wrapped or wired.

 

[Fleabag]

So all seem likely to have a certain amount of foam rubber to ensure a snug fit, the issue seems to be the amount of foam rubber being used in some casings to fill in. The above includes foam rubber of around 12% of the total length, as opposed to mine having 33% of the total length filled in with foam rubber.

 

[Colonelboom]

I would be seriously concerned if they didn't have a little foam on each end to absorb shocks, being Lithium batteries they don't really need to take much hammer before they can go wrong and a thin wedge of foam and well packed in cell should reduce the risk quite a bit.

 

[Fleabag]

Yes, I wasn't surprised to see some foam in the decent ones

Mine's 50% of the battery length, though!

 

[Mosiagi]

I bought some cheap E-go batteries from ebay, claimed to be 1100mAh. They had various problems, one rattled around, one got hot and made my hand tingle, wouldn't last long after a charge etc. Just took the last one to die to pieces and the battery is a good 25% smaller than the tube without a single piece of foam inside! The trouble I've had getting decent Ego batteries for a good price has made me switch to a mod, much easier to get the batteries for a mod. My first is a VV/VW, but I think soon I'll also pick up a mechanical, I'm done with Egos and I'd suggest it's good riddance. They were great, but for me they've served their purpose.

 

[Colonelboom]

Mosiagi. Out of interest were all of the eGo's you had that were problematic cheap ones off eBay?

Also, I wouldnt discount a 'good' eGo to be honest, most of us that use mods tend to keep eGo's at hand and there are a few of us that us them more than our mods. When you get good ones that last they are incredibly handy

 

[Bubba]

My very first eGo was an eGo-T 900mah and to be fair i was quite pleased with it. it was from a new online retailer just setting up and advertising offers on Facebook, perfect for me back then as a virgin vaper. Time went on and id completely stopped smoking and found the need to purchase another battery as a spare for when one ran flat. I found i needed to keep charging the eGo-T every evening, it just didn't last that long. The second was an eGo-W 650mah, from a well known online retailer, it was small and perfect as an emergency backup. Then i decided i wanted a bigger battery as i was using it more and more so wanted it to last as long as possible. i purchased an EGO-CE4 1100mah from an local E-cig vendor in a blister pack just like the first i had bought.

The first i bought has long gone, The second i Bought which is the smallest of the Three i am still using today, its been well over 12 months now and still going strong.

The third is the picture below which only came to light after it broke in my pocket. The advertised 1100mah battery is infact marked up as a 650mah and looking at the post above I'm even doughting its even that. The soldering is appalling and the live wire only held on with masking tape. so lucky it hasn't shorted and caused a fire when charging

 

[Colonelboom]

The soldering is appalling and the live wire only held on with masking tape. so lucky it hasn't shorted and caused a fire when charging

The one I bought off a market trader was the same, wires held on by tape and incredibly dangerous.

 

[Mosiagi]

@Mosiagi. Out of interest were all of the eGo's you had that were problematic cheap ones off eBay?

Also, I wouldnt discount a 'good' eGo to be honest, most of us that use mods tend to keep eGo's at hand and there are a few of us that us them more than our mods. When you get good ones that last they are incredibly handy

The 3 1100mAh were, but I've also got some 650mAh from a shop near me that seemed solid but have only lasted a couple of weeks. I'm permanently on a budget, so I go for cheap, I got some nice blister pack Egos online that served me very well, and for convenience I will more than likely keep hold of them. But when my batteries died it just seemed difficult to source any that were a decent price AND quality. There was even one shop that wanted £16 for a 650mAh battery, I laughed and left. Maybe I got lucky and got spoiled by those cheap blister packs that were ok way back and expect too much, I don't know. But with the amount of money I've spent on Egos I've decided to move up to a mod now in the hopes it will serve me better.

I'll finish with this quote, "We're too poor to buy cheap stuff" - my own advice that I should be listening to.