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What went wrong inside recalled Anker PowerCore 10000 power banks?

lumafield.com

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Re: What went wrong inside recalled Anker PowerCore 10000 power banks?

#111

Post by crazygringo »

livid-neuro wrote: post #34
esseph wrote: post #9

I imagine there will be a stunning amount of owners that will either: A) Keep using it, even if they do hear about the recall B) Throw it in the trash can

I took mine to an Office Depot that "recycled the battery" for free. The guy at the register printed a receipt for having taken it, then took it from me and walked back into the administrative office by the front of the store. I assume it was to take it home. At least I tried...

Places like Staples and Office Depot have actual electronics/battery recycling bins they keep in the back. They aren't in front for anyone to drop stuff in because they limit what they will accept. So not sure why you're assuming he would take it home. I mean it's not impossible but I'd assume he was just putting it in their electronics recycling.

Re: What went wrong inside recalled Anker PowerCore 10000 power banks?

#112

Post by theLegionWithin »

FpUser wrote: post #92
Spooky23 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suppliers are always low/no trust unless you’re a sucker. The only difference is that is more difficult to hold Chinese suppliers accountable. Americans will happily cheat you as well.

>"Americans will happily cheat you as well." I did not have too much experience with US manufacturers. I however can talk about Canada and Brasil. My experience with Brasil was stellar. Canada - you better fucking watch. As for China - I did order directly high power DC/DC converters. Those were available in the US and China. China came 10 times cheaper ($25 vs $250 apiece). The devices where we have installed those…

Chinese manufacturing 10+ years ago is completely different to Chinese manufacturing in 2025. the other comment about "zero trust" is significantly more apt

Re: What went wrong inside recalled Anker PowerCore 10000 power banks?

#113

Post by mook »

bityard wrote: post #94
godelski wrote: post #76

First off, I love Luma Field. Always incredible to see what's going on inside things. Even just fun to scroll through their Twitter. Second, Anker is one of the few companies I actually have a very high trust for. A few years back I bought a wall charger[0] from them, it has 2 USB-C and a Type A. A month in, one of the Type-C ports wouldn't charge if the other port was being used. If you send a support ticket they an…

Anker is above average, but the bar for average when it comes to Chinese electronics is, "might not burn down your house immediately." For reasons probably bordering on OCD, I watch a LOT of teardown videos of various electronics. And one thing that always strikes me is how a company with a product will routinely and often change what's inside, while the model number and exterior appearance stays the same. For exampl…

This is also obvious if you think about installing OpenWRT on a router. You'll quickly find out that there's often various versions of the same product; it used to be that they would mark it somewhere, but that doesn't always happen anymore, and only some versions are compatible.

Re: What went wrong inside recalled Anker PowerCore 10000 power banks?

#114

Post by mook »

GuB-42 wrote: post #85
Pxtl wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, when shopping no-name slop I'm seeking out products that don't have batteries, or at least don't have powerful ones (non-vibrating game controllers are probably pretty safe). One less risk.

I am not sure that no-name batteries are that more dangerous. A common reason batteries catch fire is when things are too densely packed, causing shorts. A famous case is the Galaxy Note 7, which is Samsung, not Chinese tech. No-name batteries are often way lower capacity than advertised, which means less stuff, and therefore less densely packed and less stuff to burn. I am not saying that these batteries are safer,…

These days there's lots of news about no-name ebikes and battery-powered scooters catching on fire, so maybe it depends on how you get that battery?

Re: What went wrong inside recalled Anker PowerCore 10000 power banks?

#115

Post by its-summertime »

godelski wrote: post #76

First off, I love Luma Field. Always incredible to see what's going on inside things. Even just fun to scroll through their Twitter. Second, Anker is one of the few companies I actually have a very high trust for. A few years back I bought a wall charger[0] from them, it has 2 USB-C and a Type A. A month in, one of the Type-C ports wouldn't charge if the other port was being used. If you send a support ticket they an…

I mean I wouldn't trust them at all personally. https://www.theverge.com/23573362/anker-eufy-security-camera...

And it seemed the main issue as identified by Luna was not with the cells but the bank design itself.

> If the recall is affecting units made with 18650 battery cells from multiple suppliers, that suggests the root cause of the recall stems from elsewhere in the power bank. We next focused on the PCB and assembly of the board with the cells.

> We can measure the distance to quantify how dramatically the gap between the positive and negative bus bars varies across the three units. In PB1, that distance is only 0.52 mm

But it is still upstream since AFAIK Anker just rebrands other products.

Re: What went wrong inside recalled Anker PowerCore 10000 power banks?

#116

Post by Zak »

kube-system wrote: post #100
Zak wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's true, but it's pretty common to stick a protection circuit on the end of a cell, making it similarly safe to the proprietary Li-ion batteries that power cameras and the like.

It's also common to not put protection on the end of an 18650, which is probably a big reason we don't see more of these in user-serviceable devices. Even if you ship a device with a protected cell, the inherent implication of an 18650 socket is that someone is going to buy a cell from somewhere else and stick it in there. (and maybe throw a few in their junk drawer along with some loose change and rusty silverware)

Perhaps one of the things that should be included in right to repair legislation is stronger liability protection in cases where a third-party battery is installed in a device.

I do often stick unprotected cells in flashlights that came with protected ones. It's important to know whether the flashlight can over-discharge the cell, but most can't, and it's important to not short-circuit them. I suggest people who don't want to learn about batteries stick with protected.

Re: What went wrong inside recalled Anker PowerCore 10000 power banks?

#117

Post by taneq »

themaninthedark wrote: post #98
maxglute wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Chabuduo mindset [1] is a very real thing IMO high tech cost optimization is like the opposite of chabuduo - it's not half-assing, but over value engineer under pressure. The PRC's "amazing" manufacturing system fosters adversarial competition down the supply chain because there are so many competitors, packed with technical talent incentivized to value-engineer the shit out of everything to squeeze out fractions of…

Value engineering is great and all but that doesn't sound like it is the only factor at play. > and that the product being given to you is even yours (delivering a knockoff at the final step, and reselling yours on the gray market).

I mean, “keep the nice thing you built and send a dodgy knock off” sure does raise your quarterly gross margin…

Re: What went wrong inside recalled Anker PowerCore 10000 power banks?

#118

Post by riehwvfbk »

nsxwolf wrote: post #84
bazingakiller wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It clearly isn't the "basic formula" if it was so out of the norm it caused a national controversy and got the vendor's certifications removed. Your bitterness is showing.

[flagged]

[flagged]

Re: What went wrong inside recalled Anker PowerCore 10000 power banks?

#119

Post by bboygravity »

phil21 wrote: post #110
nomel wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work in manufacturing in the US. Incoming quality control, for Chinese vendors, is necessarily set up with zero-trust. This isn't a "trust but verify" sort of thing, it's strictly "do not trust". Assume that, at every step of the chain, there will be a lie: change of process, material change, collected data, and that the product being given to you is even yours (delivering a knockoff at the final step, and resellin…

Yep. Anything I get from China, even from a vendor I have done lots of business with in the past gets at minimum random samples inspected and tested when appropriate. Every single shipment, zero exceptions before use. So many things are caught. At best there is a lack of QA on the Chinese side, but it's definitely worse than that. They have no qualms sending you known-bad items, and just see it as "maybe the customer…

I don't get how it's possible that nobody (other than Tesla) can manufacture batteries in the West?

It a glance this feels insane. Batteries are in everything and such a basic need.

How is it possible that buying through known scammers with tons of QA is still cheaper than manufacturing in the West?

Obviously for Tesla it isn't cheaper to buy from China, so why is it thought to be cheaper for the rest of the West? Is it purely scale?

Re: What went wrong inside recalled Anker PowerCore 10000 power banks?

#120

Post by ForOldHack »

nomel wrote: post #52
yegle wrote: post #21

FWIW this has caused a big storm in China. The root of the issue is known to be caused by the battery cell vendor Amprius changing the battery design w/o notifying the power bank manufacturers. AFAIKT Amprius lost the 3C certification (a certification in China) because of this incident. This is one of the Chinese reports on the issue: https://m.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_31048287 Excerpt from the report above (tr…

I work in manufacturing in the US. Incoming quality control, for Chinese vendors, is necessarily set up with zero-trust. This isn't a "trust but verify" sort of thing, it's strictly "do not trust". Assume that, at every step of the chain, there will be a lie: change of process, material change, collected data, and that the product being given to you is even yours (delivering a knockoff at the final step, and resellin…

A strict "do not trust" because BOOM! Do not trust. Wow, and we are betting the bank on this type of garbage.
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