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What went wrong inside recalled Anker PowerCore 10000 power banks?

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

#131

Post by delfinom »

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…

>A lot of folks used to living in a high trust society get really taking advantage by this.

Everything you describe happens even with US suppliers. Dealing with one right now that sent us sheet metal that was painted + silkscreened incorrectly (a very large symbol was completely dropped by them). They proceeded to "refinish" them, wrong by silkscreening a second time which completely degraded the quality of smaller text on the metal panel. They sent it to us with not a care in the world.

They got sent back and told to rework the panels completely (strip them). And what did they do? Not strip the paint fully and now components that slot into the panels do not fit because there's basically an extra 1/8" of paint on the inside edges.

The worse part due to our own internal politics, we couldn't just let use our significantly more reliable Chinese supplier who has easily eaten a million dollars in errors before.

This US supplier is charging us for every single bit of their incompetence.

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

#132

Post by razodactyl »

This scrutiny actually makes me more inclined to buy Anker products. There's more trust in a company that will transparently communicate, correct mistakes and raise the safety bar for future products. It also brings to light issues with other manufacturers in the supply chain.

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

#133

Post by Dylan16807 »

yegle wrote: post #58
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…

This seems to be startlingly contrast to all the talks about "US manufacturers are absolutely doomed w/o Chinese vendors' great products and quality control" when Trump increased the tariffs. I can only find https://youtu.be/3ZTGwcHQfLY but earlier this year it was all over YouTube.

I didn't hear a single person talking about wanting or needing China's great quality control. Are you sure there's a conflict here? I think you oversimplified when you were listening to what people were saying.

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

#134

Post by spiffytech »

vlovich123 wrote: post #26
Workaccount2 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those random brands that flood amazon (TYUOIT or ERYWERP) are dispensable brands in part because it allows them to discharge the company if something like a recall becomes necessary. Part of the price of cheap shit. Anker on the other hand is a recognizable name with a brand image. So they need to do right to keep their trust.

FWIW my random brand that I purchased was also part of this recall.

How did you find out? I recently bought a no-name battery pack and have no idea if it's at risk.

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

#135

Post by FpUser »

djmips wrote: post #104
FpUser wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"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…

That sounds like very specific anecdata for Canada vs Brazil.

It is. I am pretty sure examples of this and that exist in either country. I am just telling my own very narrow impression.

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

#136

Post by stephen_g »

bboygravity wrote: post #119
phil21 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

But Tesla don't make battery cells - Panasonic, LG and CATL make those (although co-located in Telsa's factories).

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

#137

Post by phil21 »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #124
bboygravity wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Presumably some combination of higher labor and environmental costs. It is remarkable that Tesla was able to figure it out.

It certainly started that way.

It's still that way, but a bit less so. The intractable problem now is entire supply chains end to end do not exist in the west. If you wanted to start a battery company you are going to have a really hard time sourcing all your components in-country. All the way down to the inks used in printing the serial number on stuff.

In the end of course it all ends up as a cost, but even if you somehow dropped all environmental standards and set the cost of labor to match China today it would take decades just to get the institutional knowledge and infrastructure back.

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

#138

Post by stephen_g »

thimabi wrote: post #126
bboygravity wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Maybe Tesla’s batteries have some sort of competitive advantage that Elon et al. don’t want to risk leaking to the rest of the world? (no idea if that’s the case, I have no specialized knowledge about batteries, just venturing a guess)

No, the cells themselves are fairly standard and built by third parties (Panasonic, LG, CATL), just co-located in Tesla's factories.

The battery packs themselves have been pulled apart and studied by everyone, pretty much all EV manufacturers are doing similar things anyway, so no real special sauce anywhere anymore.

Now there are more mature EV players in the game, innovations are happening from many manufacturers now (not just Tesla leading anymore) and then everyone else converges on the best ideas.

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

#139

Post by Dylan16807 »

lazide wrote: post #125
bboygravity wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The West is an order of magnitude (or more) more expensive, that’s why.

That doesn't sound right. Tesla sells battery packs for around 3x the price of Chinese batteries.

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

#140

Post by phil21 »

delfinom wrote: post #131
phil21 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>A lot of folks used to living in a high trust society get really taking advantage by this. Everything you describe happens even with US suppliers. Dealing with one right now that sent us sheet metal that was painted + silkscreened incorrectly (a very large symbol was completely dropped by them). They proceeded to "refinish" them, wrong by silkscreening a second time which completely degraded the quality of smaller t…

Presumably this is an "honest" mistake via incompetence by the vendor, with horrible follow-up to remedy said mistake. The same of course happens with every vendor located anywhere in the world. It's getting much worse lately in the US as far as I can tell.

The difference though is your vendor using a lower grade metal than specified, knowingly and with intent to defraud since they decided that you might not notice and/or care enough for it to matter. That sort of thing doesn't seem to happen as much in the West.

I do agree that the reliable Chinese vendors will make things right at their expense if you can prove that they did not meet what they agreed upon. This is basically how I choose to deal with a vendor or not in China (or anywhere, for that matter) - I know stuff will happen, but how hard did I have to fight for them to make it right?

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