Danger, Venting Batteries-Clones?

[Acer50]

Good thinking, overdischarged cells hate being recharged quickly. Sounds like you got genuine cells, but....
I'm thinking that you received badly damaged cells that probably had a very high self-discharge rate that was very different for each cell. This would cause a large imbalance when charged in series in your mod. The mod's charger balances the cells, but at a very low rate that just compensates for slight differences in self-discharge between the cells. It just can't handle a large imbalance fast enough to prevent a cell from being overcharged (too high a voltage). This overcharge very often leads to a cell venting or even going into thermal runaway if the voltage and current are high enough.

Thank you for a very enlightening and technical break down, I like yourself am no novice when it comes to electronics and hold a Maritime Radio Operators accreditation for Ocean Going Vessels. (Ships Radio Officer) and it truly urks me when people like the battery vendor, claiming to hold a degree in electrical engineering treats me like some kind of idiot judging by his emails. I concur, that the batteries received were damaged and I totally agree with your diagnosis, of the imbalance of the charging circuitry which I have experienced in other devices associated with my former trade, I retired last year. Having said that now I have to convince the vendor of the batteries that they were indeed faulty......Then again....why bother, The mod vendor gave me another mod, and all I am out of pocket is for three miserable 18650 batteries. Such is life......needless to say I will not be dealing with the battery vendor again until his apology is received and considered. No I will not name him as I do feel a mite sorry for him being stuck with rubbish.

 

[Acer50]

The Nitecore chargers condition incoming power, so it'd likely work out, though I won't ever try it. Anyway, that eliminates two possibilities. I apologize to sound chastising, I just hate to think of folks out there putting 4.8-5.8V into a port that expects a strict 4.9-5.2V and I take every opportunity to announce it as a bad idea. And yes, modern phones (mostly) have smart charging boards, though they did frequently have overheat/vent occurence up to ten years ago due to poor overcharge protection (particularly in vehicles on extended trips).

To comment to your most recent post, I would send batteries that tested less than 3.5V back. I do not know what I would do if law prohibited such a charge status.

And I will bow out of this conversation, since I have certainly given all the relevant advice I have. G'night.

Thank you for your help and have a pleasant night.