Maximum PSI ?

It's super disingenuous to try to conflate "hey it's an aftermarket part, it might not perform as well as OEM" and "there is a large inventory of these being sold that were assembled with parts missing."

That linked thread had already been fair to those individual last-tier sellers that seemed to be unhappy themselves when they were shown how to test their inventory and discovered it was all defective. As there were multiple sellers in that position, it is certainly possible that they also were taken advantage of by a manufacturer or broker that said "shoot, I've got a whole run of these things built with the switch left out, who can I unload them on?"

Or, a seller who did know more than that would probably still say the same thing when called out. An individual buyer will never have access to enough evidence to call that one way or the other. An auditor from eBay might.

That makes a pretty good example really, because that "good product review" is an average over ... eight responses (of which eBay displays five). Of the five that are displayed, one of them described unexpected issues not encountered with three other actuators, but finally chalked them up to "ghost in the machine/gremlins...whatever" and gave the item 5 stars anyway. The issue was probably not exactly the same as in the batch with missing switches (there were different symptoms for that). But it was also common for the ones from the missing-switch batch to have good reviews from buyers who experienced 'gremlins' but didn't understand the system well enough to correctly attribute them to the part they had just installed.

It's only for parts like that (where even clear objective defects can escape notice from some buyers who do not know how to test for them) that the practice of unloading bad stock via eBay can work. If you're selling a part that has only one obvious function and every last buyer will notice it's broken, the practice has a negative expected return.

But it's clear there are plenty of parts where enough buyers will incompletely test that the return can become positive, even counting the refunds you send to buyers who catch you. It's clear eBay's marketplace does get used in this way. The cliché is "what you can measure, you can manage"; a shortcoming of eBay's reporting system is it completely prevents reporting any suspicion about this practice as long as a seller sent your $16 back as a cost of doing business—thus ensuring eBay can't measure this problem.

If I needed one of those actuators, I too might consider buying one from that source, provided I was going to bench test it thoroughly before investing any effort installing it in the car. If there were time pressure, I might buy several (the experience in that last thread suggested 4 or 5 as a wise number), test them all, install a good one if found, then deal with returning any bad ones. Saves roundtrip delays. If there were more that turned out to be good, can either return those, or list them for twice the price as "aftermarket actuators that have actually been bench tested" as a value-added service.

Interesting eBay community thread on the value of the displayed ratings and reviews

 

Ebay sold itself as an online flea market, and buying from it should given as much consideration as buying from an open air market. Ebay does have some buyer protections that a physical flea market doesn't, but the mail order nature allows other scams to take place.

 

No, you were absolutely wrong all along. You claimed that those ¢22 batteries were counterfeit, and I pointed out that Tianqiu is an ISO 9001:2000 company and an OEM battery manufacturer for Mitsubishi and Philips, among other qualifications. Now, you've learned about another legitimate battery brand.

About us - Guangdong TIANQIU Electronics Technology Co. Ltd.

10 CR1632 CR 1632 DL1632 3 Volt Lithium Button Cell Battery EXP 2022 USA SHIP 6927799682313 | eBay

As I said store them in the fridge, and you will extend the the expiration date from 2022 to 2024 or beyond.

 

LOL You don't stop playing your broken record even when they point out concrete evidence like 2 + 2 = 4 to your face, do you?

 

Amoung the product photos for the Ebay listing is one of a voltage reading being taken of the battery. Not exactly normal for a listing if shady actions weren't a concern when shopping on Ebay. Counterfeiting can happen for any product and brand.

Comments from buyers and sellers gives the impression that Ebay doesn't really care about stopping scams as long as they get their cut.

 

That's because no one cares about this silly bickering about a coin battery you started by making childish blanket claims about eBay and/or Chinese-brand batteries.

 

I am not sure how familiar you are with eBay and how much you know about batteries. The only problem with the battery I posted about is the expiration date. It is made by a major OEM manufacturer, and it is not counterfeit or low-quality. The expiration date is the reason why it is so cheap. The seller made the right thing by measuring and displaying the open-circuit voltage, which is an indication of the life left in the battery. Legitimate sellers often try to help buyers make informed decisions. That particular battery from that particular seller also has "100% buyer satisfaction," which definitely means that it works well, as none of the 24 buyers have submitted a negative feedback. Yes, eBay is not Walmart or Amazon, and it covers a whole sea of products unavailable at other stores. The point is that if you're familiar with it and you know what you're doing and how the site works, you can find great items at great prices, used or new, without getting junk products. Enough said.

 

I wonder if we need a mod to change the title of this thread. And move it to FHOP.

 

OK, folks. I just ordered those two CR1632 coin batteries in this debate. I will put two each on the set of 4 TPMS sensors when I get them. I will report which goes dead quicker, maybe next year??? LOL

10 CR1632 CR 1632 DL1632 3 Volt Lithium Button Cell Battery EXP 2022 USA SHIP from eBAY made by Tianqui 10 batteries for $2.19 or $0.22/battery

Sony CR1632 3 Volt Lithium Coin Cell Battery (5 Batteries) from Amazon made by Sony 5 batteries for $5.29 or $1.06/battery

I am out of CR1632 batteries I bought two years ago for my TPMS. It was this battery and they lasted anywhere from 10 mo ~16 mo in my TPMS.
LiCB 10 Pack CR1632 3V Lithium Battery CR 1632 from Amazon made by LiCB 10 batteries for $5.99 or $0.60/battery

eBay or Amazon, heck for that matter, anywhere you can buy anything, you will find varieties of brands and prices, some are with impeccable quality control by a name brand, some are cheap fake/counterfeit. Although it is generally true that you get what you pay for, some bargains are out there. The question is, the coin battery that costs 5x more really 5x better? If all I care about is that it works in cheap TPMS sensors, then an alternative cheap one may be good enough. I may have to change battery more often, but with external TPMS sensors, it's easy enough to change the battery. Now, if this were internal TPMS sensors, then, I would go with the longest-lasting batteries even if I have to pay 5X more for them.

 

This is great! Let us know! By the way keep the batteries in the fridge to slow down the chemical reaction and extend their shelf lives beyond the stated expiration date.

 

I didn't say the listing is illegitimate. I'm saying the ease that illegitimate sellers have at operating on Ebay means legitimate sellers have to take extra steps like that voltage reading to show they are to be trusted.

Yes, you can find deals on Ebay, but Ebay themselves doesn't really care about stopping scams and shady practices. I have seen multiple sellers selling the same item give each other a positive review. There is no way to report such to Ebay. Had an issue with a seller and got a refund, Ebay doesn't have an interest in trying to protect others from that seller's poor products and shady practices. This means buyers have to do more work than on other sites.

Did Ebay become a religion?

 

Please don't, unless in a well sealed container. Maybe even with a desiccant pack to dry out the container interior.

Modern batteries are normally best kept in a cool dry place. Refrigerators often are damp from moisture condensation, brought in by warm humid air each time the door is opened. This condensation enhances any surface leakage path between terminals, speeding up parasitic drain, possibly to a greater rate than the normal room temperature slow self-discharge rate of modern (greatly improved) batteries.

 

This is not true at all. Chemical reaction, not parasitic drain, is the reason for the self-drain of the batteries, and it is strongly correlated with the temperature, as the temperature accelerates the chemical reaction. You can look at the plots of the self-drain rate vs. temperature in the Energizer/Eveready white papers, and this inherent effect is true for all battery-chemistry types. Effects of parasitic drain are negligible unless a button/coin battery has a salty layer etc. between its terminals such as from sweat. Moisture in the refrigerator, if any, will have no effect on the shelf life. Besides modern frostless refrigerators have pretty dry environments. I've been keeping various types of batteries in the fridge in our lab for over a decade, and we've never had a problem, and they last far beyond their expiration date.

I see that you got your information from Internet articles, which advised against storing batteries in the refrigerator. This is a good example of not to trust anything written on the Internet, including articles by so-called experts or company claims. This is the white paper by Energizer/Eveready I mentioned. You can click on the various battery-chemistry types to see how the remaining battery capacity varies as a function of the storage time for different storage temperatures. As you see the storage temperature is a huge factor, and by far the best storage life is achieved at 0 °C for all battery-chemistry types.

http://data.energizer.com/PDFs/temperat.pdf

And here the other Internet myth is debunked. Refrigerators are cold and dry, not humid environments, much drier than your room.

https://repair.geappliances.com/resources/faq/what-is-the-average-humidity-level-in-a-refrigerator

 

No. I know we digress a lot around here, but this seems to have become way more about EBay and batteries than tire pressure.

And FHOP isn't a religion forum. It's a "not-Prius-stuff" forum. A perfect place for arguments discussions like the one here.

 

I was thinking the other FHoP, my bad.

 

You are talking about just the internal chemical self-discharge. This doesn't preclude additional discharge through external conductive surface paths.

... or from the manufacturing process, or accumulations from subsequent handling and storage. BTDT.

The batteries in my stockpile, out of the refrigerator, also last far beyond their expiration dates. And I've purged batteries from functioning devices not because they were drained, but simply because they were more than a decade beyond expiration date. (Shame on me for leaving them installed so long, as some devices will drain them even when not in use, greatly increasing the risk of battery leakage.)

I see that your clairvoyance is faulty. I didn't previously list my sources.

Now I'll disclose that one of my sources is first-hand work experience, trying to figure out why a few battery powered (2xAA) products were self destructing during long cycles of qualification tests in an environmental chamber. Filling other chambers with as many samples as I could fit, wired up with all the recording equipment I could beg/borrow/steal from other engineers during their holiday absences, I managed to capture several electrical recordings of the failure, all happening during the condensing moisture phase of the cycles. Then I traced it to the moisture interacting with whatever manufacturing process residue was left on the circuit boards, causing a small electrical leakage to a particularly high impedance control node, leading in turn to destructive power regulator over-voltage.

The solution was to change the cleaning process in manufacturing. No cost-efficient consumer manufacturing process is perfectly clean, all will have some degree (usually very low, but not absolute zero) of this weakly conductive residue.

As your link below indicates, refrigerator door openings do cause at least initial high humidity. And I sometimes find condensed moisture with my own eyes and fingers. Under certain conditions, this condensation will significantly enhance electrical leakage.

Here is the first related article to pop up in a quick search. What I found was not actual dendrites, but a "disabling change in circuit impedance" from the same process that creates dendrites. This particular product just happened to self destruct long before a detectable dendrite could form. (Other engineers found visible true dendrites on a related product.) IEEE: Wet Electric Faults, Part I Dendrites

Mirror, mirror, on the wall ...

From your very own link:

"Door opening: If you recently had the fridge door open, the humidity level will be higher than usual. This is because warm, moist air has made its way into the main fridge compartment. ..."

I don't see that article adequately discussing the difference between absolute and relative humidity, and ends up conflating one for the other. The example relative humidities it suggests are not lower than it suggests in the adjacent room.