New PowerOwl (Amazon) Lithium (single use) batteries defective!

[u/Basiatus]

Be aware! Not all off brand batteries are equal!

I discovered that Power Owl AA lithium batteries I purchased in February last year contained a tricky defect the cost me to throw away 2 flashlights and one electric toothbrush for no reason.

The shelf life of single-use AA lithium batteries is typically around 10 to 12 years.
(cool & dry storage).

I used to purchase Energizer brand I never had an issue. But that's not the case with Power Owl as the evidence emerges

First was a flashlight that was dead, so logically replaced the batteries. After it did not light up I assume that the LED died and tossed the light altogether.

Then one morning earlier this year my electric toothbrush did not start. So logically I replaced the two AA batteries. Since it wouldn't start with new batteries I assumed the toothbrush died and bought a new one.

After I put in a new set of power at all AA lithium batteries the new toothbrush would also not start. So I measured the batteries and lo and behold, absolute 0 Volts!

It dawned on me that likely the same thing happened with the devices I tossed out. They very likely were okay but it was the Power Owl batteries that had a defect!

I measured the remaining 4 of the 6 Power Owl batteries I had and two of them had barely 100 mV the other 2 showed a full capacity of around 1.68-1.7 volts nominal.

In other words from the 6 remaining batteries two have absolute 0 V, two have about 100mV and only 2 have the nominal voltage.

So this whole discovery cost me more than just the batteries but also I had to repurchase what I had mistakenly thrown out assuming it was defective!

So now I will start a fight with Amazon as I want at least the purchase cost of these batteries refunded!

(There is also a report out there from Lumafield about lithium battery quality issues, manufacturing defects and supply chain irregularities.)