So far… what do we reckon?
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Looks rusted to me. The thing is that stainless steel does really rust that is why people use it for work outside in the elements. My other hobby is metal detecting and the scoops that everyone uses in salt water are either aluminum or stainless because they don’t rust. Now since you used a grinder on it that should effect the top layer enough for it to rust. For him to to say do the salt water test is showing that he may know that it takes a long time for stainless to rust. And stainless also has 11% stainless depending on the type.
What I would do is try to get some sort of acid and drop a US nickel which may be hard cause of acrossed the pond or know good nickel stripping in one cup as and the nickel strips in another and see the difference they both should act differently. I know a product called rustex from rustoelum has a 25% make up of phosphoric acid and is used as a rust remover.
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Do you have any of your old nickel left that you can drop in the salt water as a control?
Can you weigh, or can you do a resistance test?
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This is the problem, I ran out of the good stuff.
Hoping @Tonkatron has some good stuff for me to test with.
I think that’s a really weird reply from them… However I would have left out the whole grinding/sparks thing and just sent them the saltwater pics.
I would gouge the strips more than you did though before putting it on the salt water. Big gouges with a razor blade or knife, then do some halfway cuts too, to really expose the middle.
That being said I think it looks likes it’s beginning to rust in your photo. I’ve always bought from the same supplier by the kg on AliExpress and never had a problem.
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I’m thinking if he dremeled with sparks, he got through to the steel already. The dremelled spot should be rusting faster. TBH from the photo it doesn’t look like it’s rusting like steel strips (yet). Rust usually happens pretty fast in these tests, right? If it’s stainless steel and not high carbon steel (very unusual/unlikely?) the rust test won’t work like usual, which leaves weighing, and measuring resistance.
I have just sent him the pic of it rusting. And I will see what his reply is. I have found him to be very defensive though so I am not expecting much. He said I called him a fraudster, when I never and in fact I said I have been buying off of him for 2 years without issue on all his other products.
I dont know, maybe this is the start of a beautiful relationship with Fogstar.
I’ve had fake strips rust within 24 hours just from touching them with my fingers.
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I did a spark test on my nickel.
No sparks.
Now I have gouged one of each type with a tungsten scriber so as not to contaminate them and put them in saltwater.
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This guy from NKON has seen this thread and is not happy that I made it. Well my recommendation at the moment is not to buy nickel from NKON. There is something not right.
Also @taz he says the spark test is not a valid test.
At this rate I am going to have to make a youtube video to show what is going on here. I just wish he would accept my experiance and intuition that something is not right with this material. Not sure how I can show him any more
Tell him to join the discussion instead of beeing angry, wth this is a community
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I would wait until more conclusive tests have been made.
Then, if these tests have proven without doubt that it is nickel plated steel go back to him with the proof.
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There is no more that can be done other than send it over to a lab for analysis, if I am paying for that and it comes back as not nickel where does that leave me? A battery pack I am going to have to throw away, out of pocket for 10m of nickel and a lab test and to top it all off an angry bloke at NKON
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Though shiiiiiit lol.
Consumers have every right to review products.
Especially when its a component for a product that is potentially dangerous.
It’s not like were saying boycott them.
The community is trying to Solve the problem. Not just blindly bashing the vendors.
He should be thankful this has been a civil discussion thus far.
They are one of our reliable battery vendors. None of us wants burn a bridge with them.
We just wanna solve a potential problem
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Send me a piece. I will have it tested and it will cost you nothing.
About the other stuff I can’t help you though.
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The worst thing is @Skunk is all this over 30 euros worth of nickel. I wanted to be able to come back and say hey guys all good, the chap wants to take it back and test it himself but instead we have this.
He is saying I have posted a one sided story so I am going to post the whole transcript here of what was said and we can judge for ourselves. Bear in mind I just added 12 bits of his metal to a 12S5P battery pack which is potentially scrap now because of this so I am a little annoyed.
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First Contact
I just ordered and received a quantity of fish paper and Nickel strips. When welding the Nickel I noticed it was behaving strangely throwing lots of sparks and balls of material that stays red hot for a few seconds, upon further testing I can confirm that it is Nickel plated steel and not pure Nickel as advertised. How could this have happened? I would have assumed that a supplier like yourselves would have checked for this
NKON
Hi,
How did you test it?We have had more people complaining it was nickel plated steel, it was always nickel on double check.
Regards,
Arjan
ME
Hi Arjan
I have been welding battery packs for a few years and know how pure nickel behaves. Showers of sparks when welding and material coming away and fizzingmon the table as it burns up was the indicator. I then took the material and took a dremel to it, within a second there was showers of sparks again. I repeated this test on the known good stuff I have and no sparks as I burned all the way through. I can say 100% that this is plated steel.
NKON
Hi,
Test it with salt water please. That is simple test and reliable.
regards,
Arjan
ME
Ok I will grind some of the surface away and test with salt water. If it’s pure nickel how do you explain the different behaviour when under weld?
When you have made probably 20,000 welds with pure nickel you know when something is different.
NKON
i have had in the past more pure nickel with same thickness and same width (tested) but one was more easy to bend.
i don’t know, maybe treated different or some adhesives or impurity (pure is not 100% nickel but 99,7%+)
ME
I know but 99.7% nickel will not spark under the grinde -steel does. I will test it tomorrow with salt water and let you know. I never had these problems with my usual supplier of nickel but I thought I would try you this time as I get my cells and insulation from you. Even if this is somehow pure nickel
(it isnt) its behaving significantly differently for me to discard it and not use it. I bought 10 meters so this is disappointing
NKON
We have had several customers who says your nickel behaves different than the nickel you had before or nickel we bought elsewhere
Thus far nobody showed me rusted nickel and I don’t think you will be the first to proof otherwise.
Have you ever heard of annealing? It changed properties of material without changing the compositions. It seems you assume same composition = same properties, which is false. Other trivial example, if you cut the nickel in small pieces you can’t wind it on a spool easily any more. Same composition but very different properties. third example, what if the material we have is perfect flat and the one you had was not flat (like fine sandpaper), or the other way around? Would it weld the same?
You are free to be not happy with it, that can happen and happened before, but your conclusion that it is nickel plated steel is offensive and very short sighted.
ME
I think you should be more careful with your replies Arjan, I dont find that a very friendly reply to a customer. I have spent a lot of money at your shop and also welded a lot of packs for people with your gear so I would expect some level of respect. I am performing your test and when I get home I will check it and let you know
NKON
Is it less friendly or less respectful than your emails? You wrote me I am a fraudster. I don’t know how you tested it but I am not impressed by far. And why do I have to explain you that it behaves different? If you claim it is not pure nickel then give some serious reasons why, and not ‘it sparks’
ME
Woah! I never said you are a fraudster! I said I am dissapointed. Maybe you were supplied with something of inferior quality and you do not know it? Like I said I have been buying off you and never had a problem before with your other products. I know you are not impressed with my testing that’s why I am performing the test you asked me to perform and I will give you the results when I get home which is very soon. It has been in the salt water for about 4 hours or so now.
NKON
you did not? You are even writing on esk8 to not buy from us? And after 2 or 3 emails you are stilling writing me it is not nickel because it sparks.
Anyway did you scrape of the surface? Seems strip is fine except at the edges so that is weird.
And compare with real nickel plated steal and with other nickel? Steel rusts very fast.
NKON
btw, email is not a public commutation email. I find it bit inappropriate if you post my emails with email without posting yours first.
ME
I find it really inappropriate that you have answered me the way you have. I will protect my friends if I feel there is need to and at the min my recommendation is to not buy nickel from you. Obviously if you responded to me in a courteous manner we can work together to resolve the issue. I also have a youtube channel but I havent made a video about it because it’s not about harming you it’s about you realising you have a bad batch and also your customer service could be better. I told you this is not 99.7% pure nickel - I have good experience welding batteries and my intuition has not let me down up to yet but you dismiss my experiance and my test (which is a well known test - nickel does not spark under a grinder) and now I am performing your test which is also valid and also indicates a problem with your metal. Unfortunately I do not have any known good nickel as I just used it up before starting with yours but I will by the 29th and I will perform the tests on video with timelapse photography if you do not believe me.
Now can we resolve this or not? Do you accept there is something not right with this nickel?
Right there we go Arjan both sides of the story are here, I have nothing to hide.
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I was using also a long time nickel from them.
Ordered +1 year back a whole spool and did a salt water test on it for more then 3days and no rust.
Nkon was out off stock a month back. So I know they have received a new batch.
2 weeks ago I was out off stock so I have bought new nickel. Let me do a test in 2days and let you all know.
One difference that there is always been, is that the nickel from nkon feels stiffer then others.
I have some pure nickel from other brands and those you can bend them easier.
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