I needed a few 18650s, so I ordered them from China. They arrived, and I thought I’d share some of the entertainment of unpacking them.
International battery shipping regulations are a bit odd - so all of this is to meet those requirements.
They show up in an awful lot of boxes.
![](/generated/images/2016-04-16/2016-04-16-DSCF5919-1600-b4b6392c6.jpg)
Read on for the rest of the photos…
Each box is clearly labeled as lithium batteries - and, curiously, “Overpack.” What’s Overpack?
![](/generated/images/2016-04-16/2016-04-16-DSCF5921-1600-12755ffd7.jpg)
Ah. This is overpack. The outer box has a lot of smaller boxes inside - each individually labeled!
![](/generated/images/2016-04-16/2016-04-16-DSCF5922-1600-b4c377c55.jpg)
Each small box has two batteries and some padding material. The batteries are individually bagged.
![](/generated/images/2016-04-16/2016-04-16-DSCF5923-1581-902dc7fc0.jpg)
Remove the boxes and packing materials, and you have a pile of batteries in bags!
![](/generated/images/2016-04-16/2016-04-16-DSCF5924-1600-b60438968.jpg)
This is the remains of one box worth of packing materials. Very, very well packed.
![](/generated/images/2016-04-16/2016-04-16-DSCF5925-1600-1b14c93e2.jpg)
After removing the batteries from bags, you end up with a pile of batteries.
![](/generated/images/2016-04-16/2016-04-16-DSCF5926-1600-62ac94130.jpg)
Which then get loaded into one box for more compact storage.
![](/generated/images/2016-04-16/2016-04-16-DSCF5920-1600-beeccf974.jpg)
Do that a couple times, and you’ve got a box full of batteries!
![](/generated/images/2016-04-16/2016-04-16-DSCF5927-1600-7d065034d.jpg)
It’s really a bit silly, but shipping regulations are what they are, and I certainly can’t complain about how these were shipped!
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