Zippy Flightmax / Turnigy lipo testing

[mdd0127]

No, I didn't receive my money back from Visa. When I set up my bank account, I walked in there, told them I needed to open an account because I had a bunch of purchases to make, had already had multiple bad experiences with paypal and I needed some purchase protection. They said no problem so I handed them checks totaling $25K and started an account. Once I had the issue with HK, they informed me that my Visa card offered me NO international purchase protection. I canceled my card and will be closing the account as soon as a couple of checks clear.

I'm always nice on my first fourteen attempts at communication. When I get lied to, ran around, fed canned responses, then totally ignored, I tend to get a little frustrated. I have always stated only facts though possibly in a more stern manner as it became more and more clear that hobbyking was going to hang me out to dry.

About the damage. Four of the packs measure electrically OK but have crunched corners from the total lack of packing material. Packing boxes is a mail order company's main responsibility. It's should be acceptable for a potential customer to assume that they know how to package an item properly. Also, it should be safe for customers to assume that their package is being shipped legally. I haven't cut these open yet to see if they're damaged at the cell level but will have to before they can be used. One of the packs has a physically undamaged dead cell, and in that same pack on the opposite side there's a very damaged corner. Three of the packs made it safely and in good condition. 3 out of 8 is not good. What sucks is, I don't want to mix and match packs so since I can't get 5 new ones reliably, and will NEVER give hobbyking any more money, the other three packs are useless to me. I did order some 5s packs from another member that I'm planning on tearing apart to repair all of the damaged cells with. That way at least I'll have some batteries to use for testing. With all of my efforts to deal with HK, and the time that will be spent repairing packs, I would have been better off financially to buy packs somewhere else at triple the price.

That's enough HK BS. If anyone else has questions, please go back and look through the thread again. I believe I've covered all the bases.






Now, about these blue lipos, any idea why they aren't meeting the Ah rating? Has anyone else tested a different batch? Did you call hobbypatrz about the inaccurate rating? If so, what did they say? I was hopeful that they would work out.

[GGoodrum]

I, for one, am with mdd on this, and think HK dropped the ball way more than usual. Clearly 5 out of 8 packs bad points to hopefully a one off packaging/shipping problem, and should have "warranted" special support attention. I think the reason it didn't is more cultural than anything. Jason is clearly the boss, so no one working for him will want to risk losing face over making a decision that goes against a standard way of operating, and so they don't. Furthermore, even though the people you have communicated with may have totally understood that somebody screwed up on their end, nobody will ever claim ownership of that problem, due to the same losing face issue, so cover up and ignorance are the name of the game. Now Jason himself seems somewhat "Westernized" in his thinking, but I would bet the farm on the notion nobody beneath him is at all. When this issue finally did get up to his level, his own face-saving instincts kicked in, and I think he circled the wagons.

I think almost all of these issues will collectively get solved once they really do setup and stock their German, U.S. and OZ warehouses. Then, sending back the occasional bad pack won't be a big deal.

Now, about these blue lipos, any idea why they aren't meeting the Ah rating? Has anyone else tested a different batch? Did you call hobbypatrz about the inaccurate rating? If so, what did they say? I was hopeful that they would work out.

I'm waiting for HP to get their stock in, which should be this week, and then I'm going to order a bunch of 6s-5000 packs. I'm going to send one of these to Luke, so he can add it to the pile of LiPo and LiFePO4 packs he's testing. To me, even if it is 4500 vs 5000 mAh, that's not a biggie. If I was draining them down to LV cutoff, maybe I'd care, but I rarely go below about 20% left in the "tank". I also plan to make 3p/15Ah packs so whether the cells are 20C or 10C really doesn't concern me either. The fact of the matter is that a 15Ah pack of these is still going to be stronger than anything else out there, with the exception of a higher C-rated LiPo setup. They are still going to have less voltage drop, under load, than any of my a123 packs. The price difference is not that much, when you factor in EMS shipping, and I can give up a little in performance/capacity for the convenience of having the packs just 50 miles up Interstate 5. Ground shipping works out to be next-day.

The quality of the "blue labels" will improve, and HK will have their Seattle warehouse, so there will be competitive options, which is a win-win in my book.

-- Gary

[ZapPat]

mdd0127 - Why don't you just ship the 5 packs back for warranty? I know just one pack to send back isn't worth the time and money, but wouldn't sending back 5 packs at once be worth it? It does look to me like hobby king would honor their warranty on the packs for the kind of problems your packs had at the time of reception. Did they refuse to give you an RMA number or what?

As for the packaging issue, they could do better sometimes for sure... yet I have received over 60 lipo packs from them over more than 12 shipments via EMS, and and never received a damaged pack despite their poorly selected Lipo pack packaging. Have you considered this damage might be bad luck in the shipping process, and might not ever happen to you again? Unless of course your delivery guy happens to be brutal with packages, perhaps! UPS delivery guys are least are known for this, but I've seen a couple others too.

Pat

[mwkeefer]

Gary,

I can send the 20C 5S packs to luke now for testing... It won't change the results

It's not that these aren't good packs, they are fine and don't even warm up under normal use (odd) of 35A or 5C... but the sag is more than I've come to expect under load from lipo.

That said, when they have 6S I will be testing them too.... just a bit spoiled since HK underrates their 5AH (I wonder if they do that with the 5800mah? like they are really 6AH?) - it makes others seem smaller in size (which they are) and lower in capacity... truth be told, I was still above 3v per cell at 4.5AH measured with peaks of 35 but an average around 10A for 2C (pulse and go to maximize distance).

Far as HK goes, sometimes you will get a bad egg in the basket... a bad egg, you got far too many. Was the packaging (outside) intact when it arrived?

I would have to agree that at 5 packs, it's time to send them back to HobbyKing for replacement under warranty... it would probably cost about 40-45.00 which isn't even the price of a single pack, send em back!

-Mike

[liveforphysics]

I bought a high end Sony laptop 2 years ago. Flagship model for Sony. It arrived with the screen broken from a metal rod or something that got stabbed down through the elaborate double box setup into it. Box hardly looked damaged when I received it.

Sony took 2 days to get me an RMA code to return it, and then of course I had to pay return shipping.

Did this make me slander Sony and act like a bitch?

The company I work for, Microsoft, has many thousands of pissed customers daily. You get to talk to some poor lady in India about it when you call. They sell defective products with know safety flaws that cost companies and people 10s of billions of dollars of personal loss yearly.

That's life. Shit happens when you run a business.

[johnrobholmes]

Take it to another thread, fellas. This thread is for battery testing. Any more crap and I will start deleting and giving vacations.

[mdd0127]

You already did delete. You deleted an honest response that I took some time to compose. I feel like I've been censored unfairly. Gary closed the thread to OT posts after I had completely explained the situation, answered everyone's questions, and to some degree defended myself. Are you going to delete mwkeefer's posts regarding the shipping nightmare and the non zippy flightmax/ turnigy blue lipo? What about the posts where people are doing nothing but calling me names and posting images meant to belittle me? Is that on topic? If you're going to censor stuff, do it fairly. I'm disgusted.

How about this? I'll give my self a vacation....a long one. It's very obvious that there are quite a few folks here that don't share my opinions about business ethics and no amount of explaining will make them understand. They can keep buying their garbage from crooks and promoting it online.

To all those on this forum that believe in providing quality products and quality service that I have dealt with and learned from: Thank you.

[johnrobholmes]

You already did delete. You deleted an honest response that I took some time to compose. I feel like I've been censored unfairly. Gary closed the thread to OT posts after I had completely explained the situation, answered everyone's questions, and to some degree defended myself. Are you going to delete mwkeefer's posts regarding the shipping nightmare and the non zippy flightmax/ turnigy blue lipo? What about the posts where people are doing nothing but calling me names and posting images meant to belittle me? Is that on topic? If you're going to censor stuff, do it fairly. I'm disgusted.

How about this? I'll give my self a vacation....a long one. It's very obvious that there are quite a few folks here that don't share my opinions about business ethics and no amount of explaining will make them understand. They can keep buying their garbage from crooks and promoting it online.

To all those on this forum that believe in providing quality products and quality service that I have dealt with and learned from: Thank you.

I deleted back the last tiff in the thread, after we had already said to take it elsewhere. You said your peace, just open a new dang thread about it already. I promise it is easy to do.

Thread is locked down, see part two for TESTING of more lipos. viewtopic.php?f=14&t=19145