Zippy Flightmax / Turnigy lipo testing

[liveforphysics]

Friend of mine got 4 of these Zippy 5ah, 3 cell, " 8H 15-25C "

one of the packs had a 1v cell
2 of the packs were well ballanced... withina few mah
4th was way out of ballance.. 1000mah+ low on the middle cell..

I popped my volt meter probe wires on my charger and held them in place on the ballance plug to top off the low cell.. ( ballancer was taking way too long.. )

incredibly small tho and light... i likey !!

If you get a cell in your pack that arives out of balance, all you need to do is email Hobbycity and tell them. They will send you a new pack. Any LiPo cell that has been to 1v is permanately damaged. Hobbycity provides amazingly good return support for its products.

[Daniel828]

Friend of mine got 4 of these Zippy 5ah, 3 cell, " 8H 15-25C "

one of the packs had a 1v cell
2 of the packs were well ballanced... withina few mah
4th was way out of ballance.. 1000mah+ low on the middle cell..

I popped my volt meter probe wires on my charger and held them in place on the ballance plug to top off the low cell.. ( ballancer was taking way too long.. )

incredibly small tho and light... i likey !!

What does the 8H stand for in "8H 15c-25C"?
Also, what did you use to determine the mAh of the packs?
Thanks
--Dan

[liveforphysics]

The capacity readings on an un-cycled pack are kinda meaningless. After a few cycles, your low capacity cells may turn out to be your highest, or visa-versa. I've seen 30% boosts in LiPo cell capacity after about 10 cycles. I don't understand what causes this, but it happens. After you put 10-20 cycles on the packs, you might be suprized to find cell capacity all end up inside of 5% of eachother.

[Ypedal]

hehe.. would you believe this guy only plans to use the pack 3 or 4 times a year !!!!

[Ypedal]

Also, what did you use to determine the mAh of the packs?
Thanks
--Dan

my Thunder Power 1010C charger shows mah going in on a digital display !

[BenMoore]

Does anyone have test data on the 5Ah Turnigy packs yet to confirm their suggested "20-30C" performance
Can anyone do a quantitative voltage sag comparison with the Zippy 15C (or the 20C) packs using the same discharge current

I was about to pay the extra for the 15C Zippys to get a weight bonus (624g for a 24S 10Ah pack) but if the Turnigys have significantly less sag/internal resistance they may well be the best value all round.

Either way, the future is looking bright for affordable, high performance LiPo's!
Thanks for sharing the good news guys

[Hyena]

How'd you go scaling the fences of customs Methods ? Got your lipos yet ?
I do



Quite speedy shipping actually, they hit the HK post office on the 17th, left on 18th, hit Aussie customs on the 22nd and were on my door step on the 23rd.

[johnrobholmes]

At least one pack has a shoddy connection from the last batch I got. My buddy's system keeps cutting out, and we have narrowed it down to the packs. Probably a bad solder joint.

[CNCAddict]

Yeah, I received some flightmax packs from HC with spotty tab solder joints. Really need to go over these packs closely if you want something very reliable in high vibration applications (what isn't?).

[methods]

How'd you go scaling the fences of customs Methods ? Got your lipos yet ?

Actually... I got mine yesterday
8 6S 5Ah packs and a new charger.

In general I always cut off the main plastic connector that they supply. I have seen several that were a disaster waiting to happen.

As far as the internal connections, I have never had a problem and I have no intention of cutting open any packs.
I think more damage can be done taking them apart and reassembling... I have shorted out too many cells fooling around.

This time around I am going to use Anderson connectors.
They are perfect for building up Series parallel blocks.

Not sure if you guys noticed, but Hobby City is now carrying the 12" 6S extensions. These are perfect for building up large, cell level, parallel packs.
I usually reinforce them with glue and build big Y cables.
I also have a thread somewhere where I show how to take board mount JST-XH 6-pin 90 connectors and use them as sacrificial gender changers.

Running these in parallel at the cell level is critical for managing the balancing. Just keeping 24 cells in balance is hard enough without making it 48, 72, or 96...
I am going to resurrect my 24CH BMS board. Last time I played with it I punched 100V through the 12V circuitry and blew the components right off the board.

-methods

[CNCAddict]

These packs are easy to disassemble. All the cell connections are at one end on a nice G10 PCB. Much easier than the old sytle packs where the tabs were basically just soldered together loose. Just need some aluminum solder flux to fix any tab soldering issues.

[methods]

That zinc solder and flux stink like hell....
Got to have it though!

I took a peak and saw the circuit board in there.
I agree that configuration looks easier to deal with.

-methods

[methods]

My giant pile of knock-off batteries is bigger than your giant pile of knock-off batteries....


-methods

[Ypedal]

Update on the zippy packs i posted about earlier..

Hobbycity says ship pack with 1v cell back to Hong Kong, problem is that shipping from canada by boat is cheap but could take 6 months.. shipping express would cost as much as a new pack.. makes not sense to send it back.. wtf..

So i'm charging the 1v cell via the ballance wires again.. it's taking a 2 amp charge as i type this..

[Hyena]

Nice lipo abs Methods

Ypedal have they offered to pay for return shipping ? Some mobs do, some don't. I was lucky with my first lot of cheap ebay lipos that the seller sent me a new replacement 6S pack based just on my description and a picture of my multimetre reading 0.3v or what ever it was. I pulled it apart and now have a few spare cells, although seperating glued together foil lipo pouches is only for the very brave (and/or stupid )

[Hyena]

Not sure if you guys noticed, but Hobby City is now carrying the 12" 6S extensions. These are perfect for building up large, cell level, parallel packs.

Have you got a link ? I had a look on HC by couldn't see them (only an assortment of servo leads)

For my set up I need 4 seperate lots of 5S parallel charging leads, but I've decided that rather than having a semi-complicated multiple parallel lead harness I'm going to solder all the balance taps to a 26 pin computer IDE socket and then just use a standard computer IDE cable to connect to another 26 pin socket with every corresponding 4 pins wired in parallel to a normal 5S jst-xh connected to the balancer/charger. I figure it'll cut down on mistakes when hooking up all the balance taps and is quicker and easier to connect.
A 24 pin DVI or a 25 pin parallel port plug could also work.

[methods]

Update on the zippy packs i posted about earlier..

Hobbycity says ship pack with 1v cell back to Hong Kong, problem is that shipping from canada by boat is cheap but could take 6 months.. shipping express would cost as much as a new pack.. makes not sense to send it back.. wtf..

So i'm charging the 1v cell via the ballance wires again.. it's taking a 2 amp charge as i type this..

Dude, that sucks. I guess I have been very lucky.
Thinking of you I tested out all of my packs:

6 of the 8 were at 23.2V with a max Delta of exactly 11mV for each pack (voltage between highest cell and lowest cell).
1 of the 8 was within 7mV highest to lowest
1 of the 8 was off by 160mV !!

Each of the cells was off by a random amount with one particular cell down by over 100mV
At first I was concerned, then it occurred to me that they just forgot to balance charge that pack before shipping it out.

I am going to balance it tonight and let it sit for a few days. If the delta between cells does not change then I will forget it.


I wish you luck with your 1V cell.
I have discharged packs down to 2.1V or 2.1V and had them come back fully.
I doubt that you will be able to revive that single cell. Best to make a good flashlight batter out of the other 5 cells

-methods

[Hyena]

I just tested my packs too with the new BM6 I also ordered. All packs had a delta v of less that .01v, most around 0.006-0.008v.
Then I get the pack 6 of 6 and it starts beeping, all cells good except for one reading 1.22v

Shiiiiiit.

Off to email hobby city
This is not looking good for these new turnigy packs, 2/3 of us so far having received a dud pack in our order...

Ypedal let me know how you get on with yours. I doubt the crook cells will come good, and if they do they'll probably fail much earlier than the rest of the pack. As you say return shipping is arguably not worth it. I'm thinking about ordering another 2S pack and cutting it up to repair mine. It'll probably cost about the same as return shipping on the other one.

edit: the more I think about this the more pissed I am.
I did some googling and found a thread on another forum of a guy comparing these turnigys to the zippy h's.
It looks like they're good batteries if they work, but seems it's russian roulette getting good ones
He too had a pack with a dead cell as did someone else who posted in the thread.

http://www.helifreak.com/showthread.php?t=146724

[methods]

We are early adopters of this technology...
Unfortunately it is us who will find the problems, report them, and help improve quality for the nOObs that will follow.

Sorry to hear that both of you guys got bum packs... but I have a solution
Next time everybody has to order 2 more packs than they need!

I am surprised to hear about these bum packs... I wonder if it is bad cells or bad assembly. Could be some kind of sneak current path that is discharging them over time.
Investigation is in order here.

-methods

[ZapPat]

About bad Lipo cells, I've run two down really low (~1V and ~1.5V) by accident once. I charged them *really* slowly, using other larger cells and a very high value resistor to limit the charging current to something very low, like C/50 if it's been to a really low V. I then discharge at a low rate (like C/10) to a conservative LVC (like 3.5V or so). Then charge up again but using a higher rate, like C/20. You could repeat discharge/charge a few times, raising the rates each time. I did this because I read something about a slow charge being used to "form" the electrodes after manufacturing, so I figured it might be worth a try. I might be totaly wrong though since I don't have much experience with Lipos, so be warned! I personnaly would only charge such cells using the temperature sense probe that often comes with the better chargers, and setting the temperature cutoff pretty low in case of a problem with the cell (specially at higher rates).

The cells seems to be doing good and have a large part of their original capacity (maybe 90% but can't remember exactly), but I haven't done high power discharges yet on them, only 5C max so far (they are zippy rhinos from HC). Can't tell you about their Ri change, since I didn't measure it before.

Others have told me these cells are called "the living dead"...

[kmp647]

I dont post too much here as i mostly fly large RC electric airplanes and that takes up much of my time

I have put together a 150cc dirtbike conversion using a mars 0708 motor and kelly 72401 controller

being an RC nut I chose to use my old lipo packs connected up in series and paralel to make a 14s 4p 58.5v pack

the cells are mixed from 4000ma to 4500ma mostly in 6s or 4s packs. I have charged them individually with my hyperion 6S10I Chargers(bank charging)

I also charge using a thundersky 6a 58.5v charger from elite , charging the whole pack together.

my pack is about 16ah or so and provides about an hour of squirting around the yard.

I have no amp restrictions on my controller and I guess i may be pulling 220 to 300 amps at times on a hard launch.

I have the motor setup with the drive sprocket on the right hand side of the bike driving a scondary reduction shaft (5/8)

Originally I had 40p chain on the reduction with a 12t motor/ 28t shaft, the other end is a 14t sprocket and chain that goes to the stck rear 46t sprocket, I have now switched th secondat reduction to belt drive using an 18t motor pully and a 40t driven pully on the shaft, givine about a 7 to 1 overall ratio

anyways I think the zippy and turnigy lipos are a great deal and very usable if you are careful
I will try to post some pics, right now the file sizes are to large


Kevin

[methods]

Thanks for sharing.
We are interested to see this setup.

Get the files below 500K.
If you want them to fit on the screen (i.e. not look like a link) I think 800 wide will fit, possibly a little more.

I usually just lock the aspect ratio, set the width to 800, then lower quality to 70% (or whatever gets me a few hundred KB)

-methods

[mwkeefer]

Hello All,

I have received 10 x 3S 11.1v 5AH Turnigy Lipo packs.
1 of 10 3S packs was DOA but repaired (I think, still have to test on bike)
Bottom Line: Extreme Power, No Heat, Great Price, Very Light - Awesome Packs, Tested, Measured and Confirmed, Very Low Internal Resistance !!!

I have never had a lipo fire but please take proper precautions and don't be a jacka$$, mounting your lipos under your crotch in the A frame without some form of NON flamable battery box with some form of pressure cap that faces either forward or is at the far forward position and vents right and left of head stem or at a minimum a blast shield.

My batt box (blast box) is made of 5mil alum panels, welded together which has right and left forward vents (hopefully wont melt or warp head stem if it ever blows a lipo) and will protect my crotch, legs, passenger (my son behind me) from flames, exhaust venting from a lipo puff or fire. Designed so that if there is any real force the directional thrust of the explosion / fire will cause the ebike to slow it's forward momentum.

I went the further step of rigging a very quick, one handed disconnect which will jetison the entire battery box.

This might be over engineered but I have seen the you tube videos of lipo fires / explosions and the added weight of the alum box is minor and should channel any burn out away from me and my son. The critical point is my son!

Once I finish the battery box (painted titanium to match the bike) and my pre-controller I will post all relevant details needed to diy the blast box (can't think of another name), the pre-controller and any other niceities I come up with in my experiments.

Current eBike is:
36" front hub kit from Jason @ http://www.e-bikekit.com of which I am using the included Infineon 9FET controller mounted to the bottom side of a front handlebar bag and the hub (I had to slightly taper the 10mm keyway in the axleshaft to fit in the dropouts properly of my Judy TT and now my Tora RockShox).
Inital power source: 36s3P nimh for 50.4v @ 9900mah charged (from Jason @ http://www.mtobattery.com, fantastic battery shop... found him dealing with Segway battery failure due to moisture, he laser cnc's the cases open this guy is battery elite)

In all fairness I should add that I have modified the controllers software using ParameterDesigner (and a USB->Serial TTL inteface from sparkfun that I had laying around from some previous project). My mods were to the LVC, Current Limit=38.5A, Phase Current Limit=75A, S2 Speed=110% and a few other tweaks (do a quick search on google or here at ES for "infineon controller Parameter Designer").

The results are spectacular (once my front wheel stops smoking - well spinning) TOP SPEED=38 MPH, AVG=32, Range on 5AH 12S (4x3S 5AH Turnigy Packs) approx. 6 MILES / 9.656064 KPH @ nearly WOT and NO pedaling (not even to help start). This was a brute range test at max power and let me say that my test course is not for the faint of heart, 1.2 mi of 50/50 flats and 10% grades, dh 30% grade, 3.1mi gradual 10%, 1.5mi with a nice .5mi 24% grade uphill and then a patch similar to the first 1.2mi with 50/50 flats and 10% grades.
With LVC set for 3.2v per cell or 38.4 (actually set lower but with 4v of slack, see the ParameterDesigner info) and according to my eLogger v3 the pack provided 5302mah (over rating even with such a safe cutout margin), peak current of 38.5 (dead on) and ear to ear ev grin accelleration, max watts was approx 1954 WATTS - lol, motor never got warm, esc was but batteries stayed about 2 deg. C over ambient temp under my approx 8C max continuous load.

I should also add that I charged and balanced these 3S packs 2-3 times before this test using iCharger 1010B+ and monitoring / logging all charging data for the packs using LogView. Charged they were all within .01mv of each other (in each 3S pack and paralleled into 12S) and stayed this way through 1C discharge testing.

Only issues with the Turnigy's was 1 of 10 came in at 0 V but a quick check on ES and in the HK comments for the packs and I tore the wrapping off the bad 3S pack and sure enough the solder joints had broken (weren't great to begin with) Since I had no aluminum rosin or solder I just used my trusty and overpowered RS gun to remeld the existing solder joint while applying pressure to the disconnected tab using a probe from and old VM (I do this alot).
Though I haven't discharged this repaired? pack on the bike yet, I have run it through 5 full charges at 1C (first charge I did at 1/5 C and dischage at 7A and pack seems fine. I will test on bike in a day or two and post any observations or issues with the pack keeping it ourside my battery box in a seperate lipo bag while testing for safety, and no I don't test with my son... I use 38lbs of SLAs and a 5gal gas can filled with water in the child seat to simulate my son and his shifting weight while testing)

If anyone would like the logs from the eLogger or the charge / discharge cycles on the packs from logview, drop me a msg and I will provide them.

Sorry for the long post but I did the full gamet of testing on these packs and thought I should share as much detail as possible.

Thanks to everyone for all their help, contributions and problem solving that got me interested in an eBike as an alternative to my i2 Segway (3 years and still going).

- Mike

[methods]

I am having the same results.
Of the (8) 5000mah 6S packs I bought 7 of them are still within 30mV after many rides and no balancing.
One pack, the one that came in with one cell 100mV low, is still off
I now suspect that they just forgot to balance that pack before shipping it out.

I am not going to balance these packs for another couple of months.

I charge till the first cell hits HVC and I discharge (hypothetically) until the first cell hits LVC
(in actuality I have not yet ran the pack down past 80%)

-methods

[mwkeefer]

methods,

Did you charge/balance/discharge the 1 pack that came in with the 100mv low cell before using it in your application?

If not, that is your culprit... unlike many battery chemistries, lipo doesn't seem to have a bleed off effect (unless they are damaged) to help self balance. That would (probably has) caused your already imbalanced pack to get quite a bit farther from balance with each charge / discharge (depending upon load).

You have the right idea of cutting charge when best cell reaches 4.20/4.21 and using an LVC based upon the lowest cell drop but... if you have balance taps (you do) then just charge that out of balance pack with a decent 3s charger (I wouldn't charge at greater than 1/2C) / balancer.

Though 100mv doesn't seem too bad, I would wager that after each cycle you will see between 5-10mv difference (your good cells seem to suggest that) every 10 cycles or so but with the 100mv low condition you could be loosing a good deal of your capacity.

I'm not an EE and I could be wrong but from everything I have tested and all I have read that would be the case.

Have you thought of using one of the various BMS balancer circuits available here on ES to keep your packs in top shape and to last for as long as possible? That would work perfectly will a standard charger only (could even use SLA CC/CV tweaked for correct voltage).
-Mike