Stranded by ping again-again-AGAIN

JinbaIttai

JinbaIttai

100 W
Joined
Jul 12, 2008
Messages
235
Location
Oahu
Don't mind me right now; I'm thinking out loud quietly through the keyboard.

Yup. I've got to replace two swollen cell groups--that translates to $130 to get it running again-again-again--third time now. I think I've spent $1000 so far to achieve 150 battery cycles over 1500 miles in total. Considering gasoline costs about $3.45 per gallon the other day--that's approx. equivalent to 5 miles per gallon.

I'm feeling regret choosing ping and wish there was an instant swap to something reliable, like a 2 stroke moped.

If I do go with the repairs, I will box the battery in some kind of plastic/aluminum/wooden foam insulated case this time. Maybe bubble wrap is not enough and I shouldn't be pointing the finger at ping. But come on, $1000 for 150 cycles? This sucks! :x
 
I feel your pain, believe me! That is the exact reason I have switched to Headway cells. It's not that Headways will never ever go bad, it's more that when and if they do go bad, it's not too much of a strain to remove the bad cell, and replace with a good one that you have on hand as a backup.

You might consider selling your pack, and going to Headways. Just an option other than going to a moped.. :wink:

TJG
 
Do you have compression on your pack?

Is your bubble wrap covering your pack and insulating it so it can't cool as it needs?
 
More importantly, are you bypassing the BMS for discharge, drawing too much current, and causing their early demise yourself?
 
I've got two ping packs and one for sure has a swollen cell. :( The other one has a bms low voltage problem. I think I am going to order a charger from hobbyking and monitor and charge them my self? Good idea or not? :?:
 
Nothing wrong with the idea of splitting the pack into 6s sections and charging with the HK chargers. And if your lvc doesn't work, you sure better get monitoring it somehow. It won't fix a puffed cell, or a too high discharge rate though.

I've gotten pretty good use from my pings, but mostly by baybying it, with 1c or less discharge rates. For sure my bms's have been fine, but if you are depending on a bms, it better be OK!
 
John in CR said:
More importantly, are you bypassing the BMS for discharge, drawing too much current, and causing their early demise yourself?
Click to expand...

Yes, I'm thinking this might be the issue. Also, if you parallel two different packs, you do risk unbalanced battery currents near the end of discharge, putting more stress on the battery even if it seems "normal". This would be particularly aggravated if you neared the end of discharge regularly. As I understand, you did run two parallel packs.

Btw, I agree that Ping Repair sucks the big one. I haven't seen a need for it on my second ping battery, yet, but the first one did but that was because the BMS was damaged and the battery over-discharged. The second battery seems to be declining at a slightly faster rate than expected, but I foresee another 4.5 years of use at its current rate of deterioration. That seems to be more than enough.

There just seems to be something wrong with a battery cell whose terminals can be so easily torn off and renders the entire cell useless.
 
I share your concerns. My Ping is now a large paperweight, and has been for a couple months now. Although Dog Man is one of the satisfied customers, I can't help but think he is in the minority. Customer service is great during the warranty period, but the product is of low quality.

I'm going with headway now. They are huge packs but go okay with a cargo bike and seem to be overbuilt with spacing between the cells. Hopefully these hold up better.

I'd suggest moving on. You've probably wasted way more of your personal time than the battery is worth.
 
Damn, I thought Ping was durable. I just checked my packs the other day and they're just fine on the shelf. I got them 2 years ago and put about 100 cycles on them before taking them out of service because I needed higher power. Now that I have a nice stash of A123's, I wanted to soon put the A123's in parallel at the cell level, and blow n go, with a high power solution with 1ah of M1's to each 2ah of Ping pouches, which I thought was a conservative approach for moderately high power. Maybe I should grow that A123 stash a bit more.

John
 
snowranger said:
I share your concerns. My Ping is now a large paperweight, and has been for a couple months now. Although Dog Man is one of the satisfied customers, I can't help but think he is in the minority.
Click to expand...

He's also one of the few who says "1C MAX". :)
 
2532178.jpg
 
Believe it or not that's why i started parallel my batteries, because with my cyclone 35a controller is a little too much for one battery. The 2.5 10ah did ok though. I still got around 1000 miles on each of them though. Should i charge all the time or should I let the ping pack discharge to a certain point and then recharge? I used to ride 2 miles charge at the winery, ride home for lunch and come back to work and then recharge there and drive home and than plug it in for the night. I think my new ping will last though if I use it on my new ebikekit geared motor as it is only I think 350 watts. I tell you ping is still alright by my book. You can't hammer the batteries and I have :twisted: :twisted: I have shredded gears gone 30 mph on 36v on his batteries. So now it's time for me to learn battery chemistry. That is after the grape harvest :D
 
Yeah, 1c and 80% discharges or less makes a ping happy. Along with a bms that works. But along with my chant of cut all range claims in half, I now routinely expect only half the c rate specified for a battery that lasts many cycles. So I think of ping as a 1c cell, headways as a 5 c cell, and my new 30c lipo as 15 c.

Thinking again Wineboyrider, you wouldn't have to split the pack in half to charge with a HK charger, just install the balance lead plugs, and then add a charging wire where needed to charge 6 cell groups at a time. Or whatever the charger was built for, mine are 6s chargers.
 
In the meantime my recycled toolpack packs of Konion cells are like the Eveready Bunny and just keep going and going without issue, no long balancing, no puffed cells, no too low power limitations, no bms failures, and HALF THE PRICE. I knew I made a good decision, but now it's looking better with every battery failure I see. Too bad the good doctor's supply is so limited. I've gotta get hooked up directly with the Sony factory for Konion sticks made of 2p10s and 2p13s tab welded US18650V cells.
 
Ditto - hooray for Konions...
 
Where's the nowadays cheap source for konions? The "last place" I heard of apparently dried up and according to a google shop search, it looks like it's around $1.25 / watt-hour, more expensive than non-a123 lifepo4.
 
Wish I knew, last lot were from Doc and I havn't seen any listed in a while... I need a few more too... Would like to double my capacity for another project.
 
liveforphysics said:
Do you have compression on your pack?
Click to expand...
Not unless duct tape counts. What is a good way to achieve pack compression? Some kind of stretchy wrap?

liveforphysics said:
Is your bubble wrap covering your pack and insulating it so it can't cool as it needs?
Click to expand...
Yes, but the pack never seems to get all that hot. It is a 20AH battery and my controller is 22A.
 
John in CR said:
More importantly, are you bypassing the BMS for discharge, drawing too much current, and causing their early demise yourself?
Click to expand...

Nope, standard wiring, 22A controller.
 
JinbaIttai said:
John in CR said:
More importantly, are you bypassing the BMS for discharge, drawing too much current, and causing their early demise yourself?
Click to expand...

Nope, standard wiring, 22A controller.
Click to expand...

Then Ping needs to remedy your problem. If he's having QC issues that would be unfortunate.
 
Yeah, a 20 ah battery on a 22 amp controller should have lasted. It was a split pack right? Seems like a high percentage of split packs have had problems.

What about depth of discharge and charging time? Every time I ride till cutout my ping gets a bit out of balance and doing it twice in a row makes it even more out of balance. And the charging time, some have had problems because they unplug before the bms can do it's work.

Not trying to say you did any of that, just putting it out there that you can still kill a battery with a small motor.

But nothing murders a battery like a bms that doesn't work. :(
 
I just started using the headway pack yesterday after Ilia made me a custom battery rack for the xtracycle. Right off the bat, I can tell that the voltage sag is a lot less. Top speed has gone from 26 to about 28. Maybe it is the placebo effect, but who knows. I look forward to not dealing with oozing foil pouches and nasty duct tape.

Mistakes are costly in this hobby, but the pleasure of being able to take my kids everywhere with the bike is priceless.
 
snowranger said:
Mistakes are costly in this hobby, but the pleasure of being able to take my kids everywhere with the bike is priceless.
Click to expand...

Thats such a nice quote! made my day that has :) I have just had my first ever fathers day :) cant wait for my son to come riding with me, sorry to hear about problems with Ping batts, he does seem to have quite a few happy customers though, my most reliable batteries I had are 2 x packs of 24V 13AH F NIMH cells they still work after 700 cycles and are 4 years old!! they sag too much now under e-bike loads but can still put out a happy 8-10 AH at lighter loads, no BMS no bad cells and built to last NIMH is still half decent.

Knoxie
 
snowranger said:
Mistakes are costly in this hobby
Click to expand...

Yes, and for Ping batteries, it pays to monitor cell group voltages at every charge initially and periodically thereafter.
 
I have a ping split pack 48v20ah. I run it with a 600w h.s. crsytlyte 48v40amp. It was sold to me by com cycle usa as the package ! I trwisted my clutch (camdu bmc replaced it ) I then fried the end group on the + end of the battery. Ping was very helpful replaced the 4 pouches and the bms to 60amp. twice the size of the 40amp. ok ? It now works find. I did do some damage to life cycles I think. I don't know why ping would have me install a 60amp. bms except for cooling. I also had problems with the 8 wire plug connecting the packs and with the pins moving inside. I know 25amps. is best for the motor because you can hear it humm in a grumming noise if I full throttle no load in the air. I also thought your 22amp. controller would be the perfect match for the 48v20ah split ping. P.s. as soon as I get the money I will get a C.A. but was told to send in my controller in to calabrate the C.A. Hay Jimbattai good luck. Next time I will buy a higher c rate. Does anyone have a good battery 36v15ah 3c $450.00usd.?
 
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