leaderhobby LiPo packs? Has anyone experience with?

[neptronix]

What the **************...

OK, my batteries took over a month to get from Singapore to Switzerland. They're currently sitting in a warehouse in Switzerland..

Remember, these are supposed to be going to the United States.
I've received packages from cell_man ( Shanghai county/province in China ) via sea freight in just a hair over a week.

Can't believe how awful this shipping service is. I could have paddle-boated over to Singapore and got it quicker.

[parabellum]

Welcome to hit and miss shipping. I ordered 2 packages from them on same day. One came more then 2 weeks ago, another one is still on the way.

[competitions]

Looks like they have reduced their battery prices.

[neptronix]

OK, finally received the battery after a month and a half.
They sent me a 10AH 5S 25C pack.
That is not what i ordered!!

It was also very loose in the box, with only 1 layer of bubble wrap around it. Holy hell, that's awful packaging.
Also, it is slightly puffed.

A lipo pouch should not be puffed at 1/2 charge!! lipo packs will deform/puff very slightly at full charge. At half charge, this is possibly something that will explode after charging, OR it is damaged from being shorted / discharged at too high of a rate ( high heat buildup ).

This thing is not even gonna make it the charger. I am demanding a refund now.

[parabellum]

They will probably ask you to send it back at your expense and credit pack price on arrival.

[theRealFury]

Well i think that concludes this thread then.

Dont give Leaderhobby any of your $$$ as its throwing it away.

I must admit im not surprised given the insane prices they are charging for stuff, but i guess you never know until someone / or some people play guinneypig and order a sample.

[Sunder]

Glad I waited for other people to buy then.

Is Hobby King still the place of choice then?

I've had a few cells go bad from them, but they're cheap, so that's to be expected.

[parabellum]

Glad I waited for other people to buy then.

Is Hobby King still the place of choice then?

I've had a few cells go bad from them, but they're cheap, so that's to be expected.

For LiPo HK seams to be the right choice. HK also manages to post your goods in predictable time span.

[neptronix]

with hobbyking, you get a faulty product 10% of time.
With leadershobby, you get a faulty product 90% of the time, lol

[parabellum]

with hobbyking, you get a faulty product 10% of time.
With leadershobby, you get a faulty product 90% of the time, lol

It greatly depends on the product, my LiPo Safe sacs came undamaged!

[neptronix]

I got this response from leaderhobby when i told them the pack was puffed, the wrong item, and that i was mad about them lying about future stock on this battery:

So sorry for the inconvenience..

Since now we have no 9394001220063 in stock .

How about we refund 10 dollars to your store credit? maybe you can sell the battery to your friend..

Hope can get your understanding..

Waiting for your comment..

Sorry again,

Best regards,
Amy

Would any of you friends here like a puffed mislabeled used lipo, so i can get some store credit to buy more damaged/broken goods? how generous of them to make this offer!

[ohzee]

I bet 10 dollars her name is not AMY.

[Ypedal]

First out loud laugh of the day award goes to !!!

awsome fail.

[parabellum]

This is what friends are for! I surely will remember this lines every time Chinese descendents person reefers to to me as friend.

[neptronix]

Wow, 14 emails and i am not getting over 10 dollars refund. I have also not got their address. They are excellent at avoiding a return.

I opened up the pack today and guess what it consists of? 3-5 year old Tekocell 10AH < 1C lipo cells. Nice swindle!

Also at a constant 3A draw, the pack reached 110F and i had to stop discharging at about 4AH.

I have already told them that i'd expose them to every RC forum on the 'net, making a web page with nice SEO that will cause more, or equal hits to come to my page than theirs....

I am also threatening them with serious action from paypal - IE account freeze, AND a refund.

I'll let you know how it goes. I'm pretty sick of these China companies who rip us off with no conscience about it whatsoever.

[neptronix]

This is me applying a 3.5A load to the battery, then turning off the load.

[ohzee]

man that's freaking crazy. yea good job exposing them for the crap they are.

[Bazaki]

What an amazing terrible bad looking discharge graph ! Those cells are useless for an ebike.

About the leaderhobby company itself, they send an C80-100- 130 kv motor pretty fast, so now we know that the cheap lipo cells are really bad but other products might be fine.

[neptronix]

They are even useless for a flashlight. Not sure entirely what they would be good for

http://neptronix.org/posts/dont_buy_unknown_chinese_batteries.html

I put up a full report here.

[cor]

Hi Neptronix,
Thanks for posting your experience - it seems I might be down the same path so I will certainly take your posted info into account.
The one thing that is different in my case is that my packs shipped in 4 (!) days:

This sounds like a good deal, but I was actually counting on the packs shipping slow boat,
because I won't be home for the coming 3 weeks...
Oh and the other grating thing is that they prepared the shipment *after* they confirmed that they would cancel my order, because I had finally read the horror stories here and requested cancellation. Well, the same "Amy" went for bonus points by first confirming to me that they would cancel the shipment and give me store credit; I came back and said that I preferred Paypal credit, then she told me that I should get credited within 2 days on my Paypal account, only to return and announce that the shipment was sent out anyway (and of course, no credit)...
Luckily I used my credit card (and Paypal) to pay, so I have some recourse if I also received re-packaged old 1C cells.
EDN just re-published a circuit to discharge cells with constant current and measure the time.
I have done similar measurements in the past to check 12V batteries with an inverter and a load of lightbulbs and a mechanical clock to measure the discharge time.
I wonder if I first should build a BMS and then do the discharge tests or first claim my money back... Definitely if I also get less than 4Ah from a claimed 10Ah pack, they will have to refund. We will see... in 3 weeks.

[neptronix]

Constant current discharge would be nice. I think a range of +/- 0.75A is not so bad if you don't need a dead-on accurate discharge, though. Can you gimme a link to the EDN circuit?

I did discharge at a constant 1A with my iCharger, i got about 5.75AH. It's hard though, because the cells sag intensely even at 1A. I cannot even get close to full capacity at 0.1C.

Sorry to hear you ordered these. You should do some tests and also post em up, but i have a feeling you're getting a pack full of 3-4 year old tekocell 1C, as i did.

We should start a class action refund battle with this company.

[cor]

EDN article for cell discharge (meant for NiCd and NiMH, that is why they recommend 1V cutoff, but it is easy to setup for up to 3V to use LiPoly by making R3 less than 10kOhm; I have ran the clock instead of from a battery, from 3 series diodes (with parallel buffer elco) and resistor off 12V)
http://www.edn.com/article/518463-Circu ... pacity.php
Just set the clock for noontime at start and it will indicate how long until the cell hit the threshold.
I like that the cell gets 100% disconnected upon termination.

[cor]

We should start a class action refund battle with this company.

That would only work if they are a USA company, methinks.
Do they have a US branch (local subsidiary)?
I see on their website that they claim to have a warehouse in Los Angeles and Miami
but there is no other contact into than Hong Kong.

[neptronix]

I don't mean legal action. I just mean mass refunds...

BTW, kinda funny. I'm past the 45 day refund period apparently.
It took about 45 days to ship it to me. I may have had a few days, but they were doing the stall tactic.

These guys are experts.

If you have recieved defective merchandises, please report it to paypal, at the very least.

[parabellum]

I am still missing 1 pack, will be 2 months in 1 week. Best thing I can do is not buy there anymore and give advise to others. ES be warned!