How are your hobbyking lipos working out for you?

Have you ever had a problem with your hobbyking lipo?

  • No - Everything has worked out great!

    Votes: 38 55.1%

  • Yes - arrived with a dead or bad cell or wiring problems

    Votes: 11 15.9%

  • Yes - bad or weak cells before 20 cycles

    Votes: 11 15.9%

  • Yes - excessive loss of capacity before 200 cycles in all cells of a group (as in all your cells hav

    Votes: 3 4.3%

  • Yes - prematurely bad or weak cells

    Votes: 9 13.0%

  • Yes - puffers

    Votes: 16 23.2%

  • Yes - venting

    Votes: 2 2.9%

  • Yes - fire

    Votes: 2 2.9%

  • Yes - maybe I abused them, maybe I didn't. I don't know, but something went wrong!

    Votes: 7 10.1%

  • Yes - I had a problem but it was my own damn fault for abusing the cells.

    Votes: 8 11.6%
  • Total voters
    69
auraslip

auraslip

10 MW
Joined
Mar 5, 2010
Messages
3,535
I was told that hobbyking batteries had some QC issues when I bought them, but I didn't think it would happen to me! And then it did...

So now I'm trying to decide if it's worth sticking with them or moving on to something else. Help me, and others, by filling out this form.

Check as many boxes apply. However, if you damaged the batteries or abused them, please only select the last option. I want to know how many un-abused cells have gone bad!
 
Reposting this here so it'll get more views:
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=43325


PLEASE click the link and fill out the poll! Mods should also sticky this somewhere important for awhile so we can get as many replies as possible.
 
About 10-15% of the packs shipped had a weak cell ( so, 3 packs out of 27 ). This was revealed when i cycled them the first time i got them.

All the others that passed the cycle test have been working 100% since i bought them ~2 years ago. No imbalances, puffiness, internal resistance has climbed a bit, capacity is about the same.. this is at ~150 cycles.

The dud packs have been sitting in storage and will be used as spare cell packs if ever required.
 
Well, this poll is very unscientific.

And really, short of randomly ordering batches of of packs from HK at random intervals and running them for 200 cycles, I can't think of a better way to do this.

So yes, if you have a bad cell that hasn't been abused, please check one of the boxes that you feel best applies.

I had to edit the poll to add in one more option. vote count got reset.
 
I have 12 x Turnigy 5S 5000mAh 20C.

Bought in three batches, one pack arrived with a low cell, I sent it back without charging it up and got a refund (HK store credit actually but that was OK).

My use...
I only use a 15S 1P pack regularly. It has maybe 120 cycles, over 18 months. I discharge at 6C peak, but hammer them with 3C charge. Charge to 4.1V, discharge not below 3.55 to 3.6V resting. They have never needed balancing (but I have done it twice) and sit within 20-30mV.
They don't get more than warm, no puffing yet.

The other 9 packs are just sitting on a shelf at the moment.

I will run a discharge test now just out of curiosity to get capacity and post the result.


Greg
 
I have bought 41 packs 33 4s hard case and 8 6s 5000 mah and all have been perfact!
 
We need 2 polls. One surveying how many total cells we have purchased. The other surveying how many bad cells we've encountered.
 
Bought 4 used 6s 5 ah
60 cycles

cell 6 on 1 pack looses 10mv over 30 bulk charges.
 
Yea the survey is nice , but not spot on. Still glad to see it.

I have purchased about 20+ 6s5000mah zippy/turnigy cells.

Once you do the initial 15% cut to get out any bad cells the rest
work great. I'm runnin 24s 20ah now with 0 problems and minimal
balancing.

Out of those 20 I probably tossed 2-3. A few I ruined because of my own stupidity.
 
Buying 23 packs total, 3 were complete failures in 10 cycles or less. Those three were all the same type, 4s turnigy soft packs. Clearly the whole batch was bum.

Of the remaining 20 packs, two of the first 4 were killed by hard deep discharges. Noob mistake, but,,, I was only discharging at about 8c. They were 20-30c turnigy. They died before 100 cycles, each having one cell go bad. I did about 10 cyles of that 8c, then got more and now discharge at 4c. Hard to say if it was really the 5s pack use that harmed them, or they just had one weak cell. They did get discharged below 3.5 multiple times.

The remaining cells in the packs have just been reclaimed into 4s packs. The other two of the first four are now wearing out two years later, but still running. 3 other packs were killed by other mistakes, kff, or accidental overdischarge.

So though my % deaders is bad, my % I killed em is worse. 10% bad from the box is about the average, mine just a tad more.
 
12 packs of zippy 15c 5S- initially had 2 undercharged cells- cycled them twice with no later issues
18 packs of Turnigy 20c 5S- 3 cells total initially undercharged- cycled with no issues
-2 batteries have over 600 cycles and are paralleled with 4 slightly newer packs with 570-ish cycles- no apparent capacity loss yet
-15c batteries have about 150 cycles with no apparent capacity loss*
2 batteries have had their discharge bullet connectors fail from solder failure (my first two which received heavy current tests)

note: none of these batteries have ever gotten out of balance by more than 0.01v after the initial cycles
An exception is when I discharged my first pair down to 3.5V once. Took a bit of futzing to get one cell to accept a charge but it did and is still strong.
I only discharge to 3.75V max, most the time 3.8V
I only recently paralleled my battery packs at the cell level but I've never experienced out-of balance batteries with the one exception.
Until this last month I checked battery balance every three days (about 10 cycles) I now check once a week.

*My 'scientific' means of measurement is riding until a pack reaches the point (3.8V) where I switch to a different pack... and noting my location :lol:
 
I find that turnigy has higher quality balance wires than zippy packs. The balance wires on turnigy batts are much more flexible. Other than that I have ha great experience with both zippy and turnigy in terms of quality. They only went down hill after I screwed them up a little. :oops:
 
ohzee said:
Once you do the initial 15% cut to get out any bad cells the rest
work great.
Click to expand...

I gotta say, that's a terrible rate of defects. Would you tolerate it in any other consumable product? "Yeah, one out of seven of these razor blades is snaggly and cuts my face, but hey, the others work fine!" "About two eggs from each dozen are rotten and poisonous, but the others seem OK."

Chalo
 
Chalo said:
ohzee said:
Once you do the initial 15% cut to get out any bad cells the rest
work great.
Click to expand...

I gotta say, that's a terrible rate of defects. Would you tolerate it in any other consumable product? "Yeah, one out of seven of these razor blades is snaggly and cuts my face, but hey, the others work fine!" "About two eggs from each dozen are rotten and poisonous, but the others seem OK."

Chalo
Click to expand...


Horrible rate indeed. But compared to the other prices for non-HK LiPos and the 15% isn't bad. But it might be time to tack on a 15% premium when calculating LiPo energy density per dollar v other chemistries.
 
Yea TBH it's a bit lower when I ran thru this exercise before.

I was thinking out of the 20+ 6s 5000mah batteries I bought 2 or 3 were bad and I ruined 2 on my own.

For the cost, weight, ability to customize battery size/location and other things I feel that's a worthwhile investment based on other options.

I feel the price is lower because it's somewhat of a gamble. They don't put more money into qc and I accept that.

A guess on my part really don't know just seems like it would be easy to test before batteries leave the factory.
 
Actually, we have been putting up with a failure rate of nearly everything of at least 15%. And we seem to love it since we keep on buying chinese crap everything. True, we tolerate it less if it would poison us or cut our throats, but we keep buying plastic stuff that shatters nearly immediately.

It's quite a problem for some things, but electronic stuff and plastic items seem to be the worst. I have about 80 photocell sensors to keep working at my job at the condos. The failure rate of these, that last about 1 year before they fail, is about 50%. Used to be the lifespan of these photocells was 5-10 years, with some lasting 20+. Now virtually none last 5 years.
 
Other than puffers, I perceive my issues to be of my own cause... in which case the former is suspect :roll:

Out of Qty-82 of Zippy FlightMax 5S 5Ah 15/2C over the course of nearly 3 years and 10,000 miles:
  • 1 accidental short on the power plug that nearly fried the connector (definitely operator error); it still works but the crispy connector should be replaced.
  • 1 accidental short of the Balance Cable which errupted into a delightful shower of sparks (again, my bad; good thing I wore a hat). The connector was replaced.
  • 3 single balance wires have broken through use (and since repaired)
  • 4 are dead, Dead, DEAD.
  • 13 have at least 1 cell bad and are in the salvage pile awaiting to be reborn.
  • Outright 50% are puffed between very slight to absurdly rotund (and require venting) with only 1 slightly cracking the heat shrink outer cover.

EDIT: Forgot to add that I have never received a single bad battery from HK; they're all tested well upon arrival. Perhaps because I order in large quantities per purchase; it's just a guess. I just want to make that explicitly clear. I have no complaints with HK, and counting my stars in gratitude. :)

Still, I should not complain too loudly if at all. My alternate form of transportation are my two feet.

Kingfish_LiPo_Stash_300x225.jpg

My entire stash... all 82 of'm :twisted:

MHahaha! KF
 
'sorry, the poll doesn't make any sense for me to wedge something that doesn't fit into the choices provided.

All I can say is that in 2009 I bought about 20 bricks - 2/3 Turnigy, 1/3 Zippy. One brick had weak cell upon arrival and I converted it into 3S lighting battery. Saved a good cell which I used about a year ago to replace a cell in a suddenly weakening Zippy brick.

Now into the 3rd year, +500 cycles a few cells have begun to sag dramatically and noticeably lose capacity. Culled those out, dropped my capacity back a little and now test and if needed replace individual cells every once in a while to keep me running a while longer. I really need to replace but kinda want to see it all to the end of any real usefulness.

For the money, I really can't complain about the original duff cell. We all should know, accept and adjust when ordering. We're talking 60-80 cells in total use and 'got 1 that was DOA. Sure, gotta learn how to get 'em apart but if the HK defect rate is only determined by one or two cells which ruin an entire brick, that's not a very accurate picture of cell defect rate.

I guess one bad Apple spoils the barrel but it doesn't have to be that way...
 
I've ordered several times, mostly for RC use, and haven't had a problem yet. However, I have 3 packs on the way for my 18S build, I hope I don't have to change my vote!

*Update - the new packs arrived and they're fine.
 
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