leaderhobby LiPo packs? Has anyone experience with?

[parabellum]

Have any one bought LiPos from this seller?
https://www.leaderhobby.com/list.asp?ty ... egories=49
They are very cheap at ~ 25Cens/watt at ~10-20C in some cases. They also are 13 different brands, but I noticed that sizes, prizes, C rates and availability (stock) of same specs packs is same (or almost).
So I think they may have a lot of naked packs and label them before packaging.

Anyway, has any one experience with them?

P.S.
Damn, they also have no stock or not enough of required (by me) size, buying 2 last packs of this.
https://www.leaderhobby.com/product.asp ... 4001225583

EDIT: To resume for next generations.
1)Batteries purchased by me and neptronix resulted being a total ripoff. In my case less then 1/2 of stated capacity, refund (to your LH account) only if you send them back and they receive them!
2)They have mayor packaging and shipping problem, it takes much longer then Hobby King and 1 of my packages never arrived, sent 04/11/2011 now 17/01/2012. (Edit 2: Got it on 26/01/12 after more then 2 1/2 months. What a nice quick shipping )
You have been warned!

[neptronix]

What a find, dude!!!

I also wonder if anyone else has pulled the trigger on these.
The deals are tantalizing enough to be the guinea pig for this one. And i may actually volunteer myself as the pig..

https://www.leaderhobby.com/product.asp?ID=9394001220063

10AH 5S 3C battery.. at just under 1000g. That's lighter than hobbyking lipo! HK lipo would be 1332g.

Low discharge, yes. But they should perform better than lifepo4.

https://www.leaderhobby.com/product.asp?ID=9394001220064

Another low discharge pack, but 6S. 1184g VS. 1586g for the equivalent hobbyking pack. Better performance i think..
Run enough of them in parallel for 20AH or 30AH and you'll have yourself a lighter pack..

OK, now realistically for these packs, you'll probably want to run them as 1.5C batteries for best cycle life and longevity.

So:
10AH = 15A max discharge rate.
20AH = 30A max discharge rate.
30AH = 45A max discharge rate.

These are ~33% lighter than equivalent hobbyking lipo, so you will easily be able to pack the amp hours in
These are also almost half the cost of equivalent hobbyking lipo.

The only concern is that they state the charge rate at 1 amps. I have never heard of a chemistry charging at 0.1C before.

These definitely warrant further investigation and some tests.

https://www.leaderhobby.com/product.asp?ID=9394001226065

either an unlabeled unit, or battery medic imitation. But for $10, it may be worth the gamble..

Here are some RC-Groups threads on leadershobby AKA leaderhobby..

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1262641

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1521724

[parabellum]

There is 4s10A pack rated 15C max.

https://www.leaderhobby.com/product.asp ... 4001225598

Stock: 0 Package Weight: 1084 QTY: Price: $ 63.33 NOW: $ 41.17

End old good 80-100 130kv motors

https://www.leaderhobby.com/product.asp ... 4001224162

[neptronix]

That's a great price for a 15C lipo of that size. But you're not saving any weight over RC Lipo from hobbyking.
Still a smoking hot deal...

Perhaps this stuff is legit and they are like hobbyking when they first came out: dirt cheap, then they raise the price later.
some people on RC-Forums mentioned that they have done that with a few items so far.

[neptronix]

Did some math here.

10AH of 36v would be ~$100 and weigh 4.5Lbs / ~2kG.

Same pingbattery, 10ah 36v would be 8.2Lbs / $289, but that includes charger and BMS, so for the sake of argument, let's say $200 just for the ping cells..

And headways are definitely twice the weight, 2-3 times the volume, and still more expensive O_O...

If these cells aren't junk, chinese lithium pack vendors are gonna have some hard competition.

If anyone knows about a silver lining here, tell me now.. lol

[thepronghorn]

low discharge and charge rates, low cycle life, last generation technology, poor quality pack construction <-----all guesses

otoh I did have a good experience with them when buying a 6374-170kv motor

I ordered a black motor, but since those were out of stock even thought the website failed to reflect it, they sent me a silver one instead which costs more, and they even switched the kv of the motor for me at my request from the originally ordered 200 kv to the received 170 kv

[AussieJester]

Did some math here.

10AH of 36v would be ~$100 and weigh 4.5Lbs / ~2kG.

Same pingbattery, 10ah 36v would be 8.2Lbs / $289, but that includes charger and BMS, so for the sake of argument, let's say $200 just for the ping cells..

And headways are definitely twice the weight, 2-3 times the volume, and still more expensive O_O...

If these cells aren't junk, chinese lithium pack vendors are gonna have some hard competition.

If anyone knows about a silver lining here, tell me now.. lol

Did you see this one Nep

https://www.leaderhobby.com/product.asp ... 4001220064

22v 10000mah $67 bucks 5c burst 3c continuous sooo... $134 bucks for a 44v 20ah pack @ 3100grams hahaha must be
some good quality LiPO

KiM

[wesnewell]

I bought 6 of their 5000mha 6s 10c Coyote lipo packs for $21.60 each. With shipping about $200. It's not the very good, but it works. How long it last is yet to be determined. But $200 for 10ah 18s2p is certainly cheap.

[neptronix]

AJ: Yeah i saw that one. Go figure it's out of stock!

Drooling over running 30AH of this stuff for a 60 mile range. I could go forever.

Wes: ah, you're the first one to pony up for that coyote lipo. Can you explain a bit further what you mean when you say 'it's not that good' ? ... i know 10C lipo is gonna be a bit saggy.. but... cells balanced? OK construction? etc ?

[auraslip]

looks like typical chinese hobby store. you know the type.

[DAND214]

22v 10000mah $67 bucks 5c burst 3c continuous sooo... $134 bucks for a 44v 20ah pack @ 3100grams hahaha must be
some good quality LiPO

I don't get the numbers right? My math nust be wrong.
Am I missing something?

Junk I get. Shipping is also another add on. Still cheap and maybe junk.

Dan

[wesnewell]

Ref: Coyote 6s 5000mha lipo from leaderhobby.com.
Typical shrink wrap like Zippy, etc. but protective tape at both open ends. Comes sealed in static bag inside plain white box. Short (about 2") JST-XH balance leads, but appear to be larger then normal wires. Unterminated power leads are about 6" in length and 12awg iirc. Cell voltages varied quite a bit when i got them, from 2.99 to 3.7 iirc. Took long time to balance using an HK-010 to balance each brick, but they all balanced. I've done about 10 cycles on them now as 18s2p, and charge all 6 bricks in parallel. They don't want to balance at full charge as 6s6p very well. After leaving them connected as 6s6p for about 6 hours last night balancing on the HK-010 they balanced out at 4.09v. They seem to perform ok. Did a 20 mile ride yesterday averaging about 20mph and came back with a 32% charge and recharging showed the correct mha charged back in. Paperwork that came with shows this:
Product: Lithioum ion battery
Composition:
Steel Copper Aluminum 31%
Polypropylene 19%
Lithium cobaltite 29%
Organic solvents 13%
Salts 1%
Negative electrode: Carbon
Positive electrode: Lithium cobaltite (LiCoO2)
Electrolyte: Solution of lithium hexafluorophosphate (LiPF6) in a mixture of organic solvents.
Nomimal voltage: 3.0V *this seems weird*

That 3.0 nominal voltage has me wondering if any of this is right. With only a 10c discharge rate (20c burst) and the way it balances at close to 4.1V I'm wondering if this isn't really some other chemistry. I think I'm going to start charging to 4.1V and see how it likes that.

[neptronix]

weird.....

3.0v nominal would be a characteristic of some odd chemistry i've never heard of.
Cells coming from 2.99v to 3.7v stored is bad news.

6p of 5ah = 30ah... that *should* take forever to balance, so that's not a fault of the batteries.

We need some discharge graphs out of a proper balancing charger.

[neptronix]

OK. I got an email back from leadershobby.

They are apparently 0.1C charge, 3-5C discharge Li-Mn.
I have a super super hard time believing that they can only take a 0.1C charge. That's 10 hours. Not even the crappiest of all laptop cells has a charge rate THAT low. Am asking for a spec sheet.

Li-Mn is good stuff though. Usually 500-700 cycles to 80%, and it is said by many that this formulation is self-balancing.. same stuff as the konions/bionx pack.

I'll wait for a spec sheet. If the 0.1C charge figure is misquoted, it's on. If it's correct, i will order one sample pack and abuse the piss out of it liveforphysics style to see what it can really handle and how safe it is..

[parabellum]

Good info wesnewell!

Would be cool to have composition info of Turnigy and/or Zippy cells. Found nothing on google.

weird.....

3.0v nominal would be a characteristic of some odd chemistry i've never heard of.
Cells coming from 2.99v to 3.7v stored is bad news.

We need some discharge graphs out of a proper balancing charger.

Maybe just auto correction problem. Nominal and minimal. It was surely auto translated and auto corrected from Chinese. I reed a lot of nonsense in Chinese product manuals, I even remember one of my PC bios was kind of auto translation nonsense.

[bobcourtney]

I bought 2 5000 mAh 22.2V (6S) 10C Coyote lipos from leaderhobby.

I put them in series and ran my bike (9fet Lyen into a 9X7 NC motor) at 30 to 40 Amps coming off the battery (6C to 8C).

As I recall, I observed a large voltage drop ( 1O or more volts) and significant heating of the packs. I did a rough estimate of internal resistance and came up with around 200 milliohms for each of the lipos packs. At 2A, discharge they do deliver close to 5000 mah.

They don't have the punch that I would like. I would recommend lipos from another vendor.

PS Cell voltages were typical lipo - 4.2 V at full charge. 3.0 V below the edge of the cliff.

[wesnewell]

weird.....

3.0v nominal would be a characteristic of some odd chemistry i've never heard of.
Cells coming from 2.99v to 3.7v stored is bad news.

6p of 5ah = 30ah... that *should* take forever to balance, so that's not a fault of the batteries.

We need some discharge graphs out of a proper balancing charger.

I've got a Hyperion 1420I charger, but I've never used it for anything except charging. Don't know if it's capable of graphs or not. I'm not sure if I ever read the instructions.

[neptronix]

I bought 2 5000 mAh 22.2V (6S) 10C Coyote lipos from leaderhobby.

I put them in series and ran my bike (9fet Lyen into a 9X7 NC motor) at 30 to 40 Amps coming off the battery (6C to 8C).

As I recall, I observed a large voltage drop ( 1O or more volts) and significant heating of the packs. I did a rough estimate of internal resistance and came up with around 200 milliohms for each of the lipos packs. At 2A, discharge they do deliver close to 5000 mah.

That's actually not too far off with how 20C lipo will respond. Run 10AH and you'll halve your voltage sag. Run 20AH and you will cut that number by 1/4th.

I ran 42a on 5AH of 20C lipo ( zippy ) for a while and it ran like crap too. 4-5 volt drop at 8C-9C on a 20C battery... significant heating.. lost amp hours.. etc.


Always always run batteries at less than 1/2 their discharge rating if you want them to live. 1/4th the C rate or less is even better.

[mvly]

I bought 2 5000 mAh 22.2V (6S) 10C Coyote lipos from leaderhobby.

I put them in series and ran my bike (9fet Lyen into a 9X7 NC motor) at 30 to 40 Amps coming off the battery (6C to 8C).

As I recall, I observed a large voltage drop ( 1O or more volts) and significant heating of the packs. I did a rough estimate of internal resistance and came up with around 200 milliohms for each of the lipos packs. At 2A, discharge they do deliver close to 5000 mah.

They don't have the punch that I would like. I would recommend lipos from another vendor.

PS Cell voltages were typical lipo - 4.2 V at full charge. 3.0 V below the edge of the cliff.

Given the quality of the unknown brand lipo, I would play it safe and only draw 50% of rated C meaning 25Amps at most. Looks like you really need to get more cells in parallel to fully test these lipo. Not doubt these are far from the nanotech quality, but for a cheap battery solution, it might serve well.

[parabellum]

https://www.leaderhobby.com/product.asp?ID=9394001226065

either an unlabeled unit, or battery medic imitation. But for $10, it may be worth the gamble..

There is some serious buying going on, from 10+ to -40 in 2 days! Also few batteries I was looking are negative stock now. I wonder if ES members have something to do with that.

[neptronix]

fingers crossed.
I ordered the last 5s 10AH transmetic pack they had in stock O_O..
Shipping cost was $20..

[ohzee]

Good Luck - the prices do look pretty good I am tempted by that 6s 10ah battery.

Cant wait to hear some more progress reports on how they fair shipping times etc...

[competitions]

I bought 6 of their 5000mha 6s 10c Coyote lipo packs for $21.60 each. With shipping about $200.

Looks like they hiked the price up to over $27 now.

With the low C rating how would 4 run in parallel (20ah, 22V) cope with a 500W cyclone motor setup (can use all the bikes gears), especially going up hills?

[wesnewell]

I bought 6 of their 5000mha 6s 10c Coyote lipo packs for $21.60 each. With shipping about $200.

Looks like they hiked the price up to over $27 now.

With the low C rating how would 4 run in parallel (20ah, 22V) cope with a 500W cyclone motor setup (can use all the bikes gears), especially going up hills?

Well, I'm running mine as 18s2p for 10ah 66v and haven't had a problem with a 40A controller. 20ah would be rated fro 200A, so I wouldn't worry about it unless your controller pulls more than 100A.

[Harold in CR]

As I posted in an earlier reply, I had a problem using their shopping cart. I notified them, and, got a response within 24 hours. The woman asked what my problem was. I just copied and pasted the original comment. She said to try again. I did, no luck. I Went to the Haiyin site, and, same problem.

I ended up using Hobby King in the states. My Son did the order for me, and will mail batteries to me.

What I wanted to relay here, was, The same woman responded, trying to be helpful, a total of 3 times. She asked if the information she wrote to me was correct, AND, offered me a few $$$ off of their sale price, and excellent shipping rates, If I was still interested.

If I hadn't already made the purchase elsewhere, I would have done her deal.

THIS Is how WE did business for over 18 years in our Manufacturing business. I don't know how good their batteries are, BUT, everyone here has comments about bad business practices. Why not give these folks a REAL try ???????????? They have 2 warehouses in the USA, Miami and another that I can't remember right offhand. They have motors, and kits for models and possible connectors, that my Son could NOT buy from the USA Hobby King warehouse. ?????????

Just my worthless 2 cents for all y'all.