PING OR ECITY that's the question !

Guys, I am ready to order 7 battery + charger combo.

I received both quote from them but i still never had any experience with them.

This is me that annoubced about ecity (BMSbattery) here and it seems that we have a great % satisfaction and this is great!

it appear that ping is also still supplying great products.

I will need 7 x 48V16Ahbattery with 40A continuous BMS and discharge rate and a good 5A charger.

You know that i dont have any time to built them myself and test every single cells like i did with my own pack and that's the reason why i need to order and buy them.

I need your own opinion about both compagny


For me here is the advantages of each compagny:

Ecity:

pos- people seems generally satisfied with their battery
pos- the service seems good
pos- the communication i had with Jack is good but it take alot of time(skype) to ensure Jack understand exactly what we want!
pos- the packaging is good
pos- the construction of the battery case with thick shrink is good
pos- the bms is inside the battery and seems protected
pos- they seems open to add some special demand regarding the battery construction like fiberglass to renforce the case

con- the anounced spec of C rate about the cell is diffenrent than the C about the battery cell= 2C and battery=3C
con- the 5A charger seems having some problems reported



Ping

pos- they seems good about R&D and they upgrade their product with new version.
pos- people seems generally satisfied with their battery
pos- the service seems very good ( 100% on ebay)
pos- the communication i had with Ping is excellent
Pos- the BMS is accessible and have now LED for disgnostic

con- the construction of the battery case with fragile thin blue shrink
con- the bms is OUTSIDE the battery and seems not very protected

here is both of the battery to show you the differences:

Ecity BATTERY

my v1 ping pack is a year and a half old and its still going. i wish i had the bms with the leds. that is a nice feature to have. with soft packs.

the battery charger look like my 5A charger. for the first 2 charging. it didn't produce any sound, after that, it has some funny sharp noise when is charging 3rd time and after 4th, 5th and so on, especially end of the charging time. It has sound like " tick,,, tick,, tick,... " annoying. i don't know what is that? I have ask them, but no reply. Vpower also used that charger 5A. why are they so afraid to tell me? Results, the charging from the charger do charged. i got no problem going for 30km range or more. My distance are short, I enjoy every ride I got. The charger of 5amper can do the charged within 2.5hours for 48v 20hr (range 43kM), short distance it will fully charged my battery lifepo4 for 1 to 2hrs. that is really a fast charger.

kentlim

What's the price difference?

Figure either one has a real world practical c rate of no more than 2c, so that's 32 amps, not 40 in a 16 ah size. So you really need a 20 ah pack for 40 amps. The smaller packs will work of course, especially with a controller in the 20-30 amp range, but the lesser batteries really do need to be sized carefully to the bike to be able to last the really long time. Yes you can push it, but I think that's a good way to find a weak cell fast.

But you know all that, you taught me most of what I know about batteries.

These days, there are lots of other options than Ping that have similar quality cells. I doubt many other sellers have similar quality CS though. But the price difference may be substantial, so pick based on that, and the customers ability to pay more for Ping. If Ping knows who you are, he should be willing to give a better price on a bigger order to get your approval of his product . I can't imagine somebody I'd want touting my product more than the doc.

Thanks dogman Karma and kentlim26,

I reconize that i never tested any ping or Ecity cells.. so my experience about them is still limited. I need your advices like that to help me to decide for buying 7 packs. I dont have time to test them since the request for 7x 100% functional electric bike kit need to be completed soon.

so you state that they are just 2C?

I just wonder cause Ping offered me no problem to install a 40A continuous BMS on them without any doubt... so... if he is confident that drawing 40A on these battery would still keep his products under warrandy and not getting any problem.. that make me confuse about that...

i'll double check with him.

Doc

My ping BMS can handle 43a cont. with no problem. When I get a spike over 48a it will kick out.

Nick

I got a (v2.0) Ping battery in October 08 and used it every day since. Recently upped the controller to 30A, but as you can see from his 'user guide' below, the BMS is 24 Amps Max. And I run it at that regularly. I've had a 25A fuse on it for 5 months... Ride up mile long hill and C/A tops out at 26A and stays there. So I'm surprised if you can get 40A, (now I want a new BMS) but if Ping says you can, I'd trust it. I LOVE the fact that his 48V battery comes hot off the charger at 60V and only hits 48V under max continuous amps. I've had a great experience with him. Was very helpful picking & customizing a battery and answering any Q's I had since then. My charger recently blew at 6 months, 2 days over warranty he gave, but he sent me a new (and much more sturdy) one (that doesn't sing) for only the cost of shipping.

User Guide - 48V12Ah

Specification of Battery Pack and BMS
Rated Voltage: 48 Volts
Capacity: 12 Amp Hours
Weight: 6 kg
Suggested Load: 500 Watt
Max Load: 600 Watt

Specification of BMS (Battery Management System)
Charging Voltage: 61 Volts (Max)
Charging Current: 5 Amps (Max)
Rated Discharging Current: 12 Amps
Max Continuous Discharging Current: 24 Amps
Cut-off Current (Max Current): 30 Amps

The v2 cells are said to be able to handle 3c, but I'm talking about the huge difference between a pack expected to make 500 cycles, and one the customer is demanding to last for 1000 or more. Ideally we'd all be discharging at 1c, and expecting 3000 cycles, but somewhere there is a compromise that has to be made between carrying 40 ah which would suck, and carrying 10 ah and having the battery last only a few thousand miles. It's just my opinion that the current ping offering should be discharged at 2 c or less to increase the cycle lifespan, and the real world proof test will require years of riding to do. But my conservative approach has worked well for me with my ping v1, which has mostly been used at 1 to 1.5 c and now has 4000 miles on it with no loss of range. A lifetime in construction has taught me to de rate the expected performance of everything you need to last. If the customer doesn't mind buying you a new tool when the job is done, then let er rip and fry stuff to get the job done.

I find that for the "ping style" foil pouch batteries either the 36v 20 ah or the 48v 15 ah packs are about the ideal size and weight to carry easily. These sizes will work fine for 90% of the bike motors out there with controllers up to 30 amps. It's really just the 530x motors and some of the cyclones that need 40 amps continuous. It may depend on how we define continuous too. In my riding I call continuous an amp rate I go at for half an hour or more. Even on my uphill all the way home ride, I only max out for about 10 minuites of the hour. If I am going to climb 7% for more time than that, I'll do it at half throttle, in much lower gears. Your customers may not be savvy to that till they melt a few motors, or kill a battery, so you should be conservative telling them what they can and can't do on the bike.

Just exactly what are you pairing up the batteries with? And what kind of riding is expected?

I don't know how soon you need this order completed, but you'll have to wait 3 weeks for ping.
I removed my battery from my bag and put it in my backpack a couple of times while I parked the bike outside: I'm also a bit worried about the thin bms wires getting crushed by the weight of the battery at the bottom of my bag.

My ping works as expected. The bms lights are nice.

I cannot add much about C rate, I discharge mine at 1C and I just build my bike this spring.

I just registered but read this forum a lot during my build. Thanks for the many great posts Doc.
I'm in Montreal and may do a short trip to Quebec this summer.

Velocipede said:

I don't know how soon you need this order completed, but you'll have to wait 3 weeks for ping.
I removed my battery from my bag and put it in my backpack a couple of times while I parked the bike outside: I'm also a bit worried about the thin bms wires getting crushed by the weight of the battery at the bottom of my bag.

My ping works as expected. The bms lights are nice.

I cannot add much about C rate, I discharge mine at 1C and I just build my bike this spring.

I just registered but read this forum a lot during my build. Thanks for the many great posts Doc.
I'm in Montreal and may do a short trip to Quebec this summer.

Click to expand...

You said 3 weeks???


The shipping cost for 3 packs is like 350usd for me.. so i HOPE they will ship ASAP !

Doc

The V3 ping packs will do (Ping claims) 3C continuous and 4.5C burst. I ran my 48V20Ah pack for 3-4 weeks daily pulling 70A peaks, probably closer to 30-35A continuous. No problems so far *knocks on wood*. The 2A charger he supplies is pretty much crap, the fan started making noise after 2 charge cycles I've been following your other ecitypower.com thread and have been thinking about ordering an 8A charger from them. Ping says up to 0.5C charging is fine on the V3, but more will fry the FETs on the BMS.

Personally I kinda like the external BMS. I know I can replace it easily if it dies Judging from how much heat the SMT balancing resistors throw off it might be sooner than later. My infrared thermometer showed almost 250F on a few It melted the tape. The V3 BMS does not have the cool LEDs like the prior versions, though.

The wires do seem a like they could be a weak point, but it should be fine if in another enclosure or bag.

The price without shipping was about 20% higher than the V2.5 pack. My 48V 20Ah pack was about USD$925 total shipped to the US. It did take a couple weeks even paying the outrageous $125 for shipping :x

The V3 ping packs will do (Ping claims) 3C continuous and 4.5C burst.

Click to expand...

What's this about V3? I only see 2.5's still on the website. Do you know something we don't?

Never mind. I finally found several post confirming V3 including this one:

http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=9093#p153065

azisme said:

Never mind. I finally found several post confirming V3 including this one:

http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=9093#p153065

Click to expand...

Yep, just email ping and he'll hook you up. Not sure why they don't have them on the site yet...

Yes, 3 Weeks.

10 working days to build the pack plus 4-5 working days shipping.
At least that's what I waited 2 months ago.

glv : open the charger and and put a drop of oil in the fan bearing to eliminate the noise.

Velocipede said:

open the charger and and put a drop of oil in the fan bearing to eliminate the noise.

Click to expand...

did that when the fan started acting up but that fix only worked for a couple more weeks. Maybe I waited too long...

Velocipede said:

10 working days to build the pack plus 4-5 working days shipping.
At least that's what I waited 2 months ago.

Click to expand...

Same wait for me to build the pack a custom size -- 12.5" x 5.5" x 3" to squeeze into the triangle.

Maybe I can share my life experience with ECITY.

Mr. Xie has been very mannerly. I had good price and no problem with shipping. The LIFEPO4 48V/20Ah shows 53.9 volts on the Cycle Analyst.

Inside the shrink you have a BMS, and many soft layers. When in use the pack becomes colder (chemical reaction?).

2 weeks ago, the pack just fall in the car and the RCA connector sank into the top layer of the pack, punching a 1cm hole inside it. After some sparks, nothing happened. I poured some epoxy glue fillin’ the hole and fix the external isolation. Then connecting the battery pack gives me the same performances than what I got before the “crash”. This product seems to be a though one. Thanks to LIFEPO4 technology.

LogRaam

LogRaam said:

The LIFEPO4 48V/20Ah shows 53.9 volts on the Cycle Analyst.

Click to expand...

Interesting... do you know if he's doing something like 14s @ 3.85v/cell or is it like 16s @ ~3.35v/cell and he's just charging it up conservatively to extend cycle life? Most "48v" packs LFP would be 16s yes? Have you tested to LVC to see if you're actually getting anywhere near 20ah? What kind of sustained amperage can you get out of it? Thanks for sharing the info!

My 48V ping pack shows around 54-55V after the surface charge has drained off. It's closer to 60-61V hot off the charger, though.

Hi pwbset,

Actually I'm not knowledgeable enought to give you this kind of info, but DocBass should help me out soon with a new ebike setup, using these packs.. maybe he can test them and post the results after.

Here's the basic infos about the pack:
Normal Voltage:48V;
Capacity:20 Ampere Hour;
Number of Cells:16;
Charge Current:2 Amperes;
Maximum Continuous Current:40 Amperes;
With BMS/PCM,Charger.