48v 20ah Mr. Lau Chan / Lifepo4.hk pack arrived (May '09)

Ugh. I hate the idea of manually balancing 16 groups.
I will have to find the thread with the 5v cellphone charger trick and use that for now.

Lau has decided to "politely" decline to reply to any of my questions now about 3.66 until I open the pack and show him what's inside. This is yet another part of the stupidity where he just drop ships and doesn't even know the design of his own packs.

Keep in mind the whole 18650 drama started because one of the first few emails he ever sent to me was a reply after I bought the pack that it was built out of 18650 cells.

I am also kicking myself for not absolutely insisting he replace the 5A charger with another 5A charger.
I am fairly certain this 3A charger is more like 2A and my SLA charger is actually more powerful.
 
needWheels, Chan is probably sick and tired of you by now. You're sick of him, too.
First, you probably should have broken in the pack (which I suspect you didn't do) to attain good balancing. Go for short rides and then let charger work for 2 hrs. Repeat. Repeat. No way you correctly broke in the pack, especially with an SLA charger.
I suspect you went too far early on. Larger lifepo4 packs need even more time to break in & balance because of the numerous cells
 
Well remember, most of this drama was started by or caused by him.
He doesn't even know what he is selling - he told me originally it was a 18650 pack.
All this has been on a low boil, everything just has zero priority with him.

I did go for many short 5 mile rides in the first month, 8 miles a couple weeks ago and my first mega long ride was last week.

But if I didn't have my own charger I wouldn't even have a working pack until YESTERDAY when working charger arrived, over 45 days after the sale, and it's a lower capacity/lower quality charger than the original I sent back.

By the way, Lau canceled the account I bought it from yesterday as well:
http://myworld.ebay.com/lukeya59/
No longer a registered user. So negative feedback would be useless. Or he anticipated that.

Let's see what new usernames he's created by selling small electronics on.
What's really strange is the day he canceled the account, Ping popped back on with a bunch of new packs.

ps. RTLSHIP, I can't remember, do you have a foil pouch pack? Does yours charge up to 3.66 ?
 
I charge up to around 59.5 volts. It could go more with a higher tweeked charger, but it doesn't matter because
there is some voltage drop once pack is removed f/ charger.
It's resting voltage is about 56v. that is about half a day after a full charge.
I haven't removed enough of the duct tape to see what's in there.
For $445 USD, I got a pretty good deal. Shipping & charger included. This is a 48/15 pack that weighs 15 lbs.
My complaints are minor compared to yours. Go see olympics2000888 on ebay. He sold me this decent pack .
Is it better than Ping? No that's unlikely. Though there are some Ping complaints out there simply due to the fact he sells so many packs. My pack was made and shipped F/ Shanghai area like Ping's.
 
Ah thanks for the details. Did it charge up to 59v and then 56v rest the first day/week you got it or did it take some breaking in to reach that voltage?

The charger olympics2000888 shows in photos is identical to the replacement one Lau sent me.
Is that what you got? http://endless-sphere.com/forums/download/file.php?id=23485
 
The charger I got says "electric car charger" It doesn't specifically say 3 ah or 5 ah, but it's preetty fast because
a 4.5 mile hard ride is charged in about 1.
The 59+ volts is always what I get with the charger still on it. Once charger is disconnected, there's perhaps a .1 volt drop about every 3 minutes until I get down to around 55.9v. It's been this way since the day I received it.
 
My charger also says "electric car charger" see here: http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/download/file.php?id=23484
So we have the same one I am fairly certain. I still wish I had the 6A charger (really 5A)

I did five miles today and it took 1 hour 15 minutes to turn green but that was "only" 54 volts or so.

But I left it going when green for nearly eight hours, and this being the third time I've done that with the new charger, it finally stopped at 55.9v when I disconnected. Similar to you it's settling .1 every half hour or so.

So I guess it's finally breaking in.

I am still debating cutting it open tomorrow as I've now been warning it's easy to damage these foil packs when opening them and I really don't want to do that. I might just take careful measurements instead.
 
Well at least you are luck to have a somewhat working pack. Mine just died and leaked everywhere. I still have some of the good cells around I might play around with those later or just give them away to someone close by.
 
Ah you were an old "Jimmy Wu" 18650 victim. I simply cannot believe I rolled the dice with the same guy. Walked into it with my eyes wide open, being an optimist for the first time in my life, sheesh

Not sure what I was thinking - actually I do, I was getting really sick of the extremely limited range of my SLA and desperate for a solution I could afford, his was the only game in town, I had not seen the headway 10ah pack and it took many weeks to ship anyway.

I didn't know lifepo4 could "leak" ? You should look at the cammycc ducttape repair thread which is also 18650 and you can see it's possible to take out some cells and save the pack by reducing capacity:
http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=10096

I am trying to figure out who Lau is selling as now, nothing seems to popup yet.
Actually now that Lau is temporarily gone, other vendors have become more prominent.

With "olympics2000888" mentioned earlier by RTLSHIP, they are suddenly selling alot more or are alot more visible too, I wonder if it's yet another Lau account. RTLSHIP, what was the email address for the payment to olympics2000888 ?
 
After 24 hours of settling the pack has fallen to 54.7v and almost perfectly balanced at 3.44 per group

I tried opening it a bit but gave up, it just has way too many layers and I don't want to risk cutting anything important.

However the width on the most internal layer does look like 6 inches exactly which would be correct for 2 rows of pouches.
 
You must know this, but the lifeop4 pack is supposed to settle a few volts after the charging is done. The silight overcharging is needed to balance the cells, giving the slow ones more time to reack the 3.4 volt level. My ping, which still works perfect, charges to 46.5 v and then settles to 44. So all I see here is a pack that is working normally. Nice to hear you got your good charger, and it sounds to me like it is at least a 3 or 4 amp one if not more. So you got what you asked for, time to stop fretting and just ride. You chose to send yer monery to him, so buyers remorse is no reason to want your money back.
 
Hi dogman. Well I am just stressing because it was alot of money and the deadline is closing in and so far I have not been treated well - polite but useless emails over six weeks and I know that future warranty coverage is unlikely if not impossible so I need to be dead certain about what I am being stuck with.

This probably would have started off better if he had not incorrectly told me it was a 18650 pack and if it had been packed/shipped correctly. I would not have been stressed from the way it looked and I would have had a working 5-6A charger in the first place. Never would have given it all a second thought and this thread would have been entirely different.

Today I gave up trying to open it any further because I feared I might pull a wire and be unable to repair it, plus I am getting exhausted and stressed out.

Instead I wrapped it in self-adhesive floor tile to protect it (a trick I learned from ypedal) and put it back on the bike. I never have been able to find a toolbox for it but I like the idea of plastic wrap instead of a metal box anyway.

I noticed it's now charging to 57.1 hot off the charger, but it keeps settling to 54 volts after a few hours.

That's the only part that I'm really curious about because other people with 48v foil packs report 56 volts after settling, and that's immediately after getting the packs, not after a break-in period.

We can't exactly compare your V1 ping because those are 5ah cells, these are 4-4.5 supposedly exactly like Ping V2

ps. this charger is definitely not more than 3amps. But at least it doesn't take my HDTV signal out like my SLA charger does.

pps. My only regret with this pack, which is my own fault after research and not anyone else's, is it's too damn heavy. It's 25 pounds with the wrap and BMS by my best tests with my analog scale. It was interesting to have it out of the bike for half a day, I had forgotten how light the bike used to be.

Maybe I'll be able to resell it one day and just get a 10A 5C Headway pack.
 
By the way, if these cells are rated max 4 amps for charging, since they are 5p does that mean it's really max 20 amps charging for the pack?

I am wondering if I can one day buy a 10+ amp charger for occasional road use, there is a city 40 miles away I'd like to visit someday.

Or does the BMS quality also limit how fast a pack can be charged? I noticed my BMS gets a bit warm (97F) at full charge.
 
I wired up a special connector tonight so I could watch an ampmeter while it charged.

This new charger only outputs 2.65 amps max. I am getting pretty tired of all the little lies, sigh.
 
I have the same 48 v 17-24 ah charger. It charges nearly twice as fast as my 36v 2amp SLA charger, so it must be a 3 or 4 amp charger.
I still think of it as a 5 amp charger because it charges so fast. It's definitely at least 3 amp. Of course, I'm running a brushless motor that's 25% more efficient than the BD.
Probe the charger( without charging the pack) with a multimeter, it should read approx 59v or more when plugged in.
 
Most chargers put out less than the stated amps. My 5 amp charger puts out about 4 amps actual. By weight, you seem to have a round cell pack, but looking at the pics, it's possible that it just has 5 pounds of hot glue. Either way, you now have what you paid for, so good luck and have fun getting a dispute to go through in your favor. Your best option was to refuse delivery when you got the thing and saw the package.

Whatever your particular cells settle down to, It doesn't look like you have a dead paralell group. I don't blame you for being pissed now, and telling us about your experience is the thing to do. Hopefully the next Mr Lau customer sees this, and knows he hasn't really changed the way he treats you after he gets your money that much. Fine if everything is fine, but if not, it's not fun to try to get service out of the dude. At least you have a functioning battery , though capacity may not be as advertised. It may balance better in the future too if you keep the dod light most of the time.
 
needswheels, I have never heard of a 10 amp charger for lifepo4 packs big or small. Maybe with A123 cells you can charge faster, but I'm not sure. 10 amp seems too fast.
97 degrees F on the BMS is not hot enough in my view. My BMS gets so hot after charging that it can maybe burn my finger if left on long enough. more like 130 or 140F on my BMS. Maybe your BMS is different.
 
There are some people like epowercity on ebay that sell chargers that go to 10A and beyond, but reality check shows that the price is going to be far too high for my non-existent budget. Sure would be nice to have the ability to charge the pack once in a while in just a few hours so I could take a 30+ mile trip each way, but I may have to find another solution.
 
dogman said:
By weight, you seem to have a round cell pack
Click to expand...

Actually I realized later that 224 18650 cells are too close to foil to guess by weight

224 * 40 grams = 19.75 pounds (low range)
224 * 44 grams = 21.72 pounds (high range)

so that's the 18650 range for raw cell weight, before welds and glue and tape

80 * 128 grams = 22.57 pounds (foil pouch pack before wire and glue and tape)

If anything, the foil pouch pack will be a pound heavier just by cell weight.
Can wire and tape and glue weigh 2+ pounds? If so, there it is.
Remember my analog scale could easily be off by a pound or two, very easily.

If I can get this pack to hold 56v after cooling for a day off the charger, I'll be more inclined to accept it's foil based.

Lau now insists that it's a foil pack and won't accept otherwise unless I completely cut it open to show him. I'd be more inclined to believe him now if he had not told me a month ago that it was 18650.

Does anyone know what material are used for the welding bars on 18650 packs?
Because if that material is magnetic, that's another easy way to detect 18650 packs.
But copper and aluminum are not magnetic, only real steel would be. Do they use steel?
 
a naked 20ah pack of 80 foil pouches 16s5p, theoretical with no spaces:

width would be 76.5 * 2 millimeters = 153 mm = 6.02 inches
height would be 133.0 millimeters = 133 mm = 5.24 inches
length would be 40 * 6.9 millimeters = 276 mm = 10.87 inches

of course that size is impossible in real life, but this pack:

width: 162 mm (vs 153)
height: 150 mm (vs 133)
length: 276 mm (vs 276)

The length is EXACTLY the same as a naked foil pouch pack.
My measurement could have been off a few mm, and then there is tape and padding that could be a few mm (max) total.

Here is a KNOWN foil based pack:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110380991991
Lau claims on there:
Dimension: 300 X150 X155mm
Weight: 10.3kg


The width is confusing as a naked 18650 pack would be
65 * 2 = 130 mm = 5.1 inches
The 30 mm gap could easily be the spacing for welds and glue
but that does seem excessive as that's over an inch, a great deal for separating just two halves of the pack.

The length of a naked 18650 (14 cells) would be
18 * 14 = 252 mm
Again a 25 mm or so gap. One inch. Still no help.

Height of a naked 18650 pack would be 8 * 18 = 144 mm = 5.7 inches
In this case 18650 would be a tight fit but still plausing with a 6 mm gap

Buried on Lau's outdated lifepo4.hk site for 18650 packs:
Dimension 145*265*150mm
Net Weight ≈10.0kg

So that's almost a square height and width that's similar to this pack but a little smaller.
The width is dead on, so no clues there, he also claims 22 pounds.

See my confusion? It's way too close to call.

Chart:
Code: 
---     this foil 18650  hk  ebay1  ebay2  pingV2
width   162   153  130  145  150    155    160
height  150   150  140  150  150    150    155
length  276   276  252  265  270    300    280

* foil + 18650 are "naked" cells packed right next to each other, theoretical minimums
* hk = what is claimed on lifepo4.hk for 18650 packs
* ebay1 = what was claimed on ebay listing, cell type unknown
* ebay2 = known foil pack on ebay
* pingV2 = same cells, same number of cells as this pack - supposedly
 
Yeah, I see what you mean. Last summer, the ping was 20 pounds, and the lau packs about 25, so then it was easier to tell by weight. I was unaware that the v2 cells are heavier than the old ones. Only one way to tell, but Id ride it as long as possible before peeking. The large ammount of hot glue is typical of the round cell pack pics I have seen. On the v1 pings, the top of the battery had just a few strips of tape to hold down a thick cardboard cover. But others may put pouch packs together different, so it really tells you nothing that this one has lots of hot glue.
 
Last summer Lau packs were 18650 with welds, so larger and heavier.

This one is so close to Ping V2 dimensions, I mean really close, that I now tend to give into the belief it's the same foil packs.

Lau insists based on the dimensions that it's prismatic.

I'd feel much more comfortable if the pack wasn't 54.6 volts after a day of cooling off the charger. Other people say their foil pack is 56v after that long, even when "fresh" from the factory, without break-in.

So that's the last confusing part. lifepo4 doesn't "leak" that fast from what I have read, unless maybe the BMS has some kind of slow drain - I do have the "better" BMS that cammycc uses which the other packs don't seem to use - maybe it has some kind of design bug where it causes a small load/drain?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

izzzzzz6
Lau Chan is giving me great customer service so far
Replies
12
Views
1,929
izzzzzz6
izzzzzz6
Toronto_ebiker
Mr. Lau 48V 15ah Lifepo4
2
Replies
46
Views
5,887
Toronto_ebiker
Toronto_ebiker
Back
Top