Good Batteries?

[VEGAS]

Thanks for the info @wesnewell It's not a problem to charge them separate....
Are these Honk Kong made ebay RC Lipos good or it's a waste of money ?
Do you know a made in USA RC Lipo battery ?

 

[melodious]

drebikes,

Now that you mention it I guess that's the main thing I'm asking here = " if the seller has a reputation for quality batteries you should be fine."

What sellers have a reputation for quality batteries? Everyone please chime in with good & bad purchases in the past 2 years & how the packs have been used and how they held up.

Thanks,
A

I'll chime in now because this thread is IMHO losing the OP original intent and purpose. Maybe bring him back to solid ground level again.

You have friends into RC. That gives you AMPLE opportunity to learn how to make your own DIY RC battery that alot of folks here do. Just keep within the rules of this potentially dangerous chemistry. If I was in your shoes, I'd go this route. You just need to invest in the charging & monitoring equipment and off you go...

Personally, I've been riding an EM3EV triangled battery 50V 25Ah of Li-NCA running in a 10T MAC 40AMP controller (now CA limited to 30 Amps) and couldn't be happier with the battery for the 3 months I've had it. 1. The triangle bag & battery fits like a glove in my bike's triangle for wonderful handling 2. There is more than enough capacity in my 25 Ah to get me where I want to go 3. The battery is built VERY well 4. It's a safe chemistry so no worries & a BMS. The only downside is the pricepoint. Your going to be shelling out alot of money for this quality.

 

[friendly1uk]

Why do i have to use BMS ?
I will buy a charger with balance is it necessary the BMS ?

You don't. I've never used a bms with my lipo, but it will make for easy charging of a 16s pack. Otherwise, you'll need to split the 16s packs into two 8s packs to balance charge them. Not that hard as I split my 24s pack into 12s packs to charge. There's many ways to do it. Using a bms would just be the easiest way to charge.

A bms will also be the safest and probably cheapest option. While offering a lvc and perhaps other useful facilities such as pack temperature monitoring with currant adaptation.

We just had the 2013 battery fire thread come to a close. Same results as expected. Most fires caused by incorrect rewiring for charging purposes. One pack got squashed and the rest were assorted non bms charging errors. We also had another member loose there house.


Both methods require you to buy the same things. It is just a matter of packaging. Your approach (vegas) could be viewed as 3 blocks. The psu the balance/charger and the battery pack. I suggest tearing the balance charger in two, and putting the balance bit in the pack, and the charger bit in the psu. Then connecting them with just a bit of 2 core for charging. Then go and get a can, there is nothing to do.

There are a few reasons not to use a bms. Charge currant will likely be limited to 10 amps unless you look about. High discharge currant comes at a price. No good for pyromaniacs.


The sony cells are still double my rc lipo costs with no obvious advantage other than safety. However bms protected lipo has an almost perfect safety record. I should spend the money saved using lipo to buy better house insurance. Sorry Japan.

BMS Protected RC LiPo is all I'm interested in still. It is good for a first build, as it will run anything. No buying the wrong stuff, Or being held back from changing your mind. It is bottom dollar and the most flexible

 

[dnmun]

the reason to use a BMS is to protect the battery. it provides short circuit protection on the output so that when the battery is shorted on the output it does not discharge into the short and cause the lipo to overheat and go into thermal runaway along with the heat generated in the short.

the BMS will also protect the battery from being accidentally over discharged by leaving it connected to the load, the controller in this case. i know of 4 cases where lipo was over discharged into the controller.

there are two cases here on the sphere of fires started while charging without a BMS. one fire was started when a balancing charger shorted and the battery went into thermal runaway and the other was from bulk charging the lipo with no protection or monitoring. that led to the loss of the house and vow to never use lipo again.

lipo does remain closely balanced once it has been balanced initially. bulk charging after that runs the risk of one cell being dead and the others have to take the full voltage of the bulk charger. assume a 12S lipo is charged to 50.2V and one cell is dead the 50.2/11=4.56V/cell which is sufficient to cause the cell to go into thermal runaway but it is more likely that one cell will be much higher than the others at this point so bulk charging when one cell goes dead by internal short is almost certain to cause ignition.

for some people there is never ever a good reason to use a BMS. most of the people here know nothing of how a BMS works yet they make profound statements about how they cause fires and ruin the battery, etc.

 

[bose]

Dnmun: Please point us to a reliable bms that works for lipo.

 

[dnmun]

it depends on the amount of current you wanna deliver but agnius found these guys last year and i have bot really powerful BMSs from them, and smaller ones too, all very cheap, under $60 for 80A continuous/150A surge.

http://www.bestekpower.com/pcmbmspcbforli-ionli-polymerbatterypacks/

 

[VEGAS]

Do you think the Honk Kong made ebay RC Lipos are good ? did anyone try them ?
Do you know if there is for sale an RC Lipo made in USA ?
thanks

 

[dnmun]

i do not know of any BMS manufacturers in hong kong or the US. i would never trust the quality of any BMS manufactured in the US. labor costs are so high that the quality would suffer.

 

[VEGAS]

I speak about batteries not BSM, i said i will not put BSM in my scooter, i don't need one !
so do you know any USA RC LIPO battery manufacture ?

 

[dnmun]

nope

 

[wesnewell]

Welcome to ES****Do this before your first post or now (it's retroactive)*****
Please go to the User Control Panel, select Profile, and then enter your city, state/province, and country into the Location field (country minimum) and save it. This will help people help you. Example: Wylie, TX, USA. or just USA, but country as a minimum, and country is the most important. There are many cities with the same name all over the world. Without knowing what country you are in it's hard to make any recommendations. Thank you.
There are lots of batteries on ebay. In the USA, the best place to buy imo is from the USA warehouse of hobbyking.com.

 

[VEGAS]

Country USA
State Oregon !
heheh

So if all RC Lipos are made from Honk Kong why not to buy them from a ebay Honk Kong supplier instead buy them from hobbyking ?
If you read hobbyking has a lot of failure in batteries and they don't test what they send you ! And if you have problems you should ship them back by your self to china ,,,,,, so why not to deal straight with the supplier ?
What do you think ?

 

[wesnewell]

Look to the right and see my location. Now look at one of your post. Do you see a location? Don't expect people to remember where you are from a single post.

 

[Hillhater]

If you read hobbyking has a lot of failure in batteries and they don't test what they send you ! And if you have problems you should ship them back by your self to china ,,,,,, so why not to deal straight with the supplier ?
What do you think ?

I think you should find a supplier that..
1) has a suitable product of proven performance from independent feedback
2) will deal with small retail orders
3) is competitive on price
4) is willing to ship international
5) will accept CC or PPal
6) has any sort of warranty or return policy

 

[friendly1uk]

there are two cases here on the sphere of fires started while charging without a BMS. one fire was started when a balancing charger shorted and the battery went into thermal runaway and the other was from bulk charging the lipo with no protection or monitoring. that led to the loss of the house and vow to never use lipo again.

http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=47012
Last year alone there were at least half a dozen disasters including another house lost. All of which would of been avoided by the use of a bms. Remember most won't report it as they were told over and over again that what they were doing is wrong. Others will just walk away from the hobby entirely. The true figures must be higher than every couple of months.


The $20 oz890 based smart bms can have a temperature probe in the pack to regulate charge and discharge current based on temperature I think. I have not looked at all it's spec, but the facility for this second temperature probe is there. For $20 you get a smart unit your pc can talk to and log or even take command of. Pity it is just 13s or less. Also that postage kills the price and they all seem to need professional attention as the supply line sucks. I end up getting mine for around $70 from a 3rd party in europe who puts them right and tests them. If you have a bmsbattery order coming anyway, then you could buy two knowing one should work after slight modification. Or just give up on them and use bestekpower. It depends if you want to run the bmsbattery gauntlet and maybe get a bargain(if your ordering anyway, making postage free)


I don't see any difference in initial setup complexity or cost between with or without. The wiring is almost exactly the same. The difference is you only do it once with a bms. I'm not sure if newbie's realise this or not.

 

[friendly1uk]

Country USA
State Oregon !
heheh

So if all RC Lipos are made from Honk Kong why not to buy them from a ebay Honk Kong supplier instead buy them from hobbyking ?
If you read hobbyking has a lot of failure in batteries and they don't test what they send you ! And if you have problems you should ship them back by your self to china ,,,,,, so why not to deal straight with the supplier ?
What do you think ?

I don't think they do have a high failure rate. If you want to order extras from them to be sure though, they will still be nice and cheap. That would mean your testing them on arrival though, so something like a b6 charger would be needed. Or you could just trust them.
I think lifepo4 rarely hits it's target. You get less doa, but most seem to fail half way through their life. So you don't get the doa posts that stand out, but they are only half the value you expect. The nanotech seems similar. Good for high discharge but not cycle life.

My lipo has cost me $75 and has covered 1250 miles at 6 cents per mile to date. 4.2v down to 3.0v, no nannying. I should see a 20% capacity drop at around 4.5 cents per mile. 666w bike, nothing special. Average speed 12.6mph.
My pack is 3 bricks, and if one had been faulty I would still have outstanding cost performance.
I'm unsure about postage, I don't think buying extra cells to cover losses would of been a good idea. They would of just sat on the shelf going out of date. They take a couple of days to arrive and postage is very little. Buying extras would of just wasted money.
12 cells is not a large number, but shows I have under an 8.3% failure rate. Actually zero. I do only get 4.76Ah not the full 5Ah but this is cheap stuff. I'm not going to mess about finding 0.24Ah more. I am more than happy when I read thread after thread and realise everyone is paying more per mile, and I'm still over 80% capacity while others are down to 50% and should really be scraped not wrung out further.

I have said a little more than needed, to see if any comparisons come forward that can stand scrutiny. I believe I got the right batteries and used them properly though.

 

[999zip999]

Vegas what is this battery for ? The amp demands of your controller and motor please.