Headway Cells -- distributor / vendor / retailer / seller search

[cherbabm]

Hello all,

I've been foraging ES here for a few days looking for modern (more recent?) mentions of distributors of Headway cells. Search function is pretty good but most of the threads that come up are from c.2010. Also a lot of trash talk of Headway vs. A123/LithiumWerks in the LiFePO4 space :lol: I think we'll try the A123 batteries next after our first build.

I know a quick search on Alibaba will land me dozens of deals on suspect cells -- I'm not interested in those. I'm looking for reputable sources of genuine cells purchased from Zhejiang Xinghai Energy Technology. Those sources may also be on Ali so please let me know if you know of any.

So I'm asking for help making a list of reputable distributors or suppliers. I'm most interested in US, but for anyone's reference feel free to post all.

Before cementing any in the verified list, here are some that I ran across; can anyone verify any of these sources as carrying genuine Headway / Zhejiang Xinghai Energy Technology cells?

- Battery Space aka AA Portable Power Corp - batteryspace.com (for their price they better be genuine!)
- Battery Hookup - batteryhookup.com
- EV Assemble - evassemble.com
- BMS Battery - bmsbattery.com
- EV Lithium - evlithium.com
- EV Components - evcomponents.com

I also reached out to sales@headway-lib.com for any info on distributors that they sell directly to. Some ES folks were in direct contact with people at Headway -- does anyone still have any direct contacts? For direct sale, I suspect their MOQ is higher than the qty 250 pcs I'd like to start with.

I also reached out to Battery Hookup for some proof of authenticity but have not heard back. I'm not trying to criticize anyone's business, just trying to sort out the genuine.

Thanks for your time,
Brian

 

[amberwolf]

These days, I don't know who, other than headway themselves, are genuine resellers of *new* cells, but what project are they for? Meaning, what do you need the cells to be capable of doing?

I ask because it's been shown in various testings that generally, they aren't really capable of delivering the c-rate they are advertised as, among other things. Not as badly overrated as other cells, but enough to cause some people problems with their projects, especially as the cells age.

If you need high power output, it's possible other cells would be better suited to your project.

 

[cherbabm]

Thanks amberwolf, I was afraid someone would say that. I'm working on my first electric motorcycle project. Unintended, our setup looks pretty similar to the Inja guys (YouTube channel) -- Motenergy ME1507 motor and Kelly KLS96601 controller. The intention was to use the 15Ah Headway 40152 cells, 30s4p or maybe 5p. The Inja guys are using some 33140 LiitoKala LiFePO4 cells from Ali that claim 15Ah and "75A continuous, 5C max" (aka the same spec), I think 32s8p.

John at Motenergy shared some dyno test results of the ME1616 motor with me. They don't show supply/battery voltage and current as a function of torque and speed, but based on avg motor phase current and voltage it seemed to me that if we can do bursts of 3C (180A with 4p) from the pack, I bet we get good acceleration and reach top speed. Depends on how much the voltage sags at top speed and our final gear ratio I suppose?

I like the look of Battery Hookup's white labeled cells and the A123/LithiumWerks cells. But I think for our first builds we want to put a stake in the ground, build something easily, and run our own tests/measurements to build an intuition for future builds.

What do you think? Open to all feedback. And thanks again.

 

[amberwolf]

Well, the headway cells are certainly very easy to build into packs, so prototyping with them is simple.

They're not crappy cells, but like most cells they're often touted as higher capability than they really are. (meaning, they *can* do what they say, but not without voltage sag that may be significant enough to affect the total power you get, and also the capacity itself, since the hgiher the rate you drain the pack at the less you can pull out of it in total--think of it like pouring water from one thing to another--if you pour it at a slower rate there's less splatter outside the destination, so more of the water makes it into the destination, but do it too fast and more of it splaters and is lost).