Hobbyking Customer Service.

Ypedal said:
Worst packaging to date..... the mail man handed it over in shame.....
View attachment 2

All loosie goosie.. air pouches all popped...
View attachment 1

thankfully each pack was well wrapped in stronger bubble wrap.



and all 4 packs arrived at 3.65v + - 0.05v

Wow, your batteries were better wrapped then mine! Each battery came wrapped in a very thin foam film inside it's own box, and then each battery's box was put inside a big box. So, the only thing protecting the battery was two layers of cardboard + 1 very thin foam layer.
 
Ypedal said:
Worst packaging to date..... the mail man handed it over in shame.....
View attachment 2

All loosie goosie.. air pouches all popped...
View attachment 1

thankfully each pack was well wrapped in stronger bubble wrap.



and all 4 packs arrived at 3.65v + - 0.05v

Are there any warnings on that box ?

I bought some batteries from a seller in the USA and it had li ion battery warning stickers all over it and they were not rc lipo.
 
swbluto said:
Ypedal said:
Worst packaging to date..... the mail man handed it over in shame.....
View attachment 2

All loosie goosie.. air pouches all popped...
View attachment 1

thankfully each pack was well wrapped in stronger bubble wrap.



and all 4 packs arrived at 3.65v + - 0.05v

Wow, your batteries were better wrapped then mine! Each battery came wrapped in a very thin foam film inside it's own box, and then each battery's box was put inside a big box. So, the only thing protecting the battery was two layers of cardboard + 1 very thin foam layer.

Did your box have any li ion battery warning stickers on it ?
 
I just took delivery on the last 5 ah of my new 48v 14s 15 ah pack. 100% good cells. No complaints this go round, except for the lack of availability of 6s at the USA warehouse.

I'm happy now, with enough new battery to get to groceries and back again.
 
etriker said:
Were there any li ion warning stickers on your box ?
You know well enough that there aren't warning stickers. :)

Complaining to the Postmaster General would be more effective than getting worked up about it here.
 
No battery warnings on the box. I won't buy HK batteries that ship from china now that we have a USA warehouse. The boxes come in pretty good shape compared to shipped from china stuff.

They do come ground shipped. So at least I don't worry about them flying.
 
dogman said:
No battery warnings on the box. I won't buy HK batteries that ship from china now that we have a USA warehouse.

They do come ground shipped. So at least I don't worry about them flying.

I have to admit, the batteries are much cheaper now than they were when they were exclusively shipped from china, even taking into account the once-in-a-while 20-30% defect rate. I won't complain about that!

I'm in my fourth discharge cycle, and it appears I only have 300watthours in my batts? Weird considering that it seems like it should have ~480 watthours...

I had to pedal a lot towards the end of that ride and my muscles are feeling it.

Am I doing my calcs wrong?

22.8Volts * 8 6s packs * 2.65ah/pack = 483 watthours.

Does it take sometime to "break in" or something? I checked the connections, they're fine.
 
I have ordered 53 hard case packs so far ALL GOOD! I ordered 8 6s 5000 mah packs ALL good. I ordered 2 3s 1000 mah packs and they were good as well.
So don't worry the ratio of bad packs to good packs is not that bad.
I hope it wont be long until the better quality batteries come down in price.
 
Heh, I'm suspecting the batteries I ordered have a bad reputation, hence why they were the few batteries of that type (6s 20c) available at the time.

Damn. It.

If anyone's curious, they were 6s 20c 2.65ah zippy flightmaxs.

I've had good experiences with the turnigy brand in the past.
 
Yup all of mine have been Turnigy!
 
All my defects, 3 packs were turnigy. It's not really brand dependent so much as good batch vs bad batch. It's just a luck thing really. FWIW, when I order, they don't know I'm dogman from the sphere. I do tell vendors that might give a hoot who I am, but not HK.

It would be nice if batteries were re checked when they got to the USA warehouse, but you just know they aren't.
 
dogman said:
All my defects, 3 packs were turnigy. It's not really brand dependent so much as good batch vs bad batch. It's just a luck thing really. FWIW, when I order, they don't know I'm dogman from the sphere. I do tell vendors that might give a hoot who I am, but not HK.

It would be nice if batteries were re checked when they got to the USA warehouse, but you just know they aren't.

Anyone that would pack and send batteries like they do are either total jokers or don't know or care very much about battery safety.

So yeah, for poorly packing rc lipo and not putting warning labels on the boxes HobbyKing USA is a piece of $#!&?? ! ! !

Says etriker from the sphere ! ! ! :)

http://about.usps.com/postal-bulletin/2012/pb22336/html/updt_004.htm

http://www.ups.com/content/us/en/resources/ship/packaging/guidelines/batteries.html

http://www.fedex.com/gb/about/enews/articles/0309article7.html
 
dogman I am way in ebike battery pack Arduino land and when I come down boy do I have some neat stuff to show ya'll.

You are going to need an small A123 m1 cell pack though and I don't see anyway around it.

They will do stuff no other cell will do that I know of.

Learn how to solder a small pack together.
 
i ordered 80 turnigy 5ah 20C 6s packs from china, only 2 of them had cells that were out of balance and none of the cells were at zero volts or puffed. that was two years ago.

one year ago i ordered 37 zippy flightmax 5.8ah 10s packs from usa warehouse, 2 of them arrived with one cell at zero volts, and one pack had a little bit of corrosion on one balance tap, it had gotten some water in the packaging somewhere, i dunno if it was before or after shipping though. all of the turnigy that i had, even after running them into the ground (accidentally, using them for different stuff and not using bms) i was able to bring back just by charging them.

but with the zippy, once they discharge too far there is no bringing them back, and even had a few of them puff and flame by discharging them too far. the catch is that i was using the turnigy with 9 parallel strings, and the zippy with only one string, so it's not a very fair comparison.

overall though i think i like the quality of the turngiy packs much better: the cells are all soldered to a PCB that holds the tabs, rather than the tabs simply welded/soldered to each other. and the turnigy balance wires are made of silicone, while the zippy are just cheap pvc. the zippy come with better main bullet connectors and 8awg instead of 10awg wire though.

just my thoughts
 
Sorry about the bad batteries.

I've been really lucky with Hobby King. Many RC batteries of various brands, and 12 6s 5Ah and 9 6s 2.65Ah Turnigys received as ordered and no bad cells. Every order has been complete. A collection of anecdotes is as close as we may come to "data."

The 2.65Ah batteries were a bit under spec in capacity. The 5Ah batteries were a bit over spec.

Hobby king and the low-quality Chinese manufacturers are heroes of this movement.
 
swbluto said:
I'm in my fourth discharge cycle, and it appears I only have 300watthours in my batts? Weird considering that it seems like it should have ~480 watthours...

Am I doing my calcs wrong?

22.8Volts * 8 6s packs * 2.65ah/pack = 483 watthours.

Does it take sometime to "break in" or something? I checked the connections, they're fine.
Well i hope you are not planning on 100% DOD ?
Where do you get the 300Whr figure from ?
did you check each cell for condition, max & min volt balance, IR, and capacity ?
Rather than rely on calculations, did you check the full pack capacity when you charged it ?

Just to add, of the various HK lipo packs i have had, only the Zippy packs have been problematic ( puffy cell, low capacity , etc) .. Also the Zippy packs all have a much higher IR than the Turnigy packs. ( All similar 5Ahr , 20C packs)
 
Guess that some cell from batteries puffa out when they are thrown like basket and rugby balls in the parcel and lettermail warehouses. 5m throws and 2 m drop, 5m drop bomp bomp... Yeah another casing plus bubbelwrap is really good to have.

Thats why i buy only hardcase and also when they have alot in stock. (3batt packs per order 5ah). They seem to be good and working i havent really tested them scientifically but will soon. Hk orders of 12 packs. I got one Germany order now, se how it holds up when i recieve it.

:lol:
 
I've been having some pretty serious-ass problems with hobbyking. I ordered six of the zippy flight max 20c 6s 5ah packs nearly two months ago from the USA warehouse, get the standard 5-7 day shipping. Two weeks go by and I'm wondering where the frak are my batts. The website says my order is "unpaid" even though my credit card says I did so I try to locate customer service. I had ordered things like wires and battery monitors/medics, but had never ordered batteries before and spent so much money.

Try the phone number, no answer.

Try the web app, no response.

Search the web for a US number, no such thing. Find out I have to call the number during Hong Kong business hours and when I do they tell me the batteries I had paid for were no longer in stock. So I pay a bit more for the 25c.

It took a bit more than two weeks to get them to me but they arrived today. No puffers, no dead cells and all of them well within a point of each other.

Hell yeah.
 
This is a small vent from me about HobbyKing, if you already know how bad their customer service is then please skip.

I placed an order for two 8000mAh 6S Nano-Techs, they took payment immediately and then........ nothing.

After waiting for three days I contacted them where eventually they said the postage address didn't match the credit card address.

Now to realise how stupid this is let me just say I have five previous orders from them, all LiPo, all the same credit card and all sending to the same address.

However this time they tell me I might be an identity thief !

Day passes.

They say send us a picture of your credit card. I do. They say still not good enough.

Days passes.

They say send us your bank statement. I do. I even send them a picture of my drivers licence.

Days passes.

Then there's a message from their accounts team saying that I didn't need to provide bank statement credit card picture was enough.

Items are finally sent ' Parcelforce Euro Priority' the only option.

Now parcel sent from mainland Britain to the Channel Islands take two days, sometimes three.

Six days later my parcel turns up and I stare in disbelief.

At first I think they have sent me an empty box.

I unravel a small bit of wrap to find two tiny 1S 130mAh Lipo batteries.

I don't know what's worse, the rage of such bad service or agony of having to deal with them again to get it sorted.

On to live chat, Hi how can I help you? Wait for an HOUR before another response.

Open a ticket, send them pictures, cross fingers.

Kudos
 
I keep wondering who is running HK now.
 
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