lifeP04 48v 20Ah compare - Cammy Vs Ping

[Vaporthug]

My roommate and I both ordered the latest 48v 20AH lifeP04 batteries on Ebay.
I have a
http://www.electricrider.com/crystalyte/roadrunner.htm
with the 25 Ah controller Im seeing 25 MPH top speed My bike wins the 0-Top Speed, hands down.
Roommate has the
http://www.electricrider.com/crystalyte/phoenix.htm
Racer 4840 35 MPH top speed, this bike wins the 15 mph -to Speed MPH hands down.

Cheapskate me took a chance on an off brand reseller, that even had some questionable business techniques and posts, assumably, lost in translation
... Cammy of Ebay

P

Price :::Winner - Cammy !!!!!
Cammy 610.00 Total
Ping 1200 Total

Shipping :::Winner - Ping !!!!
Cammy Free -15 days (2 days late)
Ping -1 Day ( How did he do that! From China)

Correspondence ::: TIE
Cammy - Broken english, and unanswered questions, asked for company delivery, but was delivered to home...
Ping - My roommate had 2 offers from a 2nd chance offer, but ended up getting the higher price bid, he requested the lower price, but didn't even get a reply at all.

The Goods ::: TIE
I took my battery to a local battery place, that is big online All-Battery, and had them check it out.
It is the newest cells, and the BMS looked exactly like the ping, the entire battery looks exactly like the ping with exact same dimensions, and weight,.
My charger is cracked, but operative. All-BAttery tested it at 5.2 Ah charge, thought it says 3 AH on the charger. Its larger than the 2 AH charger from ping, but they both seem to charge the batteries about the same, detailed tests coming this week, with pictures of chargers, and some test results....
Based on my chargers cracked, yet it is 50% better potential, I think this is a tie, until further testing.

Testing ::: COMING SOON
We both bought Watts UP, and a few other Diag's to do some more in depth testing, though its looking like we basically have the same battery.
SO far I have put only 100 miles on at most, with no problems, and never running out of pull.
Roommate cant floor it under 10-15 MPH without the battery cutting out, outside of that, my roommate has traveled over 30 Miles on a single charge.

Next we will swap batteries, ands see if that makes a difference, and do some charging and Watts Up measurements.
Let us know what you would like to see as well

 

[swbluto]

If you could, somehow, measure the internal resistance of the batteries, that'd be great. Basically, exhaust some amount of energy from the batteries from a fresh charge(put them in series would ensure they exhausted the same amount of current: attaching them to a regular 110 V bulb would be fine, and just wait 1 or 2 hours. Of course, protect them using diodes with Fechter's advice in the "EV basics" category/sub-forum.) and then. Measure one battery's voltage and discharge current for two different test currents(Say, a 40 watt bulb and a >100 watt bulb. Any difference is good, as long as it's fairly large) and then the internal resistance = (v_1-v_2)/(i_2-i_1) where v is the voltage and i is the current, and the "_x" subscript denotes the test number(v_1 is the voltage form test 1. i_1 is the current from that same test. v_2 is the voltage from test 2. i_2 is the current from that same test.). Do this for the other battery. Voila, the internal resistance.

It'd tell you how much the batteries are "similar" in performance which might add support to their cells being from the same source.

 

[dogman dan]

Nice to hear Cammy is shipping pretty promt and seems to sell a good battery. With so many new sellers coming and going, and some of them the same person, it will be very nice to add another legit seller to the list. She got a bad start, with those first auctions. She can make up for that by dealing honestly with any problems that arise in the future. Good cells will be plentiful soon so other sellers will not automaticly have dumpster cells. A few sellers allways will.

I assume the price for the ping pack was an auction. I hate to buy ebay unless its a buy it now price.

 

[Fredo]

Hi,

Sorry to hijack this thread as I am a little bit off topic.

I received a week ago my LiFePo4 12Ah/48V comming from Cammy and have been spending my time up to now to put in place a testbench to evaluate the performance of the new pack.

I am now able to dump automatically to my PC voltage measurement for each 0.1ah burnt.

After 3 full charge and discharge (at 0.3c -3.5amps for the discharge), I am able to output only 9Ah. After reporting this problem to Cammy, I was about the return my battery but here after their answer:

"Hi,friend.

Thanks for your letter,
We have told your situation to our technicians.
They told us your situation is normal,
After charging the 48V12AH just have 9AH,
After 30 times charging&discharging it will reach to 12AH.
If you have any question pls feel free to contact us again,my friend.

Kindly regards!"

Could you believe that the full capacity is reached after 30 cycles ?
I will try to do some more charge discharge cycles and see if I can see an improvement.

Fredo

 

[pwbset]

Could you believe that the full capacity is reached after 30 cycles ?

Read quite a few times here on the forums that LiFePO4 takes awhile to burn in and reach full capacity so it's probably true... I don't know about 3 full amp hours, but I bet you start seeing better performance after awhile.

 

[ping]

Vaporthug, good post. Please go ahead.

Also, I need to explain something that could be misunderstood from your roommate.

1) We cannot ship batteries to the US in only 1 day.

2) We never sent second chance offer in the past 6 months. But there's someone else that is using her other accounts to bid higher prices even win auction at higher prices and then send second chance offers in order to make more money. She even used these accounts to win competitor's auctions and left negative feedback.

3) We replied EVERY email or message from who had ordered batteries or won ebay auctions. If it's not true, there must has been someone complaining here already. Maybe we have missed some emails or messages from potential buyers. But post-sale service has first priority always. We'd rather loose some potential business than dissapoint who have already been our customers.

Fredo, batteries need to be activated. Mostly activation needs 3-10 cycles. Maybe your cells need more.

Ping

 

[johnrobholmes]

I have always read 5 cycles for break in, but capacity shouldn't be affected so much! Keep cycling it and see what happens. Sounds like crappy cells to me.

 

[dogman dan]

With the cells in these duct tape batteries, a lot of people seem to get a half amp hour or so less than the rated capacity. After about 6 cycles you should see a big improvement in capacity. If it never comes up to 11 ah, though, there may be a few weak cells in there. This is part of why I keep harping endlessly, buy the 20.

 

[commanda]

I'm assuming this would hold true for all LiFePo4 cells, including my 40 AHr Thundersky's.
So, I'm wondering how far one needs to discharge the cells during the initial period, to bring them up to full capacity. Because I'm only using about 10 AHr between charges at the moment. Maybe I should be going for 2 or 3 days (20 or 30 AHr) between recharges.

And maybe I need a seperate battery to power my Doc Wattson meter, so I don't lose the AHrs used every time I stop.

Amanda

 

[Spanky]

question - I'm considering purchasing a Ping 48v 20 ah for my phoniex racer 48v bike - is your roommates a 48v 20ah battery that cuts out? What happens when it cuts out?

Thanks for all the info!

 

[Ypedal]

This " Break In " period sounds very fishy to me, only reason i can think of to cycle the packs to gain capacity is because of a very poorly ballanced / inconsistent cell behavior / self discharge issues.. maybe low rate ballancing requires many cycles to fully charge the pack.. but in any case.. the green prystmatic cells with threaded lugs i got ( same as what ebikes.ca is/was selling ) had full capacity from round 1 after a full charge with single cell chargers... My PSI cells produced the rated capacity right off the batt, ...hmm..

but cycling 30 times for a break-in period ? wtf is that crap ? Ask him to have his technitian explain in technical terms why this is required .. i'd love to hear that...

 

[Link]

I wouldn't doubt the balancing being the reason for 30 cycles.

My Ping pack had been sitting around becoming very unbalanced for months. I got a new BMS wired up and started charging it, but it still isn't quite balanced two days later (BMS only balances at like 100mA).

 

[dogman dan]

Balancing seems to be the issue, or at least with my Ping pack. During the break in period, the charger and bms would do the balancing routine, turning on and off. Once the pack was broken in, I have not seen it balancing since, and checking it, showed a balanced pack. About 120 cycles now. I don't know if new cells have a harder time balancing or not.

I think to run the big crystalite motors you should have a big pack, 24-30 ah. Or the PSI cells, or A123. It's expensive, I know, but it's much cheaper if your c rate doesn't cost you cycles.

 

[johnrobholmes]

And this is why I buy cells with tighter quality control. 10 cycles with no balancing and I still don't have a cell out of whack. Im hooked on a123 for commutes less than 12 or 15 miles.

 

[dogman dan]

I wouldn't say Pings cells have lower quality controll, just lower ability to discharge at a high rate. 120 cycles and my pack is balanced perfect. I wouldn't call that poor quality. I should be fine as long as my discharge rates fit the capability of the cells.

 

[johnrobholmes]

You have a bms on your pack too don't you? I am referring the the tightness of capacity and resistance of cells. I'm certainly not going so far as to say that a ping pack won't work, it seems to be great for the price and longer distance commutes. I just know how much variation can come from factories.

 

[dogman dan]

Yes I have a bms and it works fine. I don't have the expertise or the tools to do real testing for how matched my cells are. All i know is I can't detect any degradation in range before it cuts off, and my crude voltmeter can't measure any difference in cell voltage any of the times I've checked it. All cells real close to 3.5 v. In 120 or so cycles I have rode till cut out only a few times, but once was just the other day, and I got 20 miles, just like I allways have except the first few rides while breaking it in. I've been charging with regular sla chargers for three months now, maybe 80 cycles and usually discharge to 50% in the morning and 75% in the afternoon. It's the 36v 20 ah and my discharge rate averages about 1c.

 

[StevenR]

Replying to Spanky's question (although it's a bit off topic - is there a more appropriate thread out there? - I'd like to discuss this further). I have a Phoenix Racer 5303 48V with 48V40A Crystalyte controller and I just bought a Ping 48V 20aH and it has just barely enough current capacity for the motor. This is not a dig at Ping - he advertises this for up 1000W bikes and this rig is 1920W (48Volts@40Amps) and it really draws more starting out from rest. If you nail the throttle from a dead stop or at low speed the BMS sees excesive current and drops out. I need to cycle power to reset the BMS. You just need to take it easy on startup then it's OK. Once I'm moving I can run flat out until I run out of road or guts (I hit 39 MPH on my first ride today and then I ran out of road). If you have the money and/or a place to put it, go for a 30 AH unit with this rig. That should take care of the dropout issue.

I've also heard of people bypassing the BMS on discharge but I'm reluctant to do so. Is there a way to tweak the BMS to get just a little higher discharge limit (I peaked at 59.08A according to my cycle analyst but I'm still having trouble getting it to curret limit properly so I can't do it there)? I am also considering a second 48V20ah to run in parallel. I'd get the bypass diodes from eBikes.ca but are there other issues? Given my mounting considerations (I would split the second battery and put one half in each pannier) two 48V10aH might fit better. Are there issues with putting different capacity batteries in parallel with each other?

 

[julesa]

Wasn't cammy_cc one of the vendors who copied and pasted Ping's ebay sales pages several weeks ago, and was working all the angles to manipulate ebay feedback ratings? Why would anyone even consider doing business with someone like that? How did this thread go so long without anyone pointing that out? Just because cammy_cc has actually shipped a couple batteries and they turned out to actually contain lithium shouldn't excuse her from all the other shenanigans that have gone on.

 

[Spanky]

Thanks for the response Steven - one more question when the BMS cuts out - how long before it re-sets, is it a matter of backing off on the throttle and accerlatering slowly? Thanks for the help. I'm just about ready to purchase a Ping, beem waiting for the shipping restrictions to end!

Thanks

 

[dogman dan]

To reset a bms cutout, unplug and replug the battery. Or cycle a switch if you have one.

Thanks for the post, your batteries behaviour with at 5000 series crystalite is just about what I have been telling folks it would be. It works, but not perfectly. I suspect even a 24 ah battery would be a big enough one, but a 30 ah would do fine I'm sure. But Pings bms would still cut out at 60 amps though. Maybe at some point you could get a custom bms set to 65 amps. Now you have a fun decision, sell the 20ah pack quick, before you can stress it enough to make it hard to sell, or just bypass the bms and see how many cycles you get. Two 20 ah packs would be a lot to carry. Selling the motor and going to a 408 would work great, but a lot slower.

Yes Cammy is the one of at least three that I have seen that tried to pass thier packs as the same as Ping. They are extremely similar as far as we have heard so far. I'd love to see a pic of the opened pack, last spring Anna- New journey had similar to pings, but the assembly was not as sturdy so a few folks had broken connections. One thing Cammy has going for her, she seems to ship a functioning pack in a timely manner. That is a big improvement in my book over Mr Lau!
She still has a lot to prove but so far she has NOT ripped anybody off that I have heard of.

 

[julesa]

One thing Cammy has going for her, she seems to ship a functioning pack in a timely manner. That is a big improvement in my book over Mr Lau!
She still has a lot to prove but so far she has NOT ripped anybody off that I have heard of.

Except Li Ping, I'd say she ripped him off when she was trying to pass her batteries off as being his. Is using fake accounts in the ebay feedback system to raise her feedback score and lower her competitors' OK in your book?

 

[dogman dan]

No it's not. And you know I am totally supportive of Li Ping. I'm just trying to give her a distinction between agressive selling tactics and downright shipping junk crap, like Mr Laueastjummywuetcetc. Some people aren't going to give a damn about that stuff, and only want to know if she will ship a thing that works. Sadly, a lifepo4 battery seller that actually ships a functioning product is still something to be happy about. Show me people that want their money back from Cammy and I will change my tune quick. Ebay feedback is as full of lies as mortagage securities. So why take it seriously?

 

[julesa]

Ebay feedback is as full of lies as mortagage securities. So why take it seriously?

I always take lying and deception seriously when I'm doing business with someone. Using fake accounts to manipulate feedback is lying. What makes you think she is more honest with her battery specs than with her feedback? Do you really think Fredo's battery capacity will improve by 3Ah over the next 30 cycles?

 

[dogman dan]

If his battery acts just like mine did, it will improve. How much, I don't know. I couldn't tell you how many ah my Ping pack delivers in on the bike use. All I know is the first couple rides I got about 15 miles of range, and after about 6 cycles the range settled in at about 20 miles, where it has stayed unchanged for 120 cycles. A 25% increase in performance. I'd say being 3 ah short on the first few cycles is just about what you'd expect. Those first cycles the battery would continue to balance itself for hours and hours. It's important to let it do that at first.

I have yet to hear of a duct tape pack that when accurately measured delivered the actual ah of the pack in on the bike use. The best I have seen posted was about .5 ah short. The PSI cells do much better than that, and seem to be a bit oversise for the stated amp hour. The duct tape packs are more likely to need to retain about an amp hour or slightly less to keep from overdischarging. It would be nice, if they added a few more grams to be able to discharge the full ammount but that is the way they are made, deal with it. It's not Cammy's fault, it's the manufacturer.

I don't approve of shady ebay practices either, and don't expect you to buy a Cammy battery. But like I said, some folks won't care about that. They just want a cheap as possible price. Thats how all the round cell pack buyers got ripped off. But if you buy from ebay, good luck weeding out the good sellers from the bad. I sure don't rely on feedback alone to do that. I'd never have sent Ping money without the info I got from this forum.

Cammy is now offering a good price on buy it now for her packs. So no more worrying about the bids getting shilled higher there. So far the packs seem to be reasonable quality, but till we see inside we won't know whether she is using good assembly or exactly what kind of cells are used. I don't think they are a gazillion spot welded round cells. It will be very interesting to see if she continues to sell batteries or becomes someone else. But at least I see no evidence yet that she is really Mr Lau. But If I was sending money, it would get sent to Ping for sure. To me, it would be worth the extra 1 or even 2 hundred.

BTW I am not actually Cammy :lol: