Ping 36v 20 ah, 5000 mile review.

[RTLSHIP]

what if there is a really bad cell, a dead cell? Can there be a "surgery" to replace it. This happens with car batteries alot and
the only solution is to replace it.
From what I'm reading the BMS can function like an equalizer when the charger is on.
Are these chargers merely bulk chargers or do they also condition the battery? My cell phone charger for instance has a conditioning mode. Or does the BMS condition battery pack ?

 

[dogman dan]

No conditioning that I've heard of, unless maybe balancing and conditioning are interchangeable terms to the marketing dpt. I have head of battery conditioners for lead batteries that help bust up suphation, but that sulphation doesn't happen with lifepo4. The charger is really just an inexpensive sla charger with the voltage adjusted to match the bms. One nice thing is a second charger can be had really cheap, since regular sla chargers can be used, such as I do. I leave a cheap sla charger at work, and every other charge is done with that one. I was beating up chargers carrying them around. So if something happens to your charger, you can use a cheap substitute for awhile. For me last summer, I got away with it for 100 cycles. A good ping pack like the one I have, has pretty well matched cells in it and is pretty hard to do anything bad to, as long as your motor is not too big.

Bad cells can be replaced in a ping battery. But it is a real pain in the rear. All the lifepo4 duct tape packs are built too hard to replace cells in. That is one place where PSI and Headway have it much better. Thank god I haven't had to learn that skill yet. Ping is very helpfull with supplying any needed new cells , chargers, or bms if the unthinkable does occur. I don't know what the failure rate for his batteries is, but it is very low. The vast majority of us ride on happily and never post on the forum. Other sellers, like the Mr Lau of many selling names, have much higher rates for sending out batteries that never work from day 1.

 

[RTLSHIP]

I've been looking at an ebay vendor named vosgood. Prices are good and 100% rating. free stronger BMS & 3A charger and instructions included. Also, they are gray duct taped packs. Any opinion on vosgood. Ping is also 100% last time I checked but more pricey.

 

[nomad85]

There are lots of fake ebay accounts with 100% feedback, check the previous items sold, if they are not batteries do not buy from the seller, pings feedback is legit.

 

[dogman dan]

vosgood has not turned up on the list of known bogus vendors, but he most likely sells packs made from a hundred or more 18650 round cells connected with fragile spot welds. Ping's use a known to be good source of prismatic cells and pretty solid soldered connections. 2850 miles to date on my ping with no problems. Anybody with big miles on an 18650 cell pack, lets hear from you. We do hear from people with pingbattery problems, but we hear from a lot more problems with the round cell packs. The prices are high, and given that prices were lower last sping, they should come down. But they won't. The better product simply is able to sell for more so it does.

If you want a round cell pack for the lower price, Cammycc has the best reputation of those vendors so far.

 

[dnmun]

i still think the headway is the best deal for the money. only 5% more than ping for a 48V20Ah pack. every bit as good as the primo BMI cells for 1/2 the money in most power demand situations. so buy twice as much capacity for the same dollars. then you have twice the range if you don't get twice the C. jmho

ping should be called pouch, like thundersky. the term prismatic, i found out from one of doc's references, refers to cell configuration similar to the cylindrical cells, except instead of being cylindrical like a jelly roll, the prismatic is folded like strudel, with the electrode and separator wrapped around inside of the rectangular package. the pouches in thundersky and ping are all layered without being folded or wound around each other. justin's lifepo4 is prismatic, ping is pouch. wrapped tight with duct tape to force the electrode and separator stack together.

i used to think it might be best to have the tabs on top, but i think the way dogman does it, with the battery laying on it's side may be better by reducing the load on the tabs and the electrodes and separators all lay flat on each other and maybe that reduces the chance for delamination, but don't know if there may be other problems, since i can't imagine these cells needing to vent under normal operation, ever.

always buy more battery than you can afford, and it will save you enuff money to buy other motors(when you ruin them) by lasting so much longer. imo

 

[dogman dan]

I agree that the headway cells are a bargain. Are ready to ride packs that cheap now? I know the cells themselves can be had for an amazing price, if you buy 120 of em. But I still think the ping is a pretty viable solution for the ordinary, 36v kind of guy who just wants to ride 20 miles and fit the battery in a small toolbox. Once you go to 48v 20 ah, the pack size is so awkward you may as well go to the less space efficient headways, especially if you only need 10 ah for your ride. Lots of stuff goes into the choice, but ping is still one of the best sources of a hook it up and go riding that day kind of battery. He needs to sell a good box for his battery, and he needs to make cell group replacement easier though.

 

[dnmun]

the price JD mentioned is unreal. everybody else paid $19. the 48V20Ah pack was $630, not sure what the price is now, they have the threaded caps now so replacement is easier than it should be, and they have shown a mock up of the new pack with the plastic lego brackets for the ends. if i had some cash i would see if i could get the blue cells with the welded tabs, 48V20Ah and see if victoria would sell me one at a good price if they are gonna phase them out in favor of the new screw tops. kurt and voicecoils have the welded tab blue cell packs, but headway doesn't sell the charger, and it looks like the chargers they found to put into the shipping container with the group buy packs are not the best chargers around. so headway is getting tarred with having a poor BMS now since the chargers are inadequate, similar to what appears to have happened to mr ping.

i would prefer a metal case myself, because i break stuff, and i think i would end up ruining one of mr ping's packs while it was sitting around. also the headway will deliver 5C without impossible sag. the BMS restricts it to 3C max i think.

 

[dogman dan]

That is still a pretty competitive price to a Pingbattery. I carry my ping in an aluminum box, inside a steel box. I pound that bike pretty hard, so I doubt it would have survived if merely allowed to flop around in a bag.

 

[Kurt]

I think one improvement headway could make is giving as accurate info on there charges they suply. Also they should give out more information about there bms as it seems they have about 4 different kinds floating around.

I have seen 4 different chargeers as well all with different output voltage.i know they don't make the charges but if they are going to include a charger with there packs it should match the cells and the bms.

My first charger I was supplely was a 3amp charger for a 36v pack the max voltage seemed a little low at only 42v or 3.5v per cell. I didn't see any balancing going on ether the pack was always balanced or perhaps the voltage was just a tad low to let it balance.

The next lot of two 10ah 36v packs I were the blue cells they came with a tiny little bms and a different 2ah charger that put out 43.8v or 3.65v per cell.One of this little bms seemed to get quite hot during the balancing part of the charge.

Overall I think the headway cells them self are very very good value and good quality.The bms boards them self look well made but its difficult to understand them as they don't offer any specs on them other than max current cut off amps. my large bms is 60a and small one is 35a.

I just hope they can get a consistent and correct supply of chargers to offer with there packs.

Kurt.

 

[dnmun]

headway doesn't make the chargers, or ping. i think the problem with the chargers is that they are all for the chinese scooter market which is all SLA's. it may be simple to get into the circuit and find the output feedback loop and push the voltage up a little by changing out resistors in the feedback bridge, so the lifepo4 packs get the full charge, but i don't have one to tear apart, and don't think i am smart enuff to figure it out anyway. maybe someone has already worked on this before. i have an old huge heavy 240V AC power supply which i can tweak down to 44V and up to 57--58V but don't have lifepo4 packs yet. but it delivers 10A. that's why i was thinking ecrazyman power supply. as i remember his 500W supply is $36 which is cheaper than a charger, just gotta pay plane fare.

 

[dogman dan]

My tweaked soneil seems to work fine. I set it to 46.5 same as the ping one I screwed up.

 

[RTLSHIP]

The only difference in price between Ping And Volgood is that volgood has free shipping.
It makes for a $75 to $100 difference. They only sells Lith I phos batts, but the 100% is based on about 50 to 90 feedbacks.
Anyways I'm going to wait a while and then decide. I still have 4 battery packs SLA (1 of which is silicone).

 

[dnmun]

i think ping once provided free shipping when he first started on ebay. now he can sell his packs for a lot more, without paying shipping. thenew guy in the window is volgagrad? or volgood? sounds like feel good in russian.

anyway, will they pay the return shipping when you send it back? you need to read the eastchinabay, jimmy wu threads. i still remember reading how r2d2 was talking about the 'burning electrical smell' when he melted his BMS that time with his bike up on the stand in his apartment.

there is a reason mr ping doesn't have to pay postage. you will see it if you look at a list of his postings on the sphere.

 

[RTLSHIP]

Volgood is Hong Kong located. Returns/exchanges allowed but buyer has to pay return shipment only. I wish a volgood buyer would comment. I'm going to contact volgood.

 

[dogman dan]

Ask him if the pack is 18650 cells or pouches. The pouches, like ping uses have a much more reliable track record. The main problem with the round cells is mostly just the large number of easily popped spot welds. The pouches connect with solder, though the tabs can tear, the solder is a more reliable connection.

 

[RTLSHIP]

I just emailed your question. will post answer asap. Volgood answers: 18650 cells

 

[JinbaIttai]

I am looking forward to posting a 1500 mile review. Of course I only have 150 miles on the one I have, so it will be awhile.

 

[PetersReviews]

Ping 36v 20ah, 5 Mile review

For those of you who remember, I had bought a Ping battery but it didn't work when I got it. I contacted Ping and he was awesome in helping me figure things out. It turns out that it was a bad BMS and he promptly sent out a new one which I soldered in without too much trouble. I topped off the battery and put it in and all systems go!
Well today I finally got to ride for a bit and it was awesome! Without the weight of my SLAs making the bike top heavy the bike handled better, accelerated faster and was much more fun to ride. It might be just due to the weight of the old batteries but with the Ping it seemed to have more power since my old SLAs felt a little "mushy" starting up from a dead stop. I am really happy with the battery but now I have to consider security. The Ping was expensive so now I feel like I have to really lock this up.
If I understand this correctly, it takes a few rides for the batteries to be properly conditioned and reach their max potential and I shouldn't push it too far for a while so I only did a quick but fun 5 miles on it. I can't wait to see how far this will take me. I'm not a heavy rider so hopefully I can get over 20miles on a charge!

 

[RTLSHIP]

How complicated is the wiring to set up? I assume that you have to put your own SAE or Anderson connector onto the power
wires.

 

[dogman dan]

2800 miles as of yesterday, I'm so close to my goal of 3000 miles for the year of riding I can taste it! I did ride about 3100 miles on ebikes this year, but only 2800 of it was on the pingbattery. It was just about one year ago today that I got my first ebike kit. I still have about a month till my 1st birthday of the ping.

I have 2700 miles on the commuter bike, 300 on the bike that used to be a trike, and 100 on the EV Global. Because the freeway home is not such a direct route, every mile I ride on an ebike saves about 1.3 miles of car driving for me. So I put about 3600 miles less on the car this year. Yay!

 

[Russell]

Has anyone ever done a controlled test on a Ping, you know like the tests Doctorbass and Ypedal have done on cells and packs?

-R

 

[PetersReviews]

How complicated is the wiring to set up? I assume that you have to put your own SAE or Anderson connector onto the power
wires.

The wiring isn't too complicated but you really should have some basic electronic knowledge and some decent soldering skill. In the case of mine where the first BMS failed, it was a little intimidating but Ping was awesome to communicate with and helped me figure everything out. If you end up getting one and need help, just let me know.

 

[RTLSHIP]

thanks, I just bought 48v 15ah lifepo4 pack, but the ebay vendor was not too communicative. Is all that is needed a soldering iron and some solder to hook up positive and neg wires to an SAE connector? Hopefully, instructions/manual are included. These are not Ping. The ebayers name is Olympics2000888. They appear to be the pouched type of cells.
weight 8.5kg

 

[dogman dan]

Most will have two negative wires and one positive. One negative will connect to the charger. One negative will be for discharging. The postitve wire will connect to both the positve on the charger plug, and the positive to discharge. Most of us use a Y connection on the positve wire so one leg can go to the charger plug and the other to the controller. If you don't want to solder, andersons and a good crimper are one way to make your plugs. Just make sure whatever you use won't allow you to plug the charger plug into the controller and vice versa.

I haven't heard of anybody buying a ping to send to Dr Bass. I've just used mine as recomended, 1c or less for v1 pings, and I've either been lucky, or the things are pretty good. I still can't seem to detect any signifigant range loss, but I don't have a cycleanalyst to micro measure. Maybe I have lost some, but made it up with stronger legs. I do try to back off the pedaling when I test range.