The (suspected) truth about VictPower cells

sendler2112 said:
izeman said:
i ordered 42 cells last week from VP, paid, and got the info today that there are not enough cells left, and i have to wait for the next charge. that's a shame if you pay $200+ for fast shipping, and then supply is gone :(
Click to expand...
What is the cheapest price that you could have gotten your order for, cells and normal shipping? Loose cells or 7S3P modules?
Click to expand...
price was always the same. $14.7 per single cell - short tab. long tab was significantly more expensive. i only asked for ups/fedex shipping. for 28 cells $175. for 42 cells $225.
 
Here are pictures of deformations normal to all the cells I've received. My ESR meter shows about 5mOhm, but shows 4mOhm when shorted to probe to probe. The impedance of the cell is most likely around 1mOhm.

IMG_3717.JPG
IMG_3718.JPG
 
izeman said:
$14.7 per single cell - short tab. long tab was significantly more expensive. i only asked for ups/fedex shipping. for 28 cells $175. for 42 cells $225.
Click to expand...
$21 per cell delivered is a great deal. I will be interested to see how much tab is left when they say they are "short".
 
I would bring the unbalanced or low 3 cells up to 3.7v like the rest.
It seems Victpower has lot of problems with building a strong pack. Keep reading about weak links in there pack builds. Would like to know how they termanate the cell taps and the end connections ?
 
999zip999 said:
I would bring the unbalanced or low 3 cells up to 3.7v like the rest.
It seems Victpower has lot of problems with building a strong pack. Keep reading about weak links in there pack builds. Would like to know how they termanate the cell taps and the end connections ?
Click to expand...

The termination on the positive lead is held on with stick tape, no kidding.....the solder does not stick and had come off already before use. Good job I only tried a sample.
 
split out the troublehsooting posts to here
http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=46816
from this vendor report/discussion thread.
 
I have purchased 160pcs of A123 20Ah cells from VICTPOWER. Here is my story:

http://victpowerbadbattery.blogspot.se/

I have purchased from them earlier, it was OK. Some batteries have failed but considering price…
This time nothing positive…
 
elfi said:
I have purchased 160pcs of A123 20Ah cells from VICTPOWER. Here is my story:

http://victpowerbadbattery.blogspot.se/

I have purchased from them earlier, it was OK. Some batteries have failed but considering price…
This time nothing positive…
Click to expand...

Wow. That's pretty ugly.

So, we know every pack that is 3p7s was a Fiskar pack, and that all the warranty replaced Fiskar packs were slated for destruction and recycling in China due to known defective internal foil welds between anode/cathode foils and the tab internally.

I'm getting the feeling they might have ran out of bare cells slated for recycling, and it looks like they somehow attached tab-extensions to your cells after they were cut-out of a module (which leaves them with roughly no tab length otherwise).

victpower+4.jpg


victpower+10.jpg



The irony would be strong if you had to pay to destroy/recycle the cells they were paid to destroy/recycle but instead sold and more scarily shipped through the mail leaking and puffed etc.

Everyone is free to vote with there dollars as they see fit, but I personally wouldn't support anyone mailing obviously defective cells.
 
elfi how did you pay for the cells ? Angunuism had the same thing happen and got some paypal refund or something like that. Those are ugly. Sorry to have that.
 
Wow, that's as ugly as it could get. I hope you will get your money back for that crap. This is it for me, victpower is a no go for any cells from this time on. Thats totally fuc*ed up.
 
elfi, that looks bad and i have no words for that other than FRAUD! i got cells that looked bad, but not nearly as bad as yours. they all were removed from some packs, but all got pretty intact tabs. not full tabs, but at least 1cm long.
pack performs quite good so far, but cells become quite out of balance during end of charge. 150mV. highest cells reach 1.65v and lowest still at 1.5v. when i balance charge with my bc168 to 3.65v to top off, they all take about 100mAh more. so i guess charging to 3.5v would be ok.
internal resistance of the pack seems ok. ma ca-v3 measures 0.06mohm for 24s including all cables to the battery and connectors. so not bad at all.
but after your blog post i will never ever buy anything from victpower!
 
I charge to 3.59v but after charge it drops somethings to 3.48v over night but seems to have min. lost. But the slower I charge it seems the better. Oh I charge a 12s at 9.5v
 
!2s at 9.5 amps. Sorry Meaning they can be charged at a higher rate but at the edn of charge it takes a lot longer to balance if discharged more than 70 %
 
That sucks.
They look like the tabs have fine perforations too, just above the teflon, am i seeing right?
If thats how they were, when they taken out, they were pretty much screwed before they modded them.
Wondering if this was original or done to attach the tab extension. If they did that and there was a few mm of tab they are just f@#ing stupid because even like 4 mm could of been quite usuable for a build.
 
cells that have dropped to 0.2v then recharged come back up to 18ahr, could be interpreted as a good cell in my view.
On the other hand the fact that they didn't hold voltage over time might indicate some internal shorting
 
neptronix said:
Wow, truly awful. The crap coming from these A123 resellers seems to be getting gradually worse.

I got ripped off pretty hard, but just on one pack.. same deal.. junk sent for recycling, resold.

http://neptronix.org/posts/dont_buy_unknown_chinese_batteries.html
Click to expand...

Yup and they're all the same-vict-osn- they're all dumpster divers- scratches pin holes- wrinkles- cosmetic damage - mis-aligned tabs- squishy cells-some better than other but still total trash -
use it long enough it will fail and puff and leak all over the place becoming a health hazard
The only thing that's worthwhile are the prismatic modules @ least you know real factory cells went into them...but too much effort to get them fixed..

if A123 wasn't an asshole we wouldn't be having these problems- apparently our money is no good to them
 
A few months ago I ordered a 28s3p, the pack is pretty ok.

So I ordered another 9x 7s3p pack, and now I wait and wait and wait, more than 6 weeks and I get only replies like, please wait !

She just don't have it.
 
Bazaki said:
A few months ago I ordered a 28s3p, the pack is pretty ok.

So I ordered another 9x 7s3p pack, and now I wait and wait and wait, more than 6 weeks and I get only replies like, please wait !

She just don't have it.
Click to expand...

i would suggest, you cancel the order ASAP and get back your money from paypal! at least that's what i would do. the cells i received where already in a bad shape. i doesn't seem to get better.
 
The truth is the A123's soruce has been drying up and Victpower will sell what ever they get their hands on. We have seen the A123 packs they made with solder tabs ( junk ). They will do what ever they can to get your money.
 
you can get 18ahr a123s via taobao for about $8usd, probably same/similar source as victpower, less money wasted.
 
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