This is how A123 care about quality control

This thread has been wandering all over the place and has gone off the tracks at times with all the guess theories wow.
Oh there's a spaceship out my front door and they're waving me over. Sorry got to go.
 
Ok, at the request of many and i also personally agree that speculating and ranting over the details is pointless and does nothing but cause needless drama.. i'm locking this thread until wb9k receives the cells in question, evaluates and let's me know when he's ready to give us any details i can then re-open the thread for FACTS....

so everyone calm down and go have a cup of coffee.. or a shot of tequila or something .. but dear lord.. relax.
 
So I received replacement cells from Stortronics.
No creases or wrinkles on all of them.
But three of them have soft spots at the top.
All cells manufactured on robot/machine called THB, all 2015 , February, except one from January.
This is what you call same batch.
Returning 8 defected cells was terrible ordeal, had to hire certified DGoods company to send, hours spent on phone with FedEx.
Even this certified DGoods agent had the cells returned to him not once but twice by FedEx!!!
Paid sells tax and brokerage fees twice for those 8 cells as a result of this.
Dealing with Asians was a pleasure in comparison, first of all they just allowed me to have defective cells.
Here are some pictures:
 

Attachments

  • StorTronics replacement cells 001.JPG
    StorTronics replacement cells 001.JPG
    58.6 KB · Views: 2,399
  • StorTronics replacement cells 005.JPG
    StorTronics replacement cells 005.JPG
    44.8 KB · Views: 2,399
  • StorTronics replacement cells 010.JPG
    StorTronics replacement cells 010.JPG
    47.6 KB · Views: 2,399
Basically I want to replace all Victpower cells in my A123 20Ah 12S battery.
I want to attach CBA discharge graphs but file still too big.
Finally I will take pictures.
 
I was told StorTronics sent you pictures of the replacement cells for your approval before sending. Was this not the case?
 
BTW, I just received the cells in my lab yesterday. I should be able to get to them by early next week if not sooner. I've taken a quick look, but I have a lot of investigation to do. Most of the cells appear to have sustained significant damage from handling/shipping they have seen along the way, but the original complaints are mostly marked, so parsing any actual problems shouldn't be too difficult. Will be reporting back....
 
Zihoid I will take the bait.
100% cycles. No.
It's on a daily rider so must charge for commuting. Not a bench test battery, but real world use.
Capacity left ? 18,232 ah left.
1365 cycles left or 6 more years.
 
"first of all they just allowed me to have defective cells."

whatta shame. those horrible A123 people wanted them back to inspect instead of using your skilled engineering judgement to determine they were defective just by looking at them.

i bet mama hardon refused to give you the batteries for free also.
 
This is just like being back at work... looking forward to seeing the DPA (Destructive Physical Exam) results on these cells. We are all going to learn a lot.
 
Now you wonder why would anybody pay so much for 20Ah cell?
I am trying to attach discharge graphs from my CBA.
So far I have no idea how to do it, here are screen shots of discharge curves, I know low quality, sorry for that.
Black curve is your typical Victpower A123 pouch cell.
Now you can see why would somebody spent so much for the cell,
notice
all discharge curves are VERY closely to each other, literally covering each other until 15Ah discharge.
I have edit from documents into smaller sizes, still file to big.
The 8 cells that I returned have very similar QUALITY discharge curves - that is what I wrote in my previous posts.
It is important that everybody who read notice that.
This is NOT why I returned those cells.
it was never about electrical performance of any of 20 cells from A123.
 

Attachments

  • discharge graphs 001.JPG
    discharge graphs 001.JPG
    101 KB · Views: 2,276
  • discharge graphs 003.JPG
    discharge graphs 003.JPG
    83 KB · Views: 2,276
This Victpower cell /black discharge curve/,
marked number 20 by me, tested twice on CBA:
18.87Ah at 20 Amps until 2.5V cut of
manufactured 2011
cycled twice
cost US28 including shipping with order of 20 cells.
Of those 20 only roughly 10 delivered over 19Ah, another 10 below 10Ah.
EDIT, TYPO
another 10 of 20 Victpower cells delivered of course below 19Ah.
 
file.php

Make a better image if you use the Print Screen key.
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/take-screen-capture-print-screen#take-screen-capture-print-screen=windows-7
To take a screen capture of the entire screen
1. Press PrtScn.
2. Open Paint by clicking the Start button , clicking All Programs, clicking Accessories, and then clicking Paint.
3. In Paint, on the Home tab, in the Clipboard group, click Paste.

I do it differently. Press the Print Screen button. Photoshop. File New. Ctrl button + V = Paste. Reduce size. Change format to JPG, GIF, PNG, BMP, SVG, or what ever ya like.
print_screen.gif
 
miro13car said:
This Victpower cell /black discharge curve/,
marked number 20 by me, tested twice on CBA:
18.87Ah at 20 Amps until 2.5V cut of
manufactured 2011
cycled twice
cost US28 including shipping with order of 20 cells.
Of those 20 only roughly 10 delivered over 19Ah, another 10 below 10Ah.
Click to expand...

You should be cutting off at 2.0 Volts, not 2.5. Won't make a big difference, but that's the right cutoff for a 1C capacity test. As low as 1.5V is OK for high C-rate tests. When the cell comes to rest at 2.5 V, it's at "0%" SOC.
 
miro13car said:
Now you wonder why would anybody pay so much for 20Ah cell?
I am trying to attach discharge graphs from my CBA.
So far I have no idea how to do it, here are screen shots of discharge curves, I know low quality, sorry for that.
Click to expand...
The other link marty gave on taking screen shots just asks me to install MS silverlight to play, so here are some youtubes etc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_61JubNeaz4
http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/how-to-take-a-screenshot-on-pc/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muG_ZvAE2jM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gscBIcLm_Gw

For resizing I like "Faststone image viewer", its super fast and reliable.
http://www.faststone.org/FSViewerDownload.htm
Once you got the pic loaded up in the program just right click and choose "Edit" then "Resize / Resample" and put in 800 to 900 as shown in my posted pic, then OK and then save as jpg/jpeg. Around 800 to 900ish seems to be the max you can post on the forum for it to show up..
Its safest just to go 800 in width just to be sure..
Also there is a crop feature in the same "edit" menu and you can just choose to crop the bit you want at 800pixels wide and that will work just as well.

As for skewing off topic, is it possible the defect cells are consistent with some one in the A123 factory just shoving them down their pants and walking out with them? Sometimes when I buy super cheap stuff on ebay from China it looks consistent with some one at the factory just grabbing stuff out of the reject bin and shoving it down their pants..
 

Attachments

  • Screenshot 2015-04-25 00.20.09.jpg
    Screenshot 2015-04-25 00.20.09.jpg
    60 KB · Views: 2,163
there are no defective cells and it is obvious you never worked in a production facility or you would know that any pilfering of product would lead to arrest and conviction for theft.

do you think the zebra labels are there to make them look pretty?

do you not understand that the computers that monitor production would recognize they were missing?
 
All my tests on AMP20 cells from different sources: Victpower, A123 RC , OSN were always until 2.5V cut off, so I had to stay that way for comparisons.
 
..
Don't want to go this all off topic.
Discharge , el performance of 20 cells I bought is excellent. good enough.
Now go back to page 1 of tis thread - this is WHY I started this thread.
 
amberwolf said:
It's software is not running on a Windows computer? or an Apple (whcih at least used to have a similar utility)
Click to expand...
On Apple's OSX the print screen program is called "Grab" and is in the Utilities subfolder of Applications.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top