Sending lipos back to HK for warranty work

[syncronized77]

One of my hardcase 5000mah 20c lipos just went belly up and its only been 4 months since I got it from HobbyKing.

It still charges and balances but there's no power coming through the powerleads...so I'm guessing a loose solder somewhere.

And I just got a quote from Canadapost to ship via the absolute cheapest way and its $40!! That's twice as much as I paid for it!!!

Lesson learnt....is there such a thing as a US supplier of cheap lipos?

[Doby]

Why even try,,,so a 20 dollar battery died...so what, either try and repair it yourself (if you feel confident enough) or toss it and order a new one.

Come on, its a 20 dollar LiPo.........

[JMSCARD]

Why even try,,,so a 20 dollar battery died...so what, either try and repair it yourself (if you feel confident enough) or toss it and order a new one.

Come on, its a 20 dollar LiPo.........

Yeah... just my thinking.... I have a dead cell in each one of my $260 6s 5000mah 30c polyquests that I just got in Feb. of this year... I didn't run them only 5 cycles...left the sitting at storage level and cycled a couple times but now this last time one cell wont charge above 3.8 volts in each of the two packs.... So I am out $520.... but I am just gonna try and turn them into 5s packs instead.... but anyhow.... any pack can go bad...heck they are lipos....just be happy its a $20 one...lol... I run alot of turnigy and zippy packs... when they finally do go bad I smile and think how reasonable it was to "pitch" compared to a big dollar pack...

[LiPo Power]

FYI, Hk warranty on LiPos:

Each battery brand has it's own warranty time limit. Our standard Lipoly warranty limit is 30 days, unless otherwise stated in the product listing.

...so Doby is right, just get another one, or two, or three....
..or get Thunder Power...

Robert

One of my hardcase 5000mah 20c lipos just went belly up and its only been 4 months since I got it from HobbyKing.

It still charges and balances but there's no power coming through the powerleads...so I'm guessing a loose solder somewhere.

And I just got a quote from Canadapost to ship via the absolute cheapest way and its $40!! That's twice as much as I paid for it!!!

Lesson learnt....is there such a thing as a US supplier of cheap lipos?

[syncronized77]

Well I opened it up and here she is....looks like there's no loose soldering points...I checked each cell and one is sitting at 4.17V the other is at 4.18V. So I tried playing with the wires just to see if I could get a spark...nada nothing...BUT

when I tried connecting some wires to the PCB where the wires terminate...I got the infamous electrical *CRACK*...scared the beejesuz outta me! LOL

So it looks like the pos/neg wires are bad....is it possible for wires to go bad?

[Rumdog]

Check the connectors. Are they the Generic Deans? I've had some of those on smaller models that were brand new and no good.

[syncronized77]

I don't think its the dean connectors...and I don't have a voltmeter to measure the voltage across the solder points...but when I tested it by touching it with a couple of 5.5mm bullets...that's when it gave the big *CRACK*

What I'll most likely do is unsolder the old wires and put new ones on to see if that works, because like I said earlier...I'm able to charge it and balance it through the balance connector....weird

[LiPo Power]

Well, go for it but make sure you remember about
Lipos are crazy man......
Robert

[Fluid]

Maybe I'm just lucky, but of the twenty LiPo packs I have, the only problem I've had was a couple of broken balance wires in one pack. That's going back 3+ years and unknown hundreds of cycles. A few got wet, but I opened them up and dried them...and they work as well as before. Lucky?

None of the packs had cheap Chinese cells, most were Enerlands. Brands - ThunderPower, FlightPower and Hyperion. All were well cared for, none ever discharged below 3 volts, none over 150*F, all stored at ~3.8 volts. Lucky? You be the judge.

Quality LiPos are not crazy, only the owners are...
.

[Doby]

Maybe I'm just lucky, but of the twenty LiPo packs I have, the only problem I've had was a couple of broken balance wires in one pack. That's going back 3+ years and unknown hundreds of cycles. A few got wet, but I opened them up and dried them...and they work as well as before. Lucky?

None of the packs had cheap Chinese cells, most were Enerlands. Brands - ThunderPower, FlightPower and Hyperion. All were well cared for, none ever discharged below 3 volts, none over 150*F, all stored at ~3.8 volts. Lucky? You be the judge.

Quality LiPos are not crazy, only the owners are...
.

So they had "expensive" Chinese cells.................

[syncronized77]

soldered on new wires....we're back in BUSINESS!!!

[Doby]

Excellent!

[Fluid]

So they had "expensive" Chinese cells.................

Enerland cells (the cells used by the makers above) are/were made in Korea, not China. Sadly it seems that the LiPo market may be going the same way that nickel cells did. NiMH cells were originally made in Japan(Sanyo) but Chinese junk undercut them and in a few years most all were made in China. NiMH cells of today are nothing like the ones we got 5 years ago....

And yes there can be "expensive" Chinese cells, compared to "cheap" Chinese cells. The manufacturer of any cell has a range of quality in each lot of cells. Some are much better than others. (Modelers are fooled by thinking that just because something is made in a certain factory that all the products are identical - not so.) The pack maker pays more for the better cells, the packs he makes are better, and he sells them at a higher price. In spite of rationalizations some modelers make insisting that it doesn't matter how much or how little one pays for a pack, they are all the same - there is a difference. You do get what you pay for. Caveat Emptor.


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[Doby]

One factory in China ..."LiPos R Us" supplies all the brands.......

[Fluid]

Really? Then this page is all BS?

http://energy.sourceguides.com/businesses/byP/batP/batt/btora/bType/lipoly/byB/mfg/byGeo/byC/byC.shtml

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