No more Enerland LIPO cells

[sailr]

I used to use yousendit.com but I see now that they also charge you $50 a year! Dang!

[sailr]

Just found this free site:

https://www.transferbigfiles.com/

[sailr]

google this, it will give you a lot of links:

"free file transfers"

[norbique]

http://www.filedropper.com/a123es04fulop

[Himalaya]

FlightPower/MarinePower used to use good cells, but they couldn't make any money and were bought out by Hobbico. It does not surprise me that they are now using cheap Chinese cells. Too bad, another good supplier forced out of the market by the cheap Chinese sh**.

This is exactly what happened with NiMH cells. Sanyo and GP (Japanese) cells were the world's best, but once the Chinese started producing cells with advertised high capacity at 1/3rd the price, everyone bought the cheap sh** and Sanyo and GP simply stopped competing. The crap you get today is frightening. A club member recently bought a 6-cell pack of 4500 mAh NiMH cells, but after running them several times, the most they would take after a full discharge was 1100 mAh....and the lack was FULLY charged, warm with full voltage. Sweet, getting an 1100 mAh pack but paying for 4500 mAH. Don't you love cheap asian quality? How long before the same thing happens to LiPos?



.

GP(Gold Peak) is a HongKong company, with their manufacture facilities in China.

Intellect, or called IB cells, were also a Chinese brand.

GP and IB were probably the most punchy cells before the LiPo era came. The appear in 90% of the RC racing boats/cars some years back when rules allowed only Nickel batteries.

Sanyo OTOH, has great Eneloop cells, but mainly used as TX/RX pack, been away from RC racing power cell market for quite a while.

[Himalaya]

Flightpower used Enerland cells until Enerland cut them off for not paying their bills. Even when they did use Enerland, I got some pretty shabby packs from them. I have moved to Hyperions and am very happy with them.

So True.
Hyperion lipo wasn't so outstanding untill they switched to Chinese cells 2 years ago and named them G3 to stay clear from their earlier Enerland cell based packs.
They suffered same quality complains as FlightPower did for they used same Enerland cells. Warranty claims dropped significantly from roughly 2% to 0.05% since their Chinese made G3 replaced the older Enerland cell based packs, according to Dave(of Hyperion) himself. The numbers may be inacurate but pretty much around.
......
Key point to get best performance from Enerland cells: use fresh-from-factory cells, best within a month. Otherwise ridiculous internal resistance will build up. Mine got 5 times larger than original after just a few months. Now my "G2" Hyperion packs(took me alot $$) are only capable of field charging as electricity source, to prolong their days before going into the trash can.
.....
So what has led Enerland to leave ?

[norbique]

crappy management?

[sailr]

Flightpower was NOT bought out by Hobbico! Flighpower sold out their dealers by giving Hobbico the exclusive to distribute their packs. We got caught in that debacle. When Hobbico took on the line, they sold out th older packs at below dealer (our) cost. Really ticked off the dealer community. We lost a lot of money on the deal.

Flightpower is a British owned company. They sacked their US sales rep who was outstanding. Just bad management all the way around. You couldn't GIVE me a flightpower pack!

FlightPower/MarinePower used to use good cells, but they couldn't make any money and were bought out by Hobbico. It does not surprise me that they are now using cheap Chinese cells. Too bad, another good supplier forced out of the market by the cheap Chinese sh**.

This is exactly what happened with NiMH cells. Sanyo and GP (Japanese) cells were the world's best, but once the Chinese started producing cells with advertised high capacity at 1/3rd the price, everyone bought the cheap sh** and Sanyo and GP simply stopped competing. The crap you get today is frightening. A club member recently bought a 6-cell pack of 4500 mAh NiMH cells, but after running them several times, the most they would take after a full discharge was 1100 mAh....and the lack was FULLY charged, warm with full voltage. Sweet, getting an 1100 mAh pack but paying for 4500 mAH. Don't you love cheap asian quality? How long before the same thing happens to LiPos?



.

[sailr]

If your packs are swelling it's because you are storing them fully charged! That is a no-no with ANY lipo brand. If you are not going to use the packs within a few days, you should put a storage charge in them (80%)! Don't criticize the batteries if you're not following recommended procedures.

I have been guilty of not discharging packs that didn't get used right away and I have NEVER had a hyperion swell up or develop bad IR.

So True.
Hyperion lipo wasn't so outstanding untill they switched to Chinese cells 2 years ago and named them G3 to stay clear from their earlier Enerland cell based packs.
They suffered same quality complains as FlightPower did for they used same Enerland cells. Warranty claims dropped significantly from roughly 2% to 0.05% since their Chinese made G3 replaced the older Enerland cell based packs, according to Dave(of Hyperion) himself. The numbers may be inacurate but pretty much around.
......
Key point to get best performance from Enerland cells: use fresh-from-factory cells, best within a month. Otherwise ridiculous internal resistance will build up. Mine got 5 times larger than original after just a few months. Now my "G2" Hyperion packs(took me alot $$) are only capable of field charging as electricity source, to prolong their days before going into the trash can.
.....
So what has led Enerland to leave ?

[Fluid]

Flightpower was NOT bought out by Hobbico!

My bad, and I knew that too. And I was not meaning to imply that just because a cell is made in China that it is bad, just that a lot of Chinese cells sold here (nickel and LiPo) are junk.

Flightpower is a British owned company. They sacked their US sales rep who was outstanding.

Fortunately he landed at Castle, an AMERICAN company.

If your packs are swelling it's because you are storing them fully charged!

I believe he is referring to the packs' IR, not their size.



,

[norbique]

So what is it? 80% 70% 60%
Can someone confirm what is the target storage capacity a lipo pack? Thanks!

[ManuelW]

Hello Guys,

I discharge my lipos to a voltage of about 3.5V/cell so maybe 20-30% left. And thats the way I treat them for storage.

Best regards,
manuel

[norbique]

Thanks Manuel!

I was trying to point this out. Everyone has his/her own thinking of what is a storage state of charge. I read different opinions all the time, that's why I asked for more feedback!

[ManuelW]

Hello,

well in our german forum there was a nice discussion about the whole thing. Generally most think perfect is between 60-80% as it is written everywhere. But they also did a nice calculation. How much energy is stored in a lipo and at a certain mass they could calculate how much it would heat up with this energy eg to catch fire.
Interesting result was, that when 20-30% charged, means a cell voltage of about 3.4-3.5V the cells can't physically catch fire even in case of a short-cut.
Second thing is that cell-aging (right translation?) is slower when they are nearly empty. So I'd recommend to discharge them to the given voltage and store them "chilly" and dry. Check cell voltages every month, shoud be always above 3.0V/cell.
Up to now I didn't had negative eperiences with these recommendations.

best regards,
Manuel

[norbique]

Thank you Manuel!

How many years of experience are you talking about? How many years are you storing your packs at 3.5V / cell?