Maxxamps batt always out of balance
 

I was getting tired of this 3S 8000 MAH 25C cell that I got from Maxamps from being out of balance everytime I run it and I decided to open it up. I found that there is a pair of 4200 MAH 25C cell but the other two pair was an older one and it is a 4000 MAH batts. I can't believe this is how they manage to match each cell during assembly. I am just venting here but just warning the new guys on my experience. I am not bashing them but just letting you guys what I discovered today.

That's maxamps for ya. Is this how you got it new from maxamps? Two 4200mah cells and 4 4000mah cells?

Wow, that kinda sucks. To compensate, you could try setting your LVC higher so that it kicks in earlier. This would reduce runtime, but may keep you within the capacity of the 4000 cells.

You need to call them... I think they will want to exchange it for you. No way that they would send out a pack if they knew it has mismatched cells like that.

^^^ It's worth a shot.

You better hope maxamps doesn't get you on voiding the warrenty by opening up the pack. That would be a real dick move....

Call up Jason and tell him you will personally find him and push this pack where it belongs, up his rear with all of the other crap maxamps markets and pawns off the the unsuspecting public...

I have seen this before with maxamps, not that their cells need any help puffing and going out of balance.

Consider I have taken apart about 150 of their packs, and owned at least 30. The 2p packs puff easier than the 1p packs, but the cell matching is so poor, nonexistent?, that it really does not matter. I have heard that their new stuff is truer to the ratings, but still way overpriced...

lipo
 

This pack started out as a 6S 8400 25C cell according to Josh. I received it and it sit for three weeks while I wait for my Hydra 240 and I checked the voltage on each cell and one of the cell was 3.7 and the rest was 4.17-4.19 volts. I charged it but keeps getting an error even after charging that one cell to 4.17 like the rest of the cells. I called them and they said send it back. It sits for about a month and then was ship back. They said everything was up to specs. They also said if it sits more than a week it tends o go out of balance. So I played along with it but then it's going out more than .5 volts and I sent it back and then they split it into 3S 2X. So it's not a assembly error, I am done with them like last year as I have own a Neu, Polyrc( very good ), Flightpower. None of them go out balance like MINAMPS in every time it sits or used. I guess my Hydra240 did get fried due to voltage ripples as my MINAMPS are not up to the task of supplying voltage to my 1527 1D motor on 6S in my extended Lst2.

What a story. At the same time, what a lame ass way of taking care of customers.

Sits more than a week, it tends to go out of balance? Self-Discharge? Or how about cut to the chase and say "Bad Cell".

8400mah at 25C should carry a whopping 210 amps continous. More than enough for your application. :yes:

The fact of the matter is, this is only true if the mah specs and C ratings are true. If the C ratings were anywhere close, this pack would have no problem handling your truck.

8400mah 15C cells would still be 126 amps continous, which would probably still handle your truck ok. What does that tell you?

Alot of things can be hidden behind a fancy label, down deep, behind the hype of advertising.

With the advancement of Brushless Technology and the fact that packs are being pushed harder than ever, the Era is here that will flush out the false claims and the false advertising.

The "They will never know the difference" Era is gone.

Unfortunately not for everyone. The noob market still doesn't know the difference, and with all of maxamps' ads, the typical noob wants lipos without shopping around and discovering better/cheaper brands and just buys maxamps.

Guys, let's keep the MA-bashing posts down. Stick to facts and observations.

Good point, big guy!

I will add one more thing that is pretty good info for all lipo choices. Lipo construction is pretty much universal, so cell dimension and weight are pretty good comparison info when looking at various cells. If both cells are the same size and weight, and one is rated higher you may want to take a step back and ask why... Since I have handled a bunch of various pack cells I have seen the maxamps 4000 mah "20c" cells grow in thickness and in weight over the last 2-3 years. So I guess it got better? Not sure as I still get 8000 packs (4000 cells in paralleled pairs) that puff one or more cells.

The puffing is due to poor cell construction, either materials or testing (or whatever they do). Matching also comes into play, but maxamps has always said that they match the cells. If so then all of the problems are due to a cheap cell that has varying quality issues during the manufacturing process.

Comparing MA's 4000 cell to a similar polyquest cell (older 20c series) the cells were thinner and lighter. So the capacity may be correct (easy to measure that, discharge the pack to lvc and record what it takes to charge fully) but I doubt the C rating is.

I also directly compared MA 5000 pack with a polyrc (enerland) 3700 25c pack And found the polyrc pack could outperform the MA in runtime and punch. Turned out the 5k MA pack could not even deliver the rated mah under the load I had on it, where the polyrc had no issues. These cells should have similar amp output capabilities given the specs, and the 5k MA should have had the advantage on runtime. Pack weights and dimensions were very close with these 2 packs, so I deduce that the MA 5k cells were more like 5000mah 10-12c given the performance.

Bottom line is that people get greedy and want 8000mah packs (MA even base some of their advertising on this) and think that the rated specs will be enough to push a buggy or truggy around on 4s. 4s is hard on lipos in larger scale stuff, going up to 5-6s is much better. lipos that put out 80-100 amps are just not enough for 4s.

I have some informal testing on alot of cells, so I have a good feel for what works and what does not. Plus having dismantled and reassembled a bunch of packs I have seen the pack construction techniques, some of which leave alot to be desired.

lipo
 

I agree with lincpimp. I have the Polyrc 4350 and it was taking close to 4200 when I charge it one time. I think Polyrc is not a popular name like Polyquest or Flightpower but they are real good and it outperform my 5S 8K MAXAMPs
but don't have the runtime like the 8K with the 4350 mah 5S Polyrc that I score for 50.00 shipped from the fellow member at Lstforum. It is like new, the best 50.00 I spent.:yes:

I have bought alot of used enerland based packs, like the polyrc pack you bought. I have never had an issue with them puffing, or having weak cells. I can only remember seeing/hearing about a handful of enerland packs that have had issues, and I am not sure if that was user error or bad cells. Enerland have tight QC or something, and the factory matching is pretty good.

Flight power have a in house matching process, as they buy cells from enerland and assemble them in house. Their packs seem to be the best I have tired, also the most expensive new.

Polyquest are enerlands own brand, and they assemble those packs and sell the direct, that is why HC carries them. All good cells, well worth the cost, especially if you can score a deal like you did!

Max amps lipos are over priced and sub-par quality for what you get? :lol: :whistle:

I would post the sorry story over on the traxxas forum, along with any pics you have of the offending cells (just so theres no doubt)- get the truth out there and see how well the fan boys do trying to defend maxamps afterwards....

That's getting close to bashing them. I was thinking more along the lines or arguments comparing similar performance packs vs the cost, and graphs showing their relative performance (voltage under load, temps, end of cycle mAh, etc). If you provide the facts in a clearly understood form, you don't need to say another word.

So it's okay for me to post the fact that all maxamps packs I have owned have puffed. I got in trouble on the TRX forum for postin something similar about a different RC company but basically in the same manner.

After going to enerland packs it's really hard to go back to anything else. Although the zippy pack I picked up from linc is very nice. Flightpower to me is by far the top assembler of the enerland packs and you pay for it. This really doesn't bother me though as I can usually get a good enough member discount from tower to offset the cost.

I have a pair of 3s FP evolite that just perform circles around the MA packs I have owned and the FP's actually cost me less than similar MA packs and are stressed much more.

Yes, that's fine.

I don't want to become a forum nazi, but these types of threads can get out of hand with flame posts, and want to nip it in the bid before it gets there.

I'm with big BG. I'd love to bash maxamps all day, but it's not a nice thing to do. It's just a matter of time before people start arguing... Think about what you say and make sure it's not to rude.

That old saying would come in hand here - If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say it.

i saw a rustler vxl chassis, body and esc melt after a 4000mah 3s minamps lipo caught fire and the parts that didn't catch fire just melted. minamps replaced the pack only to have the replacement puff severely on the 2nd run and after unpuffing, catch fire while charging (in a lipo sack). the gearing was only 17/83 and the amp draw was very low.

I find it amazing to see all the horrible MA experiences on this forum. Maybe I just miss everything.... but I don't recall the same thing on any other forum.

I do see comments on other forums about the price, but not about puffing, fires, mismatched cells,etc,etc.......

If all my packs were like that, I wouldn't be happy either and I certainly wouldn't run them as a sponsored racer. Fortunately they work very well for most of us.

MA provides great cusotmer service vs other lipo sellers out there I wonder why no one mentions hobbycity about wrong measurements and bash them about it, but it looks like everyone forgives them for wrong measurements even though they wasted the money and wont fit in their car. like glassdoctor said they work well for most of us....

I wont say anything except this...

But when I first purchased Lipo packs, I started with two pairs of 8K 2S2P MaxAmps batteries. After 3 runs total (2 on one pair, 1 on the other) I sold them and purchased some FlightPowers and have never looked back.

How many manufactures of lipo are there though? I mean they eventualy get them from 1 or 2 sources and maxamps does the same thing they buy them i bulk from someone they dont make it themselves.

Providing poor cells and marketing them as top-of-the-line is different than being off on cell measurements. Also, if you tell HobbyCity they're wrong they'll actually listen to you :wink:

I had a 2s 6000 "20c" (should be good to 120 amps continuous) die in a ~3 pound Traxxas Rustler geared 18/90 with a Mamba Max 5700 combo geared 18/90 running in the grass. I was getting motor temps around 160 before stopping to cool down, and the ESC was around 140-150. If I were pulling a considerable amount more amps than the pack could provide the motor and ESC should get much hotter than that, 120 amps is a lot. Mine puffed up like a balloon and I had to discharge it and toss it.

I had a 3s 6000 "20c" lipo that I ran in my FLM extended Stampede running a VXL system as well as the same Rustler as I mentioned above. I didn't run it nearly as hard as the 2s pack but after maybe 50 cycles the #3 cell died on me (wouldn't hold a charge at all), see pics below.

I had 2 2s 8000 mAH "20c" packs that I used at first in my converted Revo with an MGM 16018 and Neu 1515 1.5D geared 22/62 with stock Talons. I then switched to using them in my Muggy, same motor and ESC, with a 13T pinion and after 150-200 cycles they wouldn't take a full charge, got soft and a little puffy after a run, and would lose charge over time. Fortunately these ones I bought their warranty on, and I returned them before I had 1 year on the warranty so I got a free replacement (after 1 year you pay 33% of the replacement cost, 2 years you pay 66%, and after 3 years you're SOL). The warranty replacement is where Maxamps actually did very well by me. I shipped them back on Monday morning via USPS Priority Mail and received my replacements exactly 1 week later, via USPS Priority Mail. Figure 2 days each way and a 2 day weekend and they have a 1 day turn-around, RC-M is the business I've dealt with that has a better turn-around time than that (shipped Monday morning across the U.S. and had my replacement on Friday).

Their new lipos are said to be MUCH better than the old ones, but there's a snowball's chance in hell I'm spending ~$220 for a 2s pack they they claim is a 35C. They spend all that extra money on advertising and "gifts" for their supporters to keep them coming and to keep their "Reader's Choice" awards flowing. You don't really think you'll read something negative about ANY RC product in a magazine, do you? I stopped buying mags because of all the crap, they're so worried about losing advertisers that they won't give you the straight-up truth about a product.

And now for the death of my 3s pack:
http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r...y/DSCN1837.jpg
http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r...y/DSCN1840.jpg
http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r...y/DSCN1841.jpg
http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r...y/DSCN1842.jpg
http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r...y/DSCN1843.jpg
http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r...y/DSCN1844.jpg

AFAIK all lipos are produced in Asia because it's the only place in the world where environmental restrictions are loose enough to allow the construction of lipo cells. I don't know how many different factories there are or how many different lipo chemistries there are, but they obviously aren't ordering Enerland cells or it would show. If they would accurately rate their cells, charge a reasonable amount for them, and perhaps act with some dignity and respect particularly when confronted about these issues then they wouldn't be as bad.

thanks for that info....wasnt trying to start an arguement for sure in this early in the morning, but just curious myself how come I can buy a venom lipo pack 11.1v 3s 5400 mah (2 of them) for 250 shipped from towerhobbies (they even gave me 20 bucks certificate to tower for buying them) so actually it makes it out o 230 shipped vs a MA packs for 350 dollars even then I was told I bought too expensive. either way I bought packs from MA before nimh that is and they run strong just bought some lipos from them for the traxxas vxl 1/16th so I get to test them out also when I get that little bugger I only bought from them because it was marketed for the vxl and didnt want to 2nd guess any other lipo sellers if they fit or not.

ooohh, venom batteries arent the best either...

sure the nimh arent, but your only one person who has said that vs the countless threads in other forums I have read :angel: rumor even has it that venom are flight power packs venom just buys it from them, but hey next you might tell me flight power packs arent the best either......:lol: then again if I told you I bought zippys...well.....its a vicious cirucle aint it.

Follow this link, there're two venom packs on the pacge - http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_83...tm.htm#8310589

good reading there from this tests still proves venom is NOT BAD as what you porposed earlier, but he said NOT RACE WORTHY either vs others. Im a basher and im happy as is with my venoms I get bored anyways after 30mins of bashing with the venoms. its like buying computer parts you spend an extra 100 dollars on a radiator just for a 1C change in temps on the cpu some say not worth it some say hell with it same with the batteries he was testing you want an extra .01v get the flight powers not the venoms.

FYI bashers typically stress the lipo's more than racers. Hard bashing typically sees much higher and frequent amp spikes due to rough terrain driving. Race conditions tend to be more controlled and constant with less extremes.

didnt know that thanks for that info...still get bored at about 30mins though....ran my tamiya hilux after wards thats slow with 5000mah nimh whoo hooo...7.2v of fury.

I don't recall a single person ever having huge issues with FlightPowers.

I do know that someone went from MaxAmps 8K packs to FlightPower 3700's in his truggy and was blown away by the difference. The FlightPower packs had more punch, more top speed, and somehow more runtime. Thats an 8000mah pack vs a 3700mah pack and the 3700's had more run time!

Not to mention that the 3700's are rated 25C which = 92.5A continuous while the 8K's are rated 20C which = 160A continuous and tell me why the 3700's had more punch?

Solid proof right there that MaxAmps packs are overrated. A pack that is less than half the capacity with almost half the rated continuous current was putting out more punch and run time.

Gee, Maxamps not performing like they promote? Go farking figure. :whistle:

So to start off both Venom and Maxamps use chinese cells. Early maxamps cells were not maxamps labeled on the foil, but newer ones are. They have steadily increased the weight and thickness of the same mah rated cells. So the c ratings of the early cells were very low 10c or less. I would never say that they have had a true 20c pack, at least none of the packs I have rebuilt or used.

Enerland cells were designed and built in Korea until recently when they opened a chinese facility. This is due to the chinese having large quantities of the raw materials necessary to make lipo. Plus they have loose laws on such production making it cheaper to make lipo. The enerland design is far superior to the chinese design, no way around that. Plus the quality control is better, why you do not see so many puffed cells. The chinese are getting better, the latest selection of great performing zippy lipos prove that. QC is still not where it needs to be with the chinese products, but considering the price you cannot really complain. I have seen alot of cell tabs come loose inside the foil on zippies, never seen that on an enerland cell.

These are the companies that sell enerland cell packs, other than polyquest, all are purchased as separate cells and assembled by the respective companies. Flightpower, Thunderpower (save for the 40c) Polyrc, Polyquest, Hyperion. Flightpower have a very intensive testing and matching procedure, probably why their stuff is considered the best.

Maxamps product is sub standard compared to almost everything else out there, and the price is just plain silly. Their matching, assembly and product leave alot to be desired. This is not conjecture, I have torn done 100s of maxamps packs and reconfigured them for others so that they can salvage some of their investment.

I just sent back a 4s 5000 Maxamps battery I have had for about 8 months.I sent it back because it was out of balance and my balancer would shut off.Now I only used it 10times.From the getgo it neverrealy balanced right.I should have sent it back when I bought it ok my fault.Long story short they are turning it into a 3s5000 battery for free so they have said.Still a 200.00 plus dollar battery I only used 10 times never puffed it.I would expect a new one atleast at 1/2 price but no dice.I WILL NEVER BUY MAXAMP AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.

Venom doesn't spend nearly as much money on marketing, that could explain the price difference. Maxamps has weaselled themselves into a good position with those Mini lipos, it's going to be a big product and it looks like they're on the front row for battery supply. I'm going to wait until they come out and measure the compartments and pick a lipo from there.

I have bought 800.00 in 3s batteries and 800.00 in 4s batteries.Yea I should have been more diverse in my battery choices.You guy were right after all.

I find it interesting that maxamps appear to be reconfiguring packs for people now. They never did that before, they would just replace packs that had bad cells. I wonder if they have been reading my lipo repair thread!!!

There is a good reason most on this forum suggest other brands over maxamps, it is called experience. On a whole I have found the members on this forum have bought plenty of stuff and do experiment to find what is best. More so than people on other forums do at least.