China lipos, getting better all the time
 

I have been doing my own research on lipos for a few years now, and had always considered Enerland and Japanese built cells to be top notch. After the last few rounds of releases from a few higher quality China manufacturers though, my mind has certainly changed about "china" lipo. Sure there are plenty of crappy cells out there too, but there are plenty of high quality china cells as well.

For instance, take the smaller cells that Mike carries. They will hit 70C before hitting 3v/cell. Now if that isn't impressive, I don't know what is! :yes:


Just food for thought here. Just because something generally sucked in the past doesn't mean it will always be that way.

Technically the Enerland cells are made in china.I think the need for better batteries for are real cars are going to benefit are hobby to. :mdr:

Have they outsourced to china as well? I know they are based in Korea.

On the Enerland website it said their manufacturing facility is in china & their corporate head quarter is in Korea.

www.enerland.com

I definately agree with you JRH. I have closely watched a variety of chinese lipos over the last few years and the quality is definately getting better.

On a side note, I have also noticed that maxamps have changed their cells recently. I figure that they do get them from a chinese company. Back when I first bought Maxamps they were relatively new, and the cell quality was quite poor. They were overrated to say the least. Now I have repaired some of the newer maxamps 3000 and 4000 cell based packs, and the cells are definately different. The 3000 cells with both taps made of al were the old type, and quite poor. The upgraded to a cell with one tab copper and the other al, and that was not much better. Now the most recent 3000 cell is marked 4000mah and has both tabs made of copper. It is much easier to work with, and should be able to easily handle a 60 amp cont load. So their 6000 packs (2p config of 3000 cells) may now be useable in a larger heavier vehicle.

Also the newest 4000 maxamps cell is rated for 4200mah on the pack, so it may be better too. I have not had a chance to work on any of the other cells yet, but I will post info when I get it.

None of this changes my view on maxamps over-pricing and their questionable business practices. But at least the cells are better. I still think that the zippy lipos from HC are a better bet, and considerably cheaper.

When you say "questionable business practices" do you mean the way they overrate their packs?I sounds like thats a industry standard pratice.Their was a good thread on rctech.net where Dan from SMC was saying how most lipo are being sold with false performance claims

While the Chinese cells may be getting better, how does a consumer know which pack manufacturers are using the good cells?

They have info for the HQ, First Factory, R&D in Korea and they also have other factories which are in China.

My enerland 6000mah 25c batteries say made in China right on the cell.

Any info on what brands of Chinese packs are any good? I keep a watch on E-bay for cheap LiPos and have some marked if you want links. Otherwise I know that batteryworld.123 has had some descent cells. At least from what I've heard.

Maxamps keeps winning RCCA's Reader's Choice awards because they offer freebies to anyone who votes for them. I have bought 4 of their packs, one of my 6k packs was puffed by a MM 5700 in a Rustler, my other has never kept a proper balance and gets soft after each run, and my 2 8k lipos are soft all the time and will probably suffer catastrophic failure soon.

On the other hand, my Chinese Zippy-H lipo out-performed every Maxamps pack I've ever owned (it was a 5000 mAH 20-30C pack), kept it's balance very well, and only died because it got chewed up by my Muggy's spur gear.