HobbyCity Lipo Warranty - Important Information!

[lincpimp]

Ok, since you guys are on the lipo topic... heres some "good" info from someone with a "little" lipo experience...

First off, so not expect to have alot of lipo sucess if you are using a stand alone, non charger thru balance (aka blinky). 1st off you have no over charge saftey in place for the individual cells with this balancer, only for the whole pack. So if you have a single cell failure the charger can continue to overcharge the other cells... Puff puff pop. AHHHHHH my house is on fire!!! My beautiful elvis plate collection is gone, why God, why!!!

A charge thru balancer (such as the hyperion lba10) is much safer, as it will interrupt the charge if any 1 cell goes over or under voltage. Still not the best option, but can be had cheap used as it is "old tech", and will work with some of the older lipo chargers. Also, some of the older lipo chargers (astro 109 stands out to me) are a bit weird in how they accomplish the cc/cv charge. A newer charger with all of the bells and whistles is a good investment, IMO. Especially the models that can be updated.

Now an internal balancer charger (suchas the hyperion 6 and 7 series) are the best, as the charge rate will be automatically adjusted if the cells are going well out of balance. I have personally noted this when building mixed cell packs for myself, and then charging them up, if the cells are well out of balance the charger will do .3 amp, regardless of what setting is selected. Plus you get all kinds of nifty info about the cells, and pack, etc.

Also with zippy lipos, you get what you pay for... They are cheap for a reason, so either toss the offending pack, or live with it. I could see complaining if you bought a thunderpower pack, but HC is not making much on these packs, and I can see why their warranty info reads that way.

Heres a little cheap charger that is actually 4 seperate chargers in one box. This charger is good for 2amps max, and charges thru the balance tap. So it will charge the cells individually till they are all full, and thus, balanced. I paid 26 bucks plus shipping and this is a great charger if you have a well out of balance pack, or are putting some cells together that are in various levels of charge.

http://www.hobbycity.com/hobbycity/s...Charge_Capable

Not trying to be a dick, but that is how it is... I have fooled with almost everything out there, and this little charger beats out any stand alone balancer option for up to 4s. You can even run 2 different capacity mah 2s packs on this charger at the same time. Or a 3s and 1s, or 4 1s cells if you like (would have to make a custom adapter to do that).

[simplechamp]

Originally Posted by lincpimp

Also with zippy lipos, you get what you pay for... They are cheap for a reason, so either toss the offending pack, or live with it. I could see complaining if you bought a thunderpower pack, but HC is not making much on these packs, and I can see why their warranty info reads that way.

I see the point you are making but I can't fully agree. Whether it's a $20 Zippy or $300 Polyquest, HC saying that the cells only need to be within 245mV of eachother is too big of a range. I wasn't complaining about the Zippy packs at all, it's the lipo warranty policy I don't like, and that applies to all the packs they carry, from the cheapest to most expensive. Also, I think HC is probably making plenty on the packs, they couldn't sell them so cheap unless they are also buying them cheap. The profit margin may be lower, but they most likely make up for it in volume. Honestly it would be interesting to see the true profit margins on all packs, from the most expensive brands to cheapest budget Zippy.

I still think the Zippy are great packs, it's the HC lipo warranty that is concerning. If anything, the HC warranty has made me more likely to buy Zippy. At least if I get a bad pack (and now given that returns are pretty much out of the question) I'll be out less money than if I ordered a Polyquest. Of course the other choice is to buy at LHS or US online retailers, which I am also seriously considering now.

EDIT: Also wanted to note that it's interesting to see that the last 2 people to review the same packs I got from HC gave them 1 star saying they were really screwed up and one even said one of their cells would only charge to 3.7V. Also interesting to note this comes at a time when HC only have 2 left in stock. Is it possible we got the "bottom of the barrel" so to speak, the ones that they had passed up before for better balanced packs, and now they are moving them out and getting new stock? Who knows? It will be interesting to follow the reviews on these packs (Zippy 2s 5000mah 30C in case you missed it) once they get more in stock.

This kinda fun because I was just talking to a relative of mine who lived in Hong Kong about this very subject & they said that the idea of warranty & returns isn`t a concept they understand their.

[KaztheMinotaur]

The battery came back to 4.2, 4.2, 4.2, 4.2, and 4.19.

[simplechamp]

Originally Posted by KaztheMinotaur

The battery came back to 4.2, 4.2, 4.2, 4.2, and 4.19.

Awesome! Maybe after a few more discharge and balance/charge cycles it will get all the way up to 4.20. Either way at least it's within 10mV. Now the main thing we need to look out for is how well our suspected problem cells stay in balance with the other cells after putting them through some runs.