Castle looking ESC coming to hobbyking

Originally Posted by thzero

Venom? All Venom sells is rebadged, and marked up, chinese batteries. They are not anything like say Thunderpower (or cheapbatteries, or even spc) where they buy the cells, test them, package, etc.



FYI: For transparency sake I do have exactly one Venom and exactly one MaxAmps batteries floating around (both 2S, and quite old).

Well since you want to slam on venom then show me some other companies that stand behind their products for any period of time. When did you work at venom since you apparently know so much about them. I'm sure not only venom buys Chinese cells but many other companies alike. The process for making the batteries is a little complex but with my transportation background I can say there are probably only a handful of companies making the cells and selling them to battery retailers who sell to us.


Wal Mart stores does the same thing. They sell blue bunny ice cream in all their stores but blue bunny also makes the wal mart brand ice cream. Schwans even makes some blue bunny ice cream and blue bunny makes some schwans ice cream as well. IT helps them keep cost down and it just goes in a different package. The only reason I know,was I hauled the stuff for 12.5 years. I was using the ice cream as an example for The effect that one company can have in The marketplace.

[thzero]

Since basically the only cells you can buy are either Chinese or Korean, just about everyone gets their cells from Chinese.

However, Venom has long be known to be a re-brander. They buy products from Chinese companies (its also called white boxing) and rebadge it as their own. Its not necessarily a 'bad practice', especially if they have stand behind their products with some sort of service and/or support. Now they've been doing that for quite some time, but they seem to also be starting to produce some of their own products from scratch too; i.e. the Gambler.

However, I do have a Venom battery, its held up as a bash battery for quite some time, but it was also bought when there weren't a lot of other options. I also had, when new to LiPo, a 'Venom charger'. This was a Chinese version of another, and really much better Chinese built charger, and it has ZERO DOCUMENTATION WITH IT. I sent Venom an email to their support asking for documentation and/or information about some of the features. They had not a clue either.

The practice of 'white boxing' has been going for 20+ years. There are only a handful of companies that make a lot of things (especially in electronics - such as lcd screens) because of the high level of specialization needed (its not like making ice cream); these usually get made at different price points and with different features depending on the end client. Their clients are the ones who 'consumerize' them for the mass market.

To circle this back around. CC makes a quality product, and a competitive price. Tekin, although usually a tad more expensive than CC, does so too. And Novak, well opinions differ, but still they for the most part do too.

Batteries seem to run to the extreme; you get the stuff direct from HongKong thats ultra-cheap, you get the stuff from say US or European based such as MaxAmps thats crap marked up really high, or you get high end product that is not cheap (but usually cheaper than maxcrap) such as Hyperion (out of HK mind you), ThunderPower (LV, NV), etc.

The biggest problem is that unlike with NiCd and NiMH batteries, no one is telling us exactly WHO the manufacturer of the cells are and what the exact specs of each cell is. So in reality, other than measuring and testing each cells, you really don't know that anyone isn't selling a crap lipo for a large markup.

Originally Posted by dtnel

Well since you want to slam on venom then show me some other companies that stand behind their products for any period of time. When did you work at venom since you apparently know so much about them. I'm sure not only venom buys Chinese cells but many other companies alike. The process for making the batteries is a little complex but with my transportation background I can say there are probably only a handful of companies making the cells and selling them to battery retailers who sell to us.

Originally Posted by thzero

Since basically the only cells you can buy are either Chinese or Korean, just about everyone gets their cells from Chinese.

However, Venom has long be known to be a re-brander. They buy products from Chinese companies (its also called white boxing) and rebadge it as their own. Its not necessarily a 'bad practice', especially if they have stand behind their products with some sort of service and/or support. Now they've been doing that for quite some time, but they seem to also be starting to produce some of their own products from scratch too; i.e. the Gambler.

However, I do have a Venom battery, its held up as a bash battery for quite some time, but it was also bought when there weren't a lot of other options. I also had, when new to LiPo, a 'Venom charger'. This was a Chinese version of another, and really much better Chinese built charger, and it has ZERO DOCUMENTATION WITH IT. I sent Venom an email to their support asking for documentation and/or information about some of the features. They had not a clue either.

The practice of 'white boxing' has been going for 20+ years. There are only a handful of companies that make a lot of things (especially in electronics - such as lcd screens) because of the high level of specialization needed (its not like making ice cream); these usually get made at different price points and with different features depending on the end client. Their clients are the ones who 'consumerize' them for the mass market.

To circle this back around. CC makes a quality product, and a competitive price. Tekin, although usually a tad more expensive than CC, does so too. And Novak, well opinions differ, but still they for the most part do too.

Batteries seem to run to the extreme; you get the stuff direct from HongKong thats ultra-cheap, you get the stuff from say US or European based such as MaxAmps thats crap marked up really high, or you get high end product that is not cheap (but usually cheaper than maxcrap) such as Hyperion (out of HK mind you), ThunderPower (LV, NV), etc.

The biggest problem is that unlike with NiCd and NiMH batteries, no one is telling us exactly WHO the manufacturer of the cells are and what the exact specs of each cell is. So in reality, other than measuring and testing each cells, you really don't know that anyone isn't selling a crap lipo for a large markup.

Oh I know what you're talking about. Wal mart does a lot of white boxing. They also do limited run stuff as well. A lot of people buy vizio tvs at wal mart and vizio has a somewhat good reputation. Just look how they came to be but wal mart has a speced vizio tv that a year or two down the road you can get parts for because for say they only made a limited run of that spec model per wal mart order. If a person learns the vizio brands,you can buy a same looking but better quality and more parts availability tv at wal mart also but hardly anyone knows that unless you start searching model numbers extensively. I was talking to A tv repair shop guy is how I found out. He flat out told me if I ever need a repair that I better hope I bought the right model.

I don't really see what testing a cell does except for matching 2 or more up. Other than that no one really knows the history behind the cells since obviously their a commodity anymore these days.


Check this video out on lipo batteries ; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdv9I...e_gdata_player

I hope you find the video interesting as i did.