The lipo cell shuffle.

[mistercrash]

This is a post from Helifreak.com. From Finless, a very devoted, important and respected contributor to the heli hobby and to Helifreak forums. Here's what he thinks about the lipo industry. What do you think, is he right? Sure makes sense to me and if true, confirms that no matter what brand you buy or what price you pay, you might end up with crap. Only option is to pay higher to get the big warranty.

''OK so I am going to go into HOW the shuffle happens. This is manufacturing process and someone can correct me if I am wrong.

ALL manufacturing processes are monitored for quality using a bell curve and what is called a standard deviation process. As manufacturing processes get better the standard deviation from the norm gets better. In other words there is still a "bell" curve but the deviation from mean or average gets tighter and the standard deviations get tighter.

So lets look at a cell manufacturer that has a pretty tight standard deviation or "tight" process.

Lets say they make 10,000 CELLS a week and their standard deviation is 1. Pretty damn tight right? A good process with a standard deviation of 1 means for every pack they make 100 are out of spec. Understand thats BOTH sides of the bell curve. So 100 are over achieving from the average and 100 are under achieving out of the 10,000.

Now one might say... HEY I am a pack maker and I want those 100 per week that are the BEST of the crop! OK... all fine and good right? WRONG... a deviation from the norm is just that... NOT a consistent thing that the manufacturing process can deliver with any consistency! If you started a pack company and signed a contract to get the left side of the bell curve YOU would be screwing yourself in the end as that 1 deviation to the left is not a consistent process that can be sustained... It's just a fall out of the process itself!

On the other hand lets look at why what I call the "shuffle" that happens. So in 6 months the cell manufacturer makes 6x10,000 or 60,000 cells. Simple yes? Well their one standard deviation to the right now makes 6x100 or 600 cells that are no good. Over time they build up a stock of these "to the right of the curve" cells and they are not just going to toss them. THEY SHOULD and in the old days the USA or other quality companies would toss them. Unfortunately today THESE over stock cells of inferior quality get HANDED to the pack makers without them knowing it. SHAME!

Now my example above is a "tight" process with a tight standard deviation. You might say. HECK 600 cells in 6 months WHY would that cause pack makers to worry? Well what if the standard deviation was larger? lets say out of the 10,000 cells a week instead to 100 being outside the average 1000 were out of the average? That is only 1 more deviation away from mean! Now in 6 months they have 6,000 cells on the right side of the bell curve they made and are sitting on.

You can see how a pack maker could get screwed by having ONE of those cells in a pack. The cell makers ARE NOT tossing these out... They are mixing them into batches sent to pack makers. And the BAD part is they don't do this in the beginning they do this LATER to DUMP the cells. Thus what I call the "shuffle"!

A new pack maker comes along and calls up a cell maker and says "hey I want to make packs". As the new customer the cell maker sends them "possibly" the "to the left of the bell curve" cells or what are called "ringer" cells to get their business. They say "we are the best". The packer maker agrees after testing and they buy in, and buy cells to make packs. Then all things are going happily along UNTIL the day the cell makers decides for whatever reason to DUMP the "to the right" cells. Maybe they do this to the HIGH volume customer so they don;t notice? Maybe they do it to the low volume customer to LOOSE them so they can get a new customer with a higher demand? Whatever the case... THIS is the shuffle!

An thus the "shuffle" which I think has and will happen again unless the pack makers start and continue to monitor quality coming from the cell makers. It is a fact of life the cell makers are willing to do the "shuffle" to their customers. It's sad really and bad business. But when you only have 4 or 5 cell manufacturers with low competition and high demand, they will DUMP the cells to the right of the bell curve on customers when they can. Why? Because they CAN and ONLY because 99% of the pack makers are not doing quality control!

And thus the pack makers and their BRAND NAME gets hurt in the process and go out of business. YET there are many out there willing to start yet another pack and brand and live this stupid cycle. Again I cant even NAME all the pack makers and brands that have been out and are now gone in the last 5 years. Hell one of my local hobby shops just started THEIR own brand! I warned them about the "shuffle" and got a "deer in the headlights look". Oh well.... here we go again!

Bob''