3 cell Lipo Batteries- Bang for the Buck

[dahawk]

Basically, all of my planes use 11.1V 3 cell batteries. from 1300mah- 2200mah.

May stir up a hornets nest but was looking for opinions on brands that provide the best bang for the buck. I'm having pretty good luck with the HK Zippy's Low price, but shipping costs?

What say you?

Hawk

[Henry Sistrunk]

http://www.headsuprc.com/servlet/the...h-35C-EZ/Detai

I have had good luck with these. You can't beat the service or the shipping cost.
Henry
http://www.headsuprc.com/servlet/StoreFront That link fails. Use this and look at 3 cells

[dkrhardy]

I have had very good luck with anything from headsuprc! Motors, ESC, etc. I've never tried their batteries. I will tell you that if you have questions, a real live human answers the phone! I even drove to their shop while on vacation in FL .. and they are very nice and HELPFUL!

Having said that ... if you are set on HK batteries, take a look at their USA warehouse.

[flypaper 2]

After trying a few different brands, I've found the Zippy Rhinos most reliable for the bucks.

[gramps2161]

Myself I have been real happy with hobbypartz and the gens ace battery line. good prices and quick shipping. So far they have been holding up great.

[Marc]

I figure to try some GForce lipos from ValueHobby.com when I need replacements. Their lipos come with Deans connectors which is what I use. Their standard shipping cost is only $3.99 per order, and their 11.1V, 20C, 2200mAh lipo sells for $10.99. Check it out at:

http://www.valuehobby.com/power-syst...1-1v-lipo.html

BTW, they sell Deans compatible connectors for $.32 (male) and $.24 (female).

[mclarkson]

Originally Posted by gramps2161

Myself I have been real happy with hobbypartz and the gens ace battery line. good prices and quick shipping. So far they have been holding up great.

I'll second this one. I'm running GensAce in a lot of my planes now. I'm positively addicted to their 5C charge rate!

[littleimp]

All of mine are turnigy nano tech. Cheap and have always been powerful & reliable.

[rcers]

Another vote for gens ace. They are performing well for me.

[oem flyer]

And yet another vote for gens ace. Working well for me too!

[Big Johnny]

I've had excellent service from the "Blue Lipo's" from Hobbypartz & Turnigy from Hobby City USA Warehouse.

[JZSlenker]

headsup RC is the way to go - I have many of their 2,3,4 cell batteries. I've tried many other brands but they are by far the best in my opinion. Jeff stands behind them 100% too.

[fmw]

I use the blue lipos from Hobby King. They are reliable and affordable. They last a lot longer for me that any other brand.

[payne9999]

Originally Posted by littleimp

All of mine are turnigy nano tech. Cheap and have always been powerful & reliable.

I had good luck with Turnigy and turnigy nano-tech until I realized they did not meet their "C" ratings. When flying 2-3S parkflyers you won't notice it because your current draw is not that high. So my application fooled me into thinking they were good.

However, I recently started flying a little more demanding setups and the Turnigy batteries would not meet their specifications and not even close. I have some nano-tech batteries that are 3300 4S and will only supply 33 amps at WOT and that is only 10C! They are rated and 50-70C. What a joke. I switched to a different battery setup and easily got 55 amps. The turnigy batteries made my 800 watt motor into a 300 watt dud.

I am switching to Gens Ace.

Dave

[eagle33]

I like Hobby King's Zippy and Rhino batteries. 3 days shipping time to Dallas from the USA warehouse on the west coast. Order from the USA warehouse.

Heads Up RC is a terrific outfit. Hard to go astray buying anything from them. Customer service is out of sight.

[N42375]

If I get 2 votes, I put my in for Gforce from Value hobby and Hobbypartz Blue lipo.

[JetPlaneFlyer]

Another vote for Gens Ace.. For the price they are the best battery I've used so far. Nanos I found to be good when new but they lost performance very quickly and are now only good for the scrap heap after 50-60 cycles or so.

In fact I did some testing of internal resistance on a range of batteries using the resistance measuring feature of my icharger.


Low resistance is better and indicated higher true 'c' rating.

• 25-50c Nanos with approx 50-60 cycles had cell resistance in the range 17 to 20 mOhm
• 25-50c Nano with approx 30 cycles had cell resistance 12 to 14
• 35c Hyperion with approx 35 cycles had cell resistance 5 to 7
• 30c Gens Ace with approc 10 cycles had cell resistance 3 to 4

Even comparing only the Nano and the Hyperion that have similar number of cycles the Hyperion has half the resistance and so twice the true c rating of the Nano... And the Gens Ace are better than the Hyperion.

Flying performance bears out these measurements, in fact the older Nanos are pretty much useless because the voltage sags so much that I dont have enough power for aerobatics and the LVC kicks in early.

Steve

[startazz]

Not trying to upset anyone here but i've got a few brands of batteries of all sizes and cells and i still put my Nano-techs at the top of the pile even higher than the Gens-Ace and a couple of the higher priced ones.

I'm going by how well they perform in my EDF's and warbirds and i've got to say the Nanos are what i go for every time i go out to fly,i've even got some GA that haven't lasted as long as my Nanos do in flight,sorry to go against the flow here but i'm only going by what i know to be true of my batteries.

I don't have any graphs or anything like that but i go but how well the battery hold up while flying my planes,and i've picked out what i feel to be the best of the bunch of my own stock and the Nanos always last longer and seem to put out more power than any other batteries i have ( to many different brands to name) so i'll stick to what i feel are the better batteries for me.

[kyleservicetech]

Originally Posted by JetPlaneFlyer

Another vote for Gens Ace.. For the price they are the best battery I've used so far. Nanos I found to be good when new but they lost performance very quickly and are now only good for the scrap heap after 50-60 cycles or so.

In fact I did some testing of internal resistance on a range of batteries using the resistance measuring feature of my icharger.



Low resistance is better and indicated higher true 'c' rating.

• 25-50c Nanos with approx 50-60 cycles had cell resistance in the range 17 to 20 mOhm
• 25-50c Nano with approx 30 cycles had cell resistance 12 to 14
• 35c Hyperion with approx 35 cycles had cell resistance 5 to 7
• 30c Gens Ace with approc 10 cycles had cell resistance 3 to 4

Even comparing only the Nano and the Hyperion that have similar number of cycles the Hyperion has half the resistance and so twice the true c rating of the Nano... And the Gens Ace are better than the Hyperion.

Flying performance bears out these measurements, in fact the older Nanos are pretty much useless because the voltage sags so much that I dont have enough power for aerobatics and the LVC kicks in early.

Steve

Very good information. Question, what is the milliampere hour ratings of the battery packs involved?

[hayofstacks]

I have used 800-2200 turnigy, eflight, parkzone and heads up rc batteries. Heads up I have only had 5 total. Out of those five, one went through a prop. It still charges fine, but its bent up enough I don't dare use it. Parkzone 1300mah with 20c rateing seem gutless, but have lasted well. Both 1500mah turnigy's puffed up while being charged at .5amps. One 2100 eflight out of two is still around and working well.

Basically, 80% of my heads up batteries are still going. One after two years of flying virtally everyday. And the one that failed was due to physical damage. The other three easily have 100 cycles or more on them and gave me around an hour of flight time each. It wasn't uncommon for me to go out at fly from 8am till noon, spend 4 hours charging 2 batteries and fly again just before dark. These also out performed any of the other batteries. The 2100 eflight feels close to the same, but weighs more.

Every single 800mah eflight battery is dead. All charged at .5 amps with supplied charger. I think I had about 10 at one point and replaced some of them. Most only lasted a couple months. One of two 1500's is still kicking in the b pile. One 2200 is still working fine.

Both turnigy 1500 puffed up on the charger. Only ballance charged at .5amps. The 2200 tunrigy the ballance leads went bad. Unsure on life because it came with the used airplane, but didn't last long.


Every single battery was used within reason about every day. Minimum of twice a week. All batteries were only ballance charged at .5amps and we never ran past battery cut off. Generally as soon as unlimited verticle was lost, plane was landed and battery was swapped out.

[crxmanpat]

I prefer the Hyperion G3 series of lipos, and you can get them in 25C, 35C and 45C versions. I have been beating on 3 3S 850mAh 25C packs for over a year now, and they are only now just starting to show some power degradation. But this is having run them hard, recharged at 5C about 90% of the time, and balanced only on the other 10% of charges.

Plus the warranty is no hassle.

[JetPlaneFlyer]

Originally Posted by kyleservicetech

Very good information. Question, what is the milliampere hour ratings of the battery packs involved?

They are all 2200mAh with the exception of the 30 cycle Nano which is 3000mAh. Larger mAh usually produces lower resistance.

My Nanos going bad could be just down to luck, maybe I got batteries from a bad batch? Having said that I have found several reports of similar performance loss on relatively low cycle Nanos, but they are popular batteries so the law of averages would dictate there would be more bad ones around than other less common types.

[kyleservicetech]

Originally Posted by JetPlaneFlyer

They are all 2200mAh with the exception of the 30 cycle Nano which is 3000mAh. Larger mAh usually produces lower resistance.

Thanks!

Being a stick in the mud guy who flys those A123 cells, it's nice to be able to compare the A123's to the LiPos.

My A123 cells generally run about 8 milliohms per 2P cell on a 6S2P pack. Some of those packs are now on their 5th flying season with over 300 flights on them. They have the same performance as when brand new.

(Output voltage on two parallel connected 2300 Mah A123 cells is about 2.75 Volts DC at 60 Amps. After a flight, these cells are about 10-15 Degrees F above ambient temperature.)

[JetPlaneFlyer]

Kyle,

Resistance is highly dependant on mAh rating. If I connect two of the Gens Ace 2200 packs in parallel as you have with your A123's then I get between 1 and 2 mOhm per 'cell' (I just tried it).. So it seems that internal resistance of the Gens Ace LiPo between 1/8th and 1/4 of that of a similar capacity A123.

The only caveat being that these are quite new LiPos and your A123 cells are relatively old but as you say performance is unchanged from new then I think we can safely say that new lipos have considerably lower resistance than A123s?

[kyleservicetech]

Originally Posted by JetPlaneFlyer

Kyle,

Resistance is highly dependant on mAh rating. If I connect two of the Gens Ace 2200 packs in parallel as you have with your A123's then I get between 1 and 2 mOhm per 'cell' (I just tried it).. So it seems that internal resistance of the Gens Ace LiPo between 1/8th and 1/4 of that of a similar capacity A123.

The only caveat being that these are quite new LiPos and your A123 cells are relatively old but as you say performance is unchanged from new then I think we can safely say that new lipos have considerably lower resistance than A123s?

That's interesting. Cell resistance should be exactly proportional to the inverse of how many cells are in parallel. Two parallel cells should cut the resistance exactly in half. One way to actually check the internal resistance of these batteries is to run a load test at perhaps 10 Amps, and measure the voltage. Repeat at 20 amps, 30 amps, and 50 amps, measuring the voltage at each current level.

The cell resistance would be the voltage at 10 amps minus the voltage at 50 amps, divided by the difference in current, 50-10 or 40 amps. R = (V1-V2)/(I1-I2)I've done this, and the resulting value is often not even close to the value given by chargers like my Cellpro Powerlab 8. Strange.

Since my motors pull about 60 Amps or so, and my A123 cells are 4000 Mah as a parallel cell combination, that's a "C" rating of 15.

Only problem with those batteries with a claimed very high "C" rating like over 60 or so, flying time is 60 minutes/C. So actually running a battery at 60C would result in a one minute flight with full power for the entire flight.

Agreed, the better quality LiPos have it all over those A123 cells both in performance and weight. On the other hand, my packs stay in the model during charging, and so far, they seem to last as long as the model itself.