Where to purchase lipos in UK?
- Thread starter Glennyboy
- Start date
Benjamin Kenobi
Easy? You call that easy?
I buy GensAce lipos from Giant Shark. Excellent lipos and good service from Giant Shark.
Glennyboy
Member
8000 to 10,000 mah for octocopter!
Glennyboy
Member
They seem a little expensive as are most uk based suppliers of lipos!
Interesting you say that. I've been building and testing for the last 6 months and have to date used cheap and cheerful Turnigy nano-techs from Hobbyking. I'm starting to have a few problems with the lipos I originally bought. They definitely swell a little bit during/after flight; only a few mm's but its noticeable to me and a bit worrying. I'm going to database my battery log in the next few days so I'll be able to see what their total flight time is and how many times they have been recharged, but I suspect it is no more than a 100 times or so.
Am I right in thinking a better quality lipo would have nearer 200 -300 cycles? I'll be looking tonight at both the Gen Aces and Desire prices and will probably buy 4 of these to start with; see how they go and see how many cycles I get out of them.
I should add that I dont abuse my lipos; always leave at least 20% in (usually about 30%) and recharge at less than 1 C.
My thinking is that the Gen Aces and Desires may be twice as expensive but if I can expect twice as many cycles before any detioration then its got to be a better choice than the nano-techs. They've been fine for testing but I have my doubts about their longevity.
If anyone else can chime in about the expect number of cycles and whether you have experienced any minor swelling with the more expensive batteries then it may make my decision easier.....its all bloody money going out at the moment though and its starting to hurt!
rotorvista
Member
+2. On electric wingman desires
Benjamin Kenobi
Easy? You call that easy?
My GensAce from March last year have had well over 100 cycles. They are the same as the day I bought them. Same IR, same flight times. I honestly can't fault them. I have 12 and they all perform exactly the same.
Cool...'cos I put in an order for 4 6S 6000mAh GenAces today. Plan also to get 4 Desires when they are back in stock at electricwingman. I'll then be able to compare both with the nano-techs I currently have, 8 of which are almost brand new and performing well. It'll be interesting to see which are the best in the long run.
Benjamin Kenobi
Easy? You call that easy?
Now that'll be a great comparison! Expensive versus cheap. Keep us posted...and I hope I haven't spend £1200 on GensAce when I could have spent half that!
Well, at this stage, I'm not too impressed with the new GenAces Lipos I got. 3 out of the 4 packs have a cell that is lagging behind others when charging. I always balance charge and the difference at the end of charging is around 0.05V for all 3 dodgy packs. Anyone else experienced this? Will they settle in time and the inbalance become less? The cheap nano-techs I've been using up to now have always balanced straight out of the box.
Benjamin Kenobi
Easy? You call that easy?
What is the IR of those cells? That's the best way to see if they are faulty. I've had one (out of 12) where the IR was 3.1 milliohms instead of less than 2. I sent it back and got another one. Differences whilst charging is not unusual. Do they balance out at the end or does the cell in question appear to lose charge once charged?
For some reason the Internal Resistance is not displaying on my Chargers, just shows up as ****mohms so I cant answer that bit at the moment until I can work out why its not displaying a value. No they dont balance out at the end of charging, that's what I was trying to say in the first post. I flew two flight today of 8 minuts 30 seconds, left the lipos to stand for 20 minutes or so and then check the discharged voltage - all cells were pretty close (within +-0.02V). I dont have my battery log in front of me at the moment but from memory one of the lipos was 3.79,3.80. 3.80. 3.80. 3.79, 3.81 - which I'm happy with. After recharging (at less than 1C) the final charged voltages were (for one of the "dodgy" lipos as an example) 4.17, 4.21, 4.22, 4.21, 4.21, 4.22. To me, the difference of 0.05V is more than I have experience before with the nano-techs.