crazy nick

My Feedback: (29)

I read an article in model airplane mag and decided to get a dymond modelsport turbo 2 charger. The mag gave it a great review and it has a ton of features including storage charge. However how do I decide what lipo's to go with? I am an avid flebay shopper so I buy most r/c stuff from there. Are the cheap batteries all that different from the brand name? I am only going to bash , I have a stampede with a tekin redline 8.5 rs pro combo. 2s or 3s would be fine. Please give me some lipo advise

FieroMan121

My Feedback: (2)

ppl are going to tell you to go hobbyking

personaly, i still dont trust those cheap packs, i love spc racing packs
http://www.spcracing.com/index.php

ive had there packs for a while and am very happy, just killed 2 packs cuz my chargers went tarded

SyCo_VeNoM

I have 4 Turnigys for about 8 months that have had no problems at all, along with their charger. My 2 are 2s 5200mah 30c hard case lipos I've ran them in Stampede's (the battery compartment needs a slight modification) Savage's, and my 1/12th truggy the packs have never even begun to get warm, and are usually within .01v of each other after 2-3 charges.
Personally I'm one happy customer of hobbyking and buy a quite a bit off of them when I order(actually plannign on another turnigy lipo for another RC I have the others won't fit in).

redfisher1974

Yeah, I wish those nano-tech's were not so long! would love to try them.

john01374

Nick - There are only really a handful of lipo manufactures that are all suppling all of the different companies. People recommend Hobbyking for good reason. The Zippy and Turnigy packs are solid and work great at a price you can't beat. Over the past few years I've owned a dozen different brands of Lipo and it is very true that some are worse than others but the packs from HobbyKing are some of the better packs i've owned and far better than some of the "name brand" stuff that you pay 3, 4, 5 times as much for.

Candre23

My Feedback: (8)

My only complaint about the two turnigy 5000mAh hardcase lipos I bought from HK is the ridiculously oversized 8AWG wires they used. It was a pain in the sack to get EC3 connectors soldered on to them. Other than that, they've been great. In fact, everything I've ordered from HK has been great. Their stuff is cheap, but it works.

SyCo_VeNoM

yea I had fun getting traxxas connectors on mine. actually the one side occasionally pops out of the connector due to the wires thickness on my one lipo when plunging it in. But I wanted a 30C battery and I guess thats what they rated the wire for. My next turnigy battery is going to be a 3600mah 25C and the wires only 12 gauge on it if I remember right

trophykat555

I just got a Hyperion 3s lipo and I love it so far. The thing screams in my slash 4x4 and its pretty good price for about 95$ on ebay.

Candre23

My Feedback: (8)

I'm sure those are good and all, but you could get three [link=http://hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=9510]4000mAh 3s 30C turnigy lipos[/link] for the same price as one hyperion. Waiting for a package from China is a bit of a hassle, but not so much that I'd be willing to spend three times as much on a battery just to get it in the US.

FoamyVictim

Hobby King has warehouses in the U.S.

http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbycity/s...idProduct=7228

Candre23

My Feedback: (8)

True, but the US warehouse is always out of stock on 90% of their batteries. If you're lucky enough to find the one you want in stock, then go for it.

proanti1

My Feedback: (2)

Nearly all hobby class LIPO batteries are made by the same company over in China... Wholesale companies just brand their stuff differently to give you the impression that you have a choice in the matter.

Willystylz

All of my 2S lipos are brand name and have never had a single issue with them. Plus all of them are perfectly balanced to the nearest 0.01V.

However during my latest forray into 1/8 scale, I have one brand name and two turnigy 4S lipos. My brand name 4S is perfectly balanced when charged and when drained. The two Turnigy's however do scare me a little. They never are perfectly balanced. And sometimes after a run, one or two of the cells will be 0.20 or 0.30V from the other two cells. This I know is pretty minor, but just scares me into thinking that I'm gonna have a bad cell any day. On the plus side these two batteries were dirt cheap and cost me about 1/4 of what a brand name 4S cost me. So, for the price I guess I can't complain.....yet.

crazy nick

My Feedback: (29)

well I guess I'm goin with turnigy , seems popular and under budget so thats more $ for bs parts. Thanks guys!

FoamyVictim

Yup, if you buy 5 batteries for the price of one... 3 can fail before you start to come CLOSE to loosing $$. I've had several Zippy, Ternigy, and FlightMax packs. All are made by the same people, in the same place. Maxamps, Venom, Thunderpower, and all the other 50 different LABELS, are all the same thing. They may tell you there's something special about them, and they may actually weed out some bad cells. But at 5 TIMES THE PRICE, its simply not worth it. These are BATTERIES ok, just batteries.

SPC

I truly hate seeing this myth show up over and over again. And even if it were true, so what? Does it mean a Toyota and Lexus are exactly the same with the only difference being a label?
Yep, all batteries are the same as are all tools. All hand tools are exactly the same and they all come from the exact same place. The very best quality, name brand tools are exactly the same as the xxxmart $.99 stuff. All oils are the same too. Synthetic motor oil is the same as gear lube is the same as sewing machine oil is the same as automatic transmission lube is the same as suspension fluids and viscosities don't matter at all because it is all the same.

Sure guys, just keep on believing its all the same!

SyCo_VeNoM

Yea next people are going to tell me my 1998 monte carlo has almost the same exact parts as a chevy lumina, Pontiac Grand Prix, Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme, Oldsmobile Intrigue, Buick Century, and a Buick Regal, and are all made by the same company but have different brand stickers and a few cosmetic differences.... oh wait they do...

FYI there are 3-4 lipo cell manufacturers

SPC

How about a Chevy Cobalt is EXACTLY, the same car as a Cadillac CTS?

Are you sure there are only 3 or 4 and again, what if there were? Would that mean that all the cells from those 3 or 4 companies are all the same, all built to the EXACT same specs and QC?

Candre23

My Feedback: (8)

Does it really matter if there are 3 lipo manufacturers or 300? The fact of the matter that whoever is making the turnigy and zippy packs is doing a good job of it, and selling them for 1/3 to 1/4 the cost of the "premium" brands. A lot of people are buying them, and if they were poorly made, you'd be seeing a lot of complaints. But since you're not, it's a pretty safe bet that they'll perform just as well as expensive packs and for just as long. And even if the occasional pack turns out to be a dud, they're so cheap that you're still way ahead of the game in the long run.

FoamyVictim

Nailed it. Even a Caddy only costs about double a typical GM crap box. Some retailers are charging Lamborghini prices for GM quality/performance, does that seem right ? What is it about those nifty labels that makes you feel comfy paying 5 times what others do?

I've had both, and raced them competitively for years. Guess what; the expensive packs perform EXACTLY the SAME as the Zippy packs I paid 1/5th the $$ for! In fact, my Zippy OUT LIVED the expensive pack!

So, you can either:

A: Be wise, realize its only a battery and pay a reasonable amount of $$ for it or

B: Pay 5 times as much for a nifty label and a wink from a rebadging company

In this economy not many of us have allot to throw at a hobby. If a Company in Timbuktu can sell me a battery that powers my hobby for 1/5th the cost... I'll do it. Otherwise, I and many others couldn't afford to race. Cheap batteries are part of why this hobby keeps going, it's certainly why BL 8th scale is still alive. Case in point: A guy walks up to me on the driver's stand and asks about my 8ight E. The typical Q's, "How Fast, How Much, Etc..." When I told him the price on the car and BL system, he wasn't shocked(He's used to paying 10th scale prices, and understands 8th scale is about 20-30% more) When I told him the cost for a battery, THEN he was shocked. "$65, where the heck did you find a deal like that?!".... I said, "China" to which he responds "Much be cheap crap right?"

Then I told him how I spent $230 on the first battery for that car(name brand hard cased ROAR approved, yadda yadda yadda), and how it now sits in pieces at my shop, while this $65 pack still runs my car nearly 3 years and hundreds of cycles later.

You tell me, what makes more sense?

Sherv

My Feedback: (1)

I find the argument flawed about "few lipo companies" and rebadging... An example I can give you in the tech world... Back in the day Ati used to sell their flagship 9700 card... They decided to bring out a midrange card as well that was a 9700 but with a few pipelines turned off (Called 9500 Pro). People then found out you could flash it to a 9700 and gain the performance boost of a retail 9700 but with a 50% success rate... Why? Because the 9500s were 9700s with defects and could only run with a few of their faulty pipelines disabled.
Same with the newer AMD Tri-Cores. Users found that you could unlock the "4th" core that was intentionally disabled and badged at a Tri core. But found a low success rate because these chips were the ones that did not cut it as a Quad Core because of a defect on one of the cores so they disabled it and sold it as a Tri core.
My point is maybe some of the cheaper lipo packs are cheaper because they did not meet their original specification that was requested by the company that placed the original orders?
I just find it hard to believe that a company steps into the market and goes... "We can build the exact same product for 1/3rd the price! And we will sell it for 1/3rd the price because we can!"... Thats bad economics/business. There has to be an underlying "reason" they are THIS much cheaper than the competition... There has to be.
I'm not knocking Zippy/Turnigy (I am going to buy the LiFe batteries soon) because 'i don't have any direct experience with them.. But there has to be a reason why they sell their batteries THIS much cheaper...

Candre23

My Feedback: (8)

See my post above. These are very popular batteries, and even though thousands of people have bought them, there aren't many reports of faulty packs. This isn't some new product from an unheard-of company that just opened up shop. If these packs were inherently sub-par, we'd have been hearing about it regularly. Unhappy customers tend to be vocal about their bad experiences, like the overclockers who couldn't unlock the extra cores. I see lots of reports from satisfied HK customers (like myself), but it seems the only ones bashing them are the ones who bought "premium" packs for several times as much and are desperately trying to justify their purchase.

redfisher1974

Seems to me its a great business, And Im sure alot of people agree. On the flip side I find it hard to believe that a company can over charge on a product and make millions on the backs of the middle class just because they can.

jermpool

I would say the oil companies but that wouldn't be true. They are reporting billions in profit yearly.

Back to the question, I have a venom lipo 5400mah that was $55 and a turnigy 5100mah that was $20 or $25. I havent had problems with either one and there performance is the same minus the slight difference runtime. I also recently ordered a charger from HK for $30. It has the exact controls as my Venom Pro, the balancer plugs are built in and the fan is nowhere near as loud as my $130 charger.

proanti1

My Feedback: (2)

Well yes, Toyota and Lexus are EXACTLY the same. A corolla with every option part is better than an IS with every option part. The only difference is the color of the interior and the Lexus badge. I worked on the s-body car line for a year and a half as an inspector.

Its funny when you pull apart a turnigy, then pull a part a zippy and see "chen zheng battery company" written on every cell.

Making the comparisons you just did made you look like the idiot you are.