Zippy vs Enerland - performance > price
 

At the moment I am running Enerland cell based packs in both my 8ight (Hyperion 4s 5350mah) and CRT.5 (Flightpower 4s 4270mah). However, as my 8ight-T conversion is coming to an end, I need to order the final pieces for it. I have a Neu 1515/1.5y (1500KV) for it that I will run on 6s.

Now my question is, is it worth spending about $260 on a Hyperion 6s 5350mah pack when I can get two Zippy-R 6s 4800mah for $118 each?
http://www.hobbycity.com/hobbycity/s...00mAh_25C_6S1P

Basically, what I am asking is, does the price of the Zippy pack out weigh the higher performance of the Enerland cell based pack... in this case the Hyperion pack? Because I am running 6s, the amp draw shouldn't be as high as a 4s set up, so would I be safe in running the Zippy pack? I haven't had the greatest experience with cheap packs, which is why I am a little hesitant in getting this pack. If I go with the Hyperion pack, I know I will get a quality pack that lasts and gives great power.

Let me know what you guys think.

Thanks! :wink:

- Josh

the only question for me is, how will they last? in saying that, id rather spend 75 bucks on a 4s pack, get 20 mins of track time and swap another one in and have another 20. the performance is more than adequete, but having never owned a enderland based pack i cant really help sorry.

but u cant beat value for money. my only concern is that the pack was at 110-115F after 15 minutes in 125F track temps. is this too hot for the poor lipo?


also i noticed that the cells in my pack slide around a bit. i thought it was puffing on its first track outing but the cells were all rock hard and nothing had expanded. the middle 2 cells had slid forward 2mm and were up against the end shrink pack. i slide them back and didnt happen again, but if this is a continuing problem ill just leave them at the front where they cant easily move.

hope this helps,
ryan

Id do zippys, For the price on enerland, it isnt worth it

If you have the cash, go for Flight power or what ever, but id rather have a few of the cheaper packs, there still better the max amps and what not lol

Why not neu packs?

You get what you pay for. Enerland are the best. (Neu's are built with Enerland cells) You can skimp and get inexpensive packs which have questionable runtime and limited lifespan or you can spend a few bucks more and have one less thing to worry about.

+1 on the neuenergy lipo packs....or you can get the 25c elite lipos which have been great with my muggy conversion....cheapbatterypacks.com

i am running two 5s zippy-r's on my 12 pound UE emaxx in parallel....i am have Plettenberg BigMaxximum and Schulze esc,they are very powerful and give me a full hour of run time!...they charge up to 21 volts and run very cool!....for $99 each they kick ass! :mdr:

i think they are good enough. they are cheap enough not to be too worried about exact specs but perform high enough to satisfy us, im sure the higher priced neu packs will be better but for me, the zippies do it. on the other hand, im looking for some smaller 4s packs (true 25 or 30C) so i can reduce weight. any ideas? (6 minute races.)

Been racing a pair of the zippy 5s 5000 packs in my truggy all season. Also for long mains (20+ minute) in the buggy. I also have a pair of the 5s 4000mah zippys that I run the qualifiers with. At this point I doubt I will be buying enerland ever again. Just not enough difference for more than double the price IMO. I have many (I mean many) Enerland packs that I use regularly also. Enough to show up to the track with them all charged and run pre-race practice in both buggy and truggy race all 3 heats in both classes and the mains without ever recharging a single battery untill I gt home. Plus a couple extra just in case I get a bump up or something.



I like the enerland and they are certainly higher quality in terms of construction, but cant see a real world difference in the way they drive. Ive killed a couple Maxamps packs in my day also so I do know what crappy packs are too.

Just make sure you balance them and they will be just fine.


EDIT: One note... Now that I think about it, I did have one issue with one of the 5s 4000 packs. The first time I ran it it just went dead after about 1 munte of running. No voltage at all on the main lead, but the balance leads all shoed perfect voltage. SO I opened it utp and found that the pack must have been soldered on a monday morning or a friday afternoon, cuz the main lead was soldered on the very very edge of the solder tab and it was just barley on there so it brok off the first time I used it. No big deal. 2 minutes later I soldered it back on and have had not trouble since with it.

Another note. The charger I use is the FMA Cellpro 10S and while it charges it also measures the internal resistance of the cells. I get around 20% lower internal resistance reading from the zippy packs than I do with my enerland packs and the temps the Zippy come off the track at are also easily 10F degrees lower also. Just my observations.

Internal resistance is usually a measure of the cell quality. While I'm sure the measurements the charger takes are not 100% accurate, they should be a good relative measurement.

HC say that the zippy-r's use korean cells but wouldn't disclose who from (apparently part of a privacy agreement), whatever that means. I know enerland and kokam are two reputable lipo cells manufacturers in korea, and know of none others. I've also read about plenty of problems with zippy-r packs. That said, I have a heap of zippy-h packs which go alright for cheapo's, and I've also read about plenty of problems with the mamba monster but am yet to experience any :D

I appreciate the replies guys. I think I will go with the Zippy-R 4800 6s pack. It is supposed to be better than the 5000 pack, but not as good as the 4000 pack, but I need the extra run time. I can also get two of these the price of one Enerland cell pack.

Does anyone know where I can get an adapter from the JST-XH balancer tap to a Hyperion or Flightpower tap?

Thanks again guys! :yes:

Edit: Two more replies... thats great to hear jhautz that the temps of them are so low. Sammus, you have heard of problem with the Zippy-R packs? What kind of problems exactly? You think it would be better to go with the 5000 or 4000 packs instead? I also have two perfectly working MMM ESC's. :wink:

http://www.hobbycity.com/hobbycity/s...est_charger_6S :P

Perfect. Thanks. I actually posted asking that as I was starting to look. :lol:

Thanks again!

The Zippy-R cells are supposed to be better all around, build wise, and they way they perform and last. But there all good IMO.

For my TC, I will buy more higher end batts still (ROAR approved hard case packs.. Its a joke). But for anything else, I will having more Zippys! I love them!

+1 for the Zippy-H's also. I use a 4S 5000 in my RC8 and it's been great all summer. Stays nicely balanced too.

I hope these aren't digs at the people who have killed multiple MMMs. Because if they are SILENCE!!! I Kill you

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uwOL4rB-go

:lol:

+1 on the zippys. They perform great for the money. Like JHautz said, I am going to have a hard time buying another one of the name brand packs. I race my buggy with the Zippy 5s 4000 & 5000 packs and have a couple of 4s 5000 packs. Plenty of power and I can't really tell the difference between the zippys and the enerland based packs I have.

The zippy's aren't built as well as I had a couple of bad solder joints that could be easily fixed and also had one pack die on me randomly but given that they are less than half the cost of an enerland pack, I will take that risk. With that said, Hobbycity does sell the polyquest packs pretty cheap too. However, the value of the zippy relative to the performance can't be beat.

By the way, the Zippy-H 5s 4000 pack is really a 4350 pack. i have noticed some of their < than 5000 mah packs charge up a lot higher than their rated spec.

i have my cutoff set to 3.4v/ cell and when i recharged the 4800 i put 4820 (ish) into it.. so i wonder how much these could take if i had my cutoff set at 3.0? id say 5000 would be close.

Im all for the zippys, great price and if you can fit their odd shape of the higher C ones into your app, sweet. But I dont know anyone whose had them longer than 8 months. The long term value may not be there if you pay 1/2 an enerland but get 150 cycles

For all of you that are putting more than the rated capacity into your pack - I'm guessing your balance charging? When you balance or balance charge the balancer discharges the cell(s) that are charging more rapidly. So IMO if you have a 4000mah pack that is taking 4350mah it means that you have a cell(s) that most likely has a higher internal resistance or isn't quite up to par with one or more of the other cells in the pack. Anyways just my .02, do you really beleive that if they could tell you it was a higher mah pack they wouldn't and charge you more for it?

do you really beleive that if they could tell you it was a higher mah pack they wouldn't and charge you more for it?


+1

I believe the way they get their cells they are bound by some confidentiality agreements with the manufacturers. If you note on their site they explicitly state do not share info on other websites about their costs which is put in place by the mfg's to prevent other retailers who can't get the same stuff as cheap from being pissed. Wholesalers do this all the time.

All I am saying is that the packs take back more than they are advertised in my experience with the 4000mah packs. Mine are perfectly balanced and operate just fine. Take it for what it is worth. I am sure they can charge at least 50% more than they do for their packs and they still would be the cheapest on the market but they don't.

I bet you the Zippy-R's are "blim" enerland cells but notice that they are only speced as 4800mah, not the 5000mah that a enerland would normally be. Others have reported they actually take more than 4800 too. By slightly changing the rated mah conservatively, it also masks the cell's actual brand.

The bottomline is that they are the best thing going in terms of performance and value. I can't think of any reason to by the name brand stuff again at twice the cost. I certainly don't get twice the performacne out of my flightpower packs.

i agree edumacated, the 4s 4800 zippy came off the exact same temp as lxmuffs polyquest after a 5 min main, both runnin the 2d in the losi 8 buggy, they have to be enerland rejects, if you look at the tabs and cells they are identical

man you dont want those zippy cells there terrible. so i think you should all just step back and send them to me:lol:

i just got my zippys and so far so good ive raced 2 weekends on them and i havent had a issue yet. great packs for the money:party::party:

Or..... Maybe they aren't even rejects. It could be they just aren't selling enough of them at $200+ a pack so they are figuring out a way to use up some of the extra capacity on the equipment and cover the machine and factory overhead. Even if they aren't making as much money.


I personally think we are on the edge of a drastic lipo price drop. The so called "low end" cells are closing the gap on the elite brand names in terms of performance. Soon there will be no reason to buy the name brand except for possibly a better warranty, and lets face it warranties on lipos are just about the toughest thing to collect on anyway. Best I ever heard of on a lipo that went bad after a few months getting replaced for half price or at some discount. So if I bought the pack for half price in the first place then who cares about the warranty. I'm already ahead of the game.

Where do guys buy your zippy packs? I've searched and found many places but a lot aren't where I am willing to buy from.

hobbycity.com

hobbycity.com is the only place that I am aware of that sells the zippy brand. Its their house brand.

One recomendation is to choose the upgraded shipping option. Its a little more expensive, but I usually recieve my packages in a few days. With the standard shipping option it takes weeks sometimes and I dont know about you but I dont want my lipo sitting in some hot container on a freigher for a couple weeks baking in the sun on the ocean.

I didn't run enought my zippy H in my 1/8 buggy to give a opinion about it (you know MMM failed ect ect ...)

But i have run qui a bit my 2S zippy-K in my RC10T4, both run time and power is excellent, for the price (around 40$) the hardcased lipo make me laugh.

link me to a pack that fits in a 1/10 scale :intello:

In fact it doesn't fit :/ i did slighly cut the side of the battery tray in order to allow battery wire to exit

http://pix.nofrag.com/f/1/4/7c3698ff...90c547a8tt.jpg

I use this battey...
http://www.hobbycity.com/hobbycity/s...idproduct=6656

Super I can't find it anymore they were Zippy-k 2S 4300 mah, but they aren't listed anymore :/. maybe they lock it when backordered.

well i ordered another one a few days ago and waited the 5 days for the echeque to clear. then i used their very helpful instant messenger thingy to talk to Ricky. (very nice and very helpful)
i have talked with him on numerous times about chaging orders etc... anyway, i thought id push my luck and ask to upgrade to EMS and if he could do anything to make my order ship faster. 5 minutes later, i paid the extra 10 bucks, and the shipping label had been printed and was packed and ready to be sent first thing today.

now really, HOW GOOD IS THAT FOR CS? i dont think you can better that easily, but i really wished all companies would have an instant messenger. (and be within 2 hrs of my time haha.)

anyway with some luck ill get it on friday and be able to race on sunday with it! woo hoo. :)

but yes, zippy and hobbycity SUCK so dont anyone ever buy from them AGAIN... leave them all for me :lol: