60C really?

[lincpimp]

I would just like to make 3 points...

1. Price sells stuff...

2. Being voted best anything by any of the rc mags is meaningless. For example I have no nitro race experience whatsoever, yet I can go on any of the rc mag's websites and vote on my favorite racing nitro fuel. I could vote purely based on the attractive bottle, or the cool color of the fuel. However, while my vote counts, my lack of experience has not prohibited me from voting... Just saying that everyone who voted for maxamps being the best lipo most likely had not tried all (or even a few) of the different mfg's lipos and come to the conclusion that MA was the best. I can also say that I did not vote on anything, and I have owned a load of rc products (lipos, radio gear, escs, motors, etc.). So flogging products based on pointless pools is not really a good idea. For all we know the vast majority of the voters could be comparing the performance of their MA packs to some venom stick packs, and we all know that most any lipo will outperform the best nimh out there.

That being said i will definitely agree that Maxamps is an industry leader in pilo advertising. Public image and awareness are very important for any company selling a product or service, and I will congratulate you (Austin) on doing a tremendous job at that.

3. Surge ratings are useful, but unless you have logged info about a specific setup, you really have no idea what said setup can draw. I can imagine the neu powered speed vehicles of Nic Case are pulling way more than the motors are "factory spec-ed"... Voltage drop under load is very important, a123 cells show that while they can handle a 60c load, the voltage drop is unacceptable (to me anyways) so the fact that they do not fail is almost irrelevant. I see you spec the 60c rating at over 3.2v per cell, but then go on to spec the pack at 3.7v per cell. Big difference in cell quality in that range of 1/2 a volt per cell. Suggestions of comparing the surge ratings of the lipos to the surge ratings of the intended motor is not a bad idea, but knowing how the motor was tested is vital. Most motor specs are determined with a prop, so not much use for the land rc user.

I do realize it is difficult, many new users are jumping in to larger scale electric rc, and really have no idea what they are doing. People want nitro+ speeds out of their electrics, and I doubt every 1/8 scale vehicle will be able to do that with your 4s pack in question. I can see a truggy geared for 60mph with a CC/2650 setup pushing that pack very hard... You may want to specify it is for an 1/8 buggy setup for racing speeds (such as 40mph), just to cover yours....

[Arct1k]

Austin - Thanks for coming back to RCM

All - As per Brian's comments this thread will be actively managed...

A debate about ratings etc is interesting and useful - We also are debating a product which none of us have tested...

If surge = burst then these numbers are doable IMO - Enerland is releasing 43C Continuous packs next month which I'd guess would have a burst in this range...

The newer MA pack I have 4k 3s hardcase is working well - It significantly out performs my older 3s 5k which struggles greatly with a CRT.5. I would add that MA replaced my original 3s 5k that lost a cell which no issues.

I also do appreciate the constructed in America point - look what just happened to Medusa!

That said lets keep it civil - If Linc can do it you all can!

[Arct1k]

How about ROAR - I'm surprised they haven't set a standard.

The do destructive tests - could they not do a C test on all ROAR certified packs?

[suicideneil]

If C rate means nothing, why state "60C", unless its the only way to show the surge watts is what Dezfan means.

But then "~4000 surge watts" means nothing as R/C ground based vehicles only pull surges of current for very short durations, usually under rapid acceleration, or when doing backflips etc; noobs will look at that figure and expect they can pull that much current repeatedly during repeated burnouts and using the throttle erractically.

The continuous rating is much more useful as thats what vehciles pull once they achieve top speed (down a straight or across a field/ parking lot); a continuous level of current. You can just as easily look at the maximum continuous power level a motor will pull on any given voltage, and work out how many amps your lipo pack needs to put out in order to sustain those power levels continuously. Again, continuous makes much more sense given the way we drive our vehicles, although for drag racers and top-speed record setting guys knowing both conrinuous and burst/surge ratings might be handy, but I tend not to nail the throttle every couple seconds for a few milliseconds, so it isnt that handy to me peronally (or racers in general).

Besides, Im not trying to get a rise out of you, Im just trying to get some answers to questions that I see get asked all the time, yet there is no responce to specific questions when you have the (equipment to get the) answers mopst likely.

I'll leave you in peace though, I've berated you enough for now...

Originally Posted by suicideneil

If C rate means nothing, why state "60C", unless its the only way to show the surge watts is what Dezfan means.

That is exactly what I was getting at.

Thanks.

[redshift]

Why is it always about the warranty.... speaking of, (and not to start vicious rumors) I had read words to the effect that MA would only warranty packs that were sold directly from MA. Can you elaborate on this?

Why is a Power Force 30 amp power supply $30 more than it is from Hobby Lobby (another US company)?

And yes I understand the thread is about a new MA pack, but to me things like the above are quite telling, and this begs the question... how much are your customers paying, percent-wise, for the warranty alone?

And I am fairly sure I still don't see graphs anywhere.

As some of the other posters stated, I'm not looking to flame, and I would love to see MaxAmps thrive as much as any other company!

Thanks for your time Austin.

[lutach]

I would love to just see some real solid rating. I know real manufacturers of 100C capable cells with burst capability of up to 250C, but this technology is a long way from us consumers though. I hope this Hobby comes back to reality soon.

[skellyo]

I'll add my $0.02 here...

The prices need to come down, period. If another reputable manufacturers pack of a similar capacity fits my needs and is $60 cheaper, what is the value-add for me to even consider MaxAmps?

Note: Price comparison based on MaxAmps 4S 5250mAh $239.99 vs. Hyperion G3 VX 5500mAh $172.95

[Unsullied_Spy]

Originally Posted by skellyo

I'll add my $0.02 here...

The prices need to come down, period. If another reputable manufacturers pack of a similar capacity fits my needs and is $60 cheaper, what is the value-add for me to even consider MaxAmps?

Note: Price comparison based on MaxAmps 4S 5250mAh $239.99 vs. Hyperion G3 VX 5500mAh $172.95

+1. The way I see it there are only 2 good reasons: 1) They are a U.S. company and employ U.S. citizens (help our own economy, screw China) and 2) Warranty service. I've used Maxamps packs in the past, and while my experience with the packs themselves was far from enjoyable the warranty service was excellent.

Good to see Austin in here, from my personal experience he's a good guy to deal with.

Austin: Do us all a favor and can Jason, nobody can stand him and I think there are some of us that even hold back on your products because he's the face of Maxamps, the guy we all see on the forums (poorly) representing your company.

[zeropointbug]

Austin, please, you have not answered a single technical question we have asked.

See THIS, why can't MA supply us with a graph like this? Or at least

http://www.flightpower.co.uk/index.asp

or this.

http://www.impaktrc.com/product_info...oducts_id=4546


Just because MA believes 'there is no standard' doesn't mean you can abuse the power/freedom of that, as even mentioning the surge rating WITHOUT even a HINT of a continuous C rating is ridiculous, and really is false advertising to unknowing consumers, namely begineers.

Austin, also, when I said that no one trusts you, I meant to say no one HEAR trust you, at least no one I can think of.

Like Lincpimp said, just because you are 'rated' number one trusted battery manufacture... that doesn't mean ANYTHING, nothing, no thing. Just because religion is wide spread and many ppl believe in it, doesn't make it true. Just because McDonalds is the number one crap-food restaurant in the world, doesn't make it good for you. You guys are big, no doubt, and you guys have alot of influence, no doubt, but again that does not give you the right the advertise that you have the 'best battery in the market today' as you did. I have little doubt that RCaction rated you the best maker because you have the highest paying advertising in there mag.

About the C rating again, you say there is no standard, well there was a resemblance of a standard before you showed up with your '60C best battery on market' lingo. I am not saying that continuous C ratings mean anything - but relatively, they held water with the high end packs such as FP, Hyp, Neu, Polyquest, and the rest of the Enerland based packs. Now, with these new generation packs (G3's, TP PP 40C, Neu 40C's, Fullymax, to name a few) the ratings are consistent as far as I can see; but again, only relatively. You are right that most manufacturers only rate their packs C rating based on SINGLE CELL performance, and obviously a cont. C should change slightly when in a pack... but companies like Hyperion actually state their packs Ri, and not just a single cell multiplied by cells in the pack.

What I would like to see is pack Ri on all batteries, that is basically what it comes down to, isn't it? Ri would be the simplest, shortest way of saying what the performance of pack is. But also, when you increase the cont. C rating, the pack Ri has to go down exponentially, because waste heat is delta V (voltage) X amperage... as you increase the amps, you have to have MUCH higher voltage holding ability, not a linear thing here. Example:

Now I am not an expert by any means about waste battery heat, efficiency and C rating, but this is just my take on it, or what it should be, based on some simple technical characteristics of a lipo battery.

Let's say two given packs from the same brand/manufacturer are at the same state of charge, and both are sitting at the same resting voltage, say 4.0volts.
We have a 20C cont. rated pack, and a 40C cont. rated pack from the same manufacturer, both are 1000mah capacity.

20C pack: @ 20C discharge holds 3.2volts/cell, so 4.0v subtract 3.2v = 0.8v ... multiply that by the amperage, 0.8v X 20 amps = 16watts of heat output.

40C pack: @40C discharge holds 3.6volts/cell, so 4.0v subtract 3.6v = 0.4v ... multiply that by the amperage, 0.4v X 40 amps = 16 watts of heat output.

My point here is when you double the C rating, you need to cut the packs Ri to 1/4 of the previous lipo.

But then along comes another argument, that well at the 40C discharge, that 16 watts of heat is not going to raise the temperature as much as the 20C pack because it's half the time. So what, I think it should be heat output power, period.

[Finnster]

I'm all for Maxamps pushing an industry std as long as it makes sense. Many people do not like McDonalds or Walmart, but they are able to have heavy sway and set stds for the industry due to their large influence.

In the end, I think its the only way a std will be set, if one lrg company aggressively pushes it, and the smaller guys jump on board until their is at least a lg plurality of consensus.

There needs to be some fleshed out methodology as Brian suggested (Time, temperature and Vdrop) and the merits of burst ratings can be debated, but overall I think its fine as long as it can be done consistently and reproducibly. It really doesn't matter if the spec is somewhat BS, as long as everyone is measuring their packs on the same BS-o-meter.

[BL_RV0]

The reason maxamps is able to charge such high prices is because they advertise so much. I have nothing against maxamps- although I did have a few of their packs, most of which puffed, but those are older cells so I believe the newer cells may be better. It's also nice to see Austin on here, someone we can actually talk to. I'd like to give maxamps another shot, but the prices are simply too high. Maybe MA should can some of their advertising and make their packs more reasonably priced, having their target market being experienced RC users, rather than noobs.

[Unsullied_Spy]

Originally Posted by Finnster

I'm all for Maxamps pushing an industry std as long as it makes sense. Many people do not like McDonalds or Walmart, but they are able to have heavy sway and set stds for the industry due to their large influence.

People buy the cheap crap from WalMart and McDonalds for the same reason people buy Zippy/Turnigy lipos: They're cheap and it does the job. If it lasts 1/2 as long as a pack costing 3x-4x as much it's not really a bad investment (and if you crash and kill the pack you don't lose as much $$$).

[Arct1k]

Originally Posted by Unsullied_Spy

People buy the cheap crap from WalMart and McDonalds for the same reason people buy Zippy/Turnigy lipos: They're cheap and it does the job. If it lasts 1/2 as long as a pack costing 3x-4x as much it's not really a bad investment (and if you crash and kill the pack you don't lose as much $$$).

yup and there is a good reason why America has such a high trade deficit and US jobs keep going overseas...

The only reason there is not a buy american campaign is that they own $800bn worth of US treasuries and could sink the US if they didn't roll them... but it would be mutual destruction as they'd loose their money...

It is the cold war again but instead of nukes it is trade in plastic junk and the odd bit of lithium...

Originally Posted by Finnster

People buy the cheap crap from WalMart and McDonalds for the same reason people buy Zippy/Turnigy lipos: They're cheap and it does the job. If it lasts 1/2 as long as a pack costing 3x-4x as much it's not really a bad investment (and if you crash and kill the pack you don't lose as much $$$.

The thing that sells me on Zippy besides the price is that for 25% of the cost of more expensive packs, I get equal, and many times longer life spans out of them.

And, lets not forget that Zippy packs are not the only packs from the far East, while MA assembles their packs here, MA cells come from the same region.