My Li Po is DOA.

I have a post under the battery charger section about a rash of #1 cells dying on me thinking maybe the charger was sucking that cell dry through the balance plug after charging but everyone who chimed in thought, in their case anyway, it was the battery. I've lost Rhino, Zippy's & Turnigy's this way.
I'm thinking about throwing some money at the name brands before jumping into 6 & 8 cell power plants and having $60.00 bricks. Do you have experience with any of the name brands? Is that the answer? What brands have treated you right, or wrong?

I do have some experience of a few brands of Li Po. Good and not so good. But firstly I must point out that I am sport flying and not 3d. That said, if my 600 drops from the sky because a battery has failed, it's still going to hurt it regardless of what style I crashed in!

But the question was about my experience with brands. I'm not at home at the moment so am working from memory w
here. Align batteries seem OK and reasonably priced. I'm liking the Flight Power EON packs too - always charge and balance OK. You could probably get 4 Turnigy packs for the price of 1, though. I have had the Flight Power packs for 5 months or so, and they have been used more weekends than not. I would not expect to see any weakness at this stage, but the www is full of reports to the contrary with ANY brand. Forest Gump would probably tell more interesting stories about Li Po experiences, but I've had a couple of uncomfortable ones limited to packs which either get quite hot (an align pack that had definately paid for itself) and a Thunder Powerpack that charges OK yet won't hold enough power for an initial trimming hover after only 20 cycles.

There is another brand that I use but won't write about until I can be specific about the model and will therefore add it later on. But I'm kind of hedging toward the bigger brands unless support is provided at a more reasonable cost. I'm told (yesterday) that my replacement has shipped. Let's see what customs say about my paying duty on a warranty return item.

I use a decent voltage detector (Spartan Li Po guard). They aren't cheap but still cheaper than writing off a model. I also use the timer on my Tx and a decent branded charger. I was originally advised by a respected UK supplier to use an I max charger, but I got concerned when it wouldn't recognise all the cells in the brand new packs that I tried to charge. I bought a Bantam and it did the job. There are others, I'm sure - but I'm also certain that if a charger can't recognise the number of cells then it's capable of mis Reading other stats. I like my house and it's occupants enough to not want to risk them in a fire, and take all the precautions of charging in a fire proof container etc.

I hope this doesn't come across as a self justification for what I've bought. It's just personal experience based on some good and indeed bad decisions. As soon as you buy something like a Li Po you can read all sorts of horror stories. Success stories too!

In closing, a supplier that I bought a pack from explained that the different brands have different return policy / attitudes. No doubt this relies on the relationship between the LHS and it's supplier, but you will either benefit of suffer from this if you need to return anything. Worth bearing in mind and indeed asking about before you buy.

Good luck & happy landings!   

Well Bob thanks for your input. I also find opinions & reports so varied from brand to brand. The bad part is there is probably only 3 or 4 companies making all of them!

I would agree with flyfly that I have had the most trouble with Turnigy. They're out in my book. The one of three owned Rhinos I lost was dented from a crash so I would say they have treated me best. I have no experience with any name brands and have spent the winter getting ready for the season building H&M Warbird's Corsair & Spitfire 60 size you may have seen on eBay recently. Also need power for a Hangar 9 150 size P-51D electric conversion thats ready to go and really don't want any damage as that's my whole seasons budget!

I think I'll try the Polyquest unless I see to much negative on them.

Happy air time to all!

there was another thread in the French section.

someone posted a pic of his brand new 5000mah Zippy lipo that ballooned.

sorry I don't speak French, but here's the thread:

http://www.hobbycity.com/hobbycity/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=7046

it really does seem to me that Hobby King got a bad batch of 5000mah cells...

Just thought I would drop in my two cents... I received a 3C Lipo, tunigy, and it was also DOA.