Tell me what I want to hear about my Lipo

[Philistine]

So I just wanted to get the thoughts of the battery gurus, more for my own peace of mind that I am not being reckless, so please tell me all will be good and I can go ahead as planned.

I am putting together a 12S 40Ah pack for my Yuba Mundo, being made up of 10 Zippy 6S 8ah bricks.

I got my 10 packs, and all were good, except one pack looked puffy. The puff is only very slight, and it actually charged up fine and all cells held perfect balance. Here is two photos to show what I mean, the one on the left is a healthy pack, the one on the right being the paunchy one:



and in this shot the one on top is the puff daddy



As you can see it is only slightly puffed, and the cells are all healthy (arrived balanced, and have charged up to full charge and held balance), but I have never had a pack turn up puffed brand new before. Am I silly to go ahead and just build my pack with this one? I really want to be told to just go ahead and not worry about it, but its like when you get a burning discharge, you know that even if the doctor told you to stop your careless behaviour you wouldn't, but you still want to be told what you have been doing is totally safe...

Thoughts anyone?

 

[itchynackers]

It definitely looks like a bad cell. I'd cut the blue wrapper off. You will be able to see which one more easily. I had the exact same thing happen on a shipment. I cut the bad cell out. Now it just sits to the side waiting to be used as repair cells. Personally, I wouldn't risk using it. Maybe others will tell you what you want to hear.

Sorry.

 

[Ykick]

I've got a year on bricks like yours. Mine are 15C Zippy's. As long as the voltages behave normal, don't heat excessively and puffing doesn't get worse and break blue shrink wrap, I run 'em.

 

[kfong]

It's on it's way out. Depending on how hard you use them. If you have an RC charger that can measure the ir, you will see it being higher than the rest. I've seen some of the members here have depuffed them by making a hole and releasing the gas, then reseal them up, but I don't think that would solve the ir problem, and I personally would not trust it. It will always be the runt in the pack and will heat up more and get abused by the stronger batts, reducing your overall run time.

 

[dogman dan]

Ykick is correct. However.... Puffed at all right out of the box brand new is not right. Shove it back down HK's throat if possible. They owe you a new one.

Ones that I recieved puffed lasted maybe 20-30 cycles before they really puffed enough to be scary to me. Shipped all the way from china, sending em back was not an option. I was not going to air ship bad lipo under US law. I believe they have a better return policy now, particularly for return to a local warehouse. So try to get em to send you a new one if possible.

BTW, I have packs that are a year old now, and I still trust, that have nearly as much puff. They will puff slightly as they wear. It's not the same as one cell puffing a lot. But I do admit, I used to keep em in cardboard, and now I keep em in ammo cans with the lid left loose.

 

[DAND214]

HobbyKing claim.

Warranty
Other stores will force you to ship the product back to China in full retail packaging every time!
Hobbyking's warranty service is professional, fair and fast

I think we'd all like to know more about their service.

Dan

 

[999zip999]

Phillistine, This forum is for many things, maybe this careless behavior. You could go with a safer way A123 lifepo4. And not be so worried by your love to live light and go Fast. A dangerest life stlye. The Doctor might have you take a different pill. This will weight a little more with a added cost and needs a heart monitor hooked to ever cell.

 

[auraslip]

Wouldn't doing a capacity test on the pack tell you if a cell is bad?

 

[liveforphysics]

You could poke it with a needle, let the gas out, and reseal it. But if it puffs just shipping it, its got contaminants in it, and is probably always going to be a problem cell.

Personally, this is why I always recommended buying 1-2 more packs than you need.

 

[Philistine]

Thanks guys. I bought them from the Aussie warehouse, so I am going to inquire about what is entailed in a return, then I will probably lose patience and just go ahead with it. But thanks for all the input. Out of interest, what benefit does letting the gas out do? Does it actually have a beneficial effect on the chemisty other than just removing the swelling?

 

[spinningmagnets]

I haven't done this yet to my puffies, so exercise caution and do your own research of ES archives for the good info...I will be putting my repaired puffers on a cordless weed-wacker/string-trimmer. As I understand it, if you leave them puffy, it raises the resistance, which results in excessive heat during charge/discharge.

Remove gas and reseal, put a couple plywood plates on the outside of the pack, facing the flat sides of the cells so that the plates are in the same orientation as the flat pouches. clamp down on 2/3rds of the pack with light pressure, use banding tape to wrap the third that is exposed. Move the pressure points and tape again, repeat until the entire pack has tape around it. Set aside that pack and use it for a non-vital function. YMMV...

 

[bobale]

You're building rather large pack there, why would you want to risk that one puffy cell going off at some point and starting chain reaction while other 9 packs are tightly packed next to it? I wouldn't be able to stop worrying about that puffy cell if I'd built my pack with it .

 

[liveforphysics]

Thanks guys. I bought them from the Aussie warehouse, so I am going to inquire about what is entailed in a return, then I will probably lose patience and just go ahead with it. But thanks for all the input. Out of interest, what benefit does letting the gas out do? Does it actually have a beneficial effect on the chemisty other than just removing the swelling?

Yes. Lithium ion's cant travel through the gas in a pouch, only through the liquid electrolyte. Anywhere gas is between the layers, those areas can't function in the cell.

 

[AussieJester]

I have "de-puffed" a number of lipo cell s now Phill, search aussiejester69 vids on youtube fpr the video "how-to"
There is a thread on es I made also with vid posted.. I wouldn't knowingly use a puffed cell period, i'll put it in Phillistine language, "it is like having unprotected sex with a bali whore, u might get away with it "un-scathed" and u might not, keep doing it though and eventually it will bite u In the ass....".HEHEHE

KiM

 

[Hillhater]

Phil, HK's Aussie return service wh is "just" up the road from you in S Sydney, Send it back there but dont wait for them to replace it..they dont ! ... eventually you will get a HK credit for the dud pack.
Order another pack now on line from their shipping center ..(Just down the road in Moruya !)
Only cost to you is local postage.

 

[Philistine]

Cool, thanks Hillhater, I guess I should do that, given it is just local postage, I am just so lazy and half assed in most things I do (hence why I have blow up and shorted my share of lipo). But given I paid something like $90 for each of these packs I should make the effort to get good ones.

"it is like having unprotected sex with a bali whore, u might get away with it "un-scathed"

I've never been to Bali....

But those Thai hookers I did in Bangkok.... I would have been unscathed from that..... right?

 

[John in CR]

Regarding the return, shame on anyone thinking of sending a known to be bad lipo cell through any shipping service.

 

[liveforphysics]

Regarding the return, shame on anyone thinking of sending a known to be bad lipo cell through any shipping service.

Yes. It seems bloody retarded to be mailing about defective lipo. Not sure what a good alternative is though. They used to just replace them if you told them it arrived with a problem, but people badly took advantage of them.

 

[Philistine]

John in CR wrote:Regarding the return, shame on anyone thinking of sending a known to be bad lipo cell through any shipping service.


Yes. It seems bloody retarded to be mailing about defective lipo. Not sure what a good alternative is though. They used to just replace them if you told them it arrived with a problem, but people badly took advantage of them.

The interesting thing is after I have engaged with the customer service online chat service they have asked me to send photos of it for their consideration, without wanting to preempt the outcome, it seems that if they are happy that I got a defective pack, they will warranty it by way of the photos (ie without return). But we will wait and see on that, I will report back on the outcome.