Can any1 recommend a headway US distributor

Hello I have been looking at batteries for a few weeks and I know I will be upgrading from sla sooner or later and the headways have caught my eye. They seem really affordable. Some of the post I have read have people waiting really long for the batteries to be shipped and it looks like they were coming from china. I have seen some sites that appear to be american companies selling these though. I saw two that were based in WA. Has anyone bought headways from an american vendor that they would recommend? Lower shipped cost and time ( as opposed to shipping from china ) would be a definite +1, as well as the company having their stock on american soil on the off chance that I had to return a bad cell. Kinda scary though as the writen return policy posted on the american company sites is word for word the same and the chinese distributors, the only difference being that the american company says 10 days for damaged products and the chinese sites says 14 days. I'm thinking the american companies are just subtracting 4 days so they can turn right around and dump the bad cells back on china within 14 days. Then I could be waiting for replacements from china with shipping cost. So has any1 bought headways from american distributors?

headways sound great but I think some have had trouble balancing there packs. And yes it is a great idea to buy an extra cell just in case you get a bad one or low one. I think the guy in washington sails kits for you to put togethere.

Yes I saw the DIY from them with wires and bands screws for the plugs. But at a cost around double the price of the cells alone with no bms and $150 for the cells alone and I dont want to use their charger. maybe their spacers and I would want heavier wire. And ya I thought it odd that their 24 volt kits had 8 cells not 7. thats 29.7 volts not the 25.55 volts hot off the charger with 7 in series. I planned on balancing any pack I build once a week anyway but this is the first I have ever heard of headway being especially prone to balancing problems. Part of the reason why I was thinking of the non soldered cyclindrical cells was for ease of balancing, being able to remove them and charge them individually although a bms that would balance for me would be nice haven't made it that far yet really. Bms looks crazy expensive and seems like a lot of them don't do what we need them to do anyway. Manually balancing them often is really my only option until I can figure out what I really need in a bms and what bms's actually deliver it but that's off topic

Why would there be a problem balancing? they're just like any other lithium cell.

A123 pouch or raw RC lipo... forget about headways... they are very heavy.

gensem said:

A123 pouch or raw RC lipo... forget about headways... they are very heavy.

Click to expand...

Well i didn't want to jump off topic and say that, but i agree 100%.
Headways are quite large, do not meet their discharge specs ( sag and heat like crazy at 3C ), and have the worst energy density of any lithium cell available ( ~100wHr/KG... for reference, lipo is about 150-160wHr/kg ).

They're cheap, but due to the above things, i don't think they're good for ebike use.

Anyways, headways headquarters is the only USA distributor i know of for these.

http://stores.headway-headquarters.com/StoreFront.bok

How many do you need, and what size? i have a few kwh of the 10 aH cells sitting on the shelf, don't have anything to use them in right now. need to keep a few spares for when the packs in the other snowmachine and the four-wheeler need new cells (packs weren't built very well so they sometimes get junk in them and short/catch the tin strips on fire/ etc) but this is a fault of the pack construction, not the cell itself.

if you're interested i can talk to mike and see what we can do

neptronix said:

Headways are quite large, do not meet their discharge specs ( sag and heat like crazy at 3C ), and have the worst energy density of any lithium cell available ( ~100wHr/KG... for reference, lipo is about 150-160wHr/kg ).

They're cheap, but due to the above things, i don't think they're good for ebike use.

Click to expand...

How is their discharge any worse than a Ping? They are just fine for the person wanting a commuter that can pull some amps. Actually not counting their weight, I would say they are perfect for ebikes. Their discharge rate is in the sweet spot of what most ebikes demand. Notice I said "most" not what you LiPo junkies demand from your packs.

48V16AH Headway From EVAssemble

Dimension: 250x185x120 mm / 9.8x7.3x4.7 inches
Weight: 8.7 kg

48V15AH from Ping

Light Weight: 7.5 kg / 16.5 lbs
Small Size: 300x105x150 mm / 11.8x4.1x5.9 inches

So the headways are a lil more than a Kilo heavier but in some respects the pack is smaller than the Ping.

5-6 volts of sag @ 36A / 3C on a 36v 12ah pack and they get too hot to touch if you even average 2C for 30 minutes.
That's in line with the sag on a ping pack, but some people report that the headway sag is worse.

If you buy a premade pack, forget putting it in your center triangle as it will not fit. A ping will fit much easier. That's the advantage of flat cells..

And guess why i am a lipo junkie? i can fit 20ah of 36v power into my front triangle @ ~11.5lbs... the headways pack doesn't even fit, only has 12ah and weighs the same....

If ya really love headways though after all things said, i will sell my pack for a song. Only 8 cycles on it, and 4 months old.

What I heard or understand is on the 16s or larger packs bulid one or more cells where a little off and would not march with the other cells till replaced. They sound great but the cells don't always match new ? A lot of time triing to keep balance. If one new cell is a little off. These has come from reading and buying single cell chargers from a menber who had trouble keeping his balance.

I have seen batteries from tenergy that look identical to the headways batteries in appearance and stat wise at
http://www.all-battery.com/Tenergy3.2V10Ah38120SLiFePO4EnergyCellRechargeableBattery-30074.aspx
are these have the same heat problems as the headways? Or are they the exact same cell with a diffrent name on them?

My point is that they do perform better than Pings and for a commuter are better suited because where the pings fall short on the C level these can deliver. Yes at the cost of a little more weight, but for the average commuter bike 1 kilo isn't enough to worry about. So it's not exactly accurate to say they are no good for e-bike use.

Don't take my Lipo comment as a jab at LiPo users..It wasn't meant as one.