SprocketLocket
100 W
I signed up for hobbyking's email list, but am not receiving them (including in spam folder), but even when I did years ago, there was nowhere you could see all the deals in one place. Apparently they are doing some kind of pre-Black Friday sale, but I've never seen this one go on sale before (I'm sure it has, I just haven't seen).
This is the lowest price I've seen on Multistar "10000mah" 6S lipo bricks.
HobbyKing is not the most-respected vendor around here and yet most of us have still purchased from them more than we'd like to admit. I wish they still had the affiliate link program, as I'm about to make them some money:
https://hobbyking.com/en_us/multistar-high-capacity-6s-10000mah-multi-rotor-lipo-pack.html
Current price: $71.74 + a basically flat rate shipping of ~$13.
Normally these days they're around $90 + shipping.
When they first came out, they were about $100 each, to my recollection, and you had to pay shipping on each one.
That's 32 cents per nominal watt-hour.
I don't know when the price will go back up, so if it has by the time you read this, sorry.
Current price is even lower than the 8Ah 6S, which is $77.18
https://hobbyking.com/en_us/multistar-high-capacity-6s-8000mah-multi-rotor-lipo-pack.html
Some improvements at HobbyKing from past years:
They now allow you to buy more than one lipo in ONE order (gasp!), and ship for the same (basically) flat rate! About 13 bucks. Much better than paying 13 bucks a brick! Yikes! This is another reason to buy more; much savings on shipping.
They seem to not play games with the prices like they used to? I mean the whole "don't add the item to the cart, wait and see if the page will try to bribe you by 'lowering' the price". I haven't seen that happen lately. (Is it still done?) (They only ever did that on the lower-cost stuff--never with the multistar batts themselves.)
There are more items in the USA warehouse. I haven't had to do dual orders (weird system) for awhile.
They don't have listings for "USA East" and "USA West" warehouse. The impression is that they only have 1 warehouse now (in the Pacific northwest--long shipping for most, but beats international).
Nowadays they have 12Ah and 16Ah versions.
12ah $110.35:
https://hobbyking.com/en_us/multistar-high-capacity-6s-12000mah-multi-rotor-lipo-pack.html
16ah $119.86
https://hobbyking.com/en_us/multistar-high-capacity-6s-16000mah-multi-rotor-lipo-pack.html
So you will see that the current price per watt-hour for the 10Ah is excellent. They will raise the price I'm sure, BUT I think the price may now stay permanently below $90, or at least now Amazon and Ebay price for Multistar 10Ah are also noticeably cheaper than they were a few weeks ago. Though all quite a bit more than this sale price.
I don't need anyone warning me about lipo, and am certainly not fishing for another lipo-yes-no war. This post is for people who know about these things, know what they're looking at, and know they want it.
IFFFFFF YOU don't know what these are, or do not know what you are doing, please ignore this sale and look up info on lipo first before you commit yourself to this technology and chemistry. If you are shopping for batteries, and want a safer, more-prefab, and known high-quality option, go with Luna batteries made out of top-quality Panasonic, Sanyo and LG 18650 cells.
Such as:
https://lunacycle.com/52v-18650-ebike-battery-packs/
These are the cheapest highest-quality ebike packs you can get, to my knowledge, at least USA-built & shipped. Comparable packs elsewhere like Juiced Bikes (which I think has better deals on actual pre-built e-bikes) cost more, although Juiced has models with very well-integrated batteries.
I would opt for 52V over 48V anytime I had a choice, and just about any 48V-compatible controller should be able to handle nominal 52V (though it'd be common sense to verify).
Things I've learned about lipo:
I get up to about 3/4 the nominal rating as I stop in the high 3.6V range at the lowest. But I do charge up to 4.2V right now as I still need maximum range.
I could be wrong, but my impression is it's harder on lipo to drain it far, than to pump it up full. So for now, it's full charge, and less than full discharge.
The cells will tell you when they're starting to get unhappy while discharging, as they'll be warm to the touch. Warm batteries: I don't like it. Hot batteries: definitely not good (for the record: I've never made an ebike lipo hot, but have made plenty of non-ebike 18650's hot: laptops, flashlights, USB power banks).
You can buy little voltage monitoring devices for lipos that go on the balance connectors, sold for RC use. Some have built-in alarms. I used to use the alarm before I got the hang of it.
I now actually think the more lipo you have, the safer the lipo is. Risks while riding seem to happen most from lack of capacity (drawing down too far and too fast). Lipo is cheap and small. So you might as well get a lot. That's not what I did though. A nice benefit is you can start with a small amount, and add to it. That's what I did, and damaged one of my first bricks drawing down too far (lesson learned).
I hope this will also appease the anti-Lipo gods...
[The following info is not a substitute for proper lipo education.]
I try to not let my multistars get below 3.70 volts per cell, though sometimes they do get into the 3.6x range. I set my goal for having my ride complete by around 3.75v, though it usually don't go that way. I notice I can feel warmth from the batts around 3.75V, probably a bit higher, but not while in 3.9V/4-volt territory. I have noticed 18650's "lose their mojo" under around 3.8V too, such as with decent-performance LED flashlights. When I first got into LiPo, I thought they would be roughly comparable to being drained like you would an 18650 in an LED flashlight, though--THIS IS NOT THE CASE. The current drawn on ebikes is, on a relative scale, much more gusto than even most enthusiast LED flashlights, and lithium is more sensitive to high current draw the lower you go. So, study up and don't take lipo bricks below 3.6V--which is a lot higher than the low end of 2.8 to 3.2 volts that LED flashlight users are used to with 18650's..
I nearly bought a Luna pack even after owning some Lipo bricks (the plan was to have an 18650 triangle pack, and lipo's in the rear as backup). 18650 packs are safer to take lower, but after my experience with lipo, if I had an 18650 pack, I would figure out what voltage the cells start to get warm at, and make that my nominal "Emtpy" mark. With Lipo, my "halfway point" is about 3.85V, maybe even higher. I know, that sounds high if you're familiar with 18650 with non-ebikes. TAKE HEED.
Lipo is scary. After using it and getting to know the ropes, it doesn't seem so dramatic. You just know you don't want to do anything stupid. I don't like unplugging everything, as plugging everything in is what scares me the most. You definitely must not short anything. XT90 connectors are good like that, but when you start adding in your own lego warning harness caution is the game.
Lipo is the Happy Fun Ball of battery chemistry [reference: old SNL skit]. That little 'instruction booklet' that comes with multistars reads like the Happy Fun Ball commercial, too. The one thing i DIDN'T see, was a warning to not sit them on their sides. The funny thing is, these lipo's are made for RC copters, which... fall out of the sky! IDK if those copters have padded battery compartments. Plus... an RC copter/plane can crash at any angle.
Lipo can either seem to do okay if you accidentally take them lower than 3.6V, or not... sometimes you end up with damaged cells (don't ask me how I know this!). Either way, it becomes dangerous and you don't want to hurt their capacity even if it were not dangerous. You have to understand serial, parallel, and have a reason to prefer lipo over 18650.
For me it's cost (about half the price of the cheapest high quality 18650 packs but NOT without tradeoffs, including safety), and configurability. With 6S, I can do around 48V, or around 72V (or 24V, if I had an actual use for that). 4S is more configurable, but you end up interconnecting more bricks. 10AWG XT90 serial and parallel adapters are available, and whether you buy adapters and lego them, or solder them yourself, you effectively have to make your own wiring harness. Lipo is more DIY. But not as DIY as building your own 18650 pack, either. To me, it was the middle ground. If you're not a nerd and do not have a compulsion to measure and monitor the voltages of batteries, lipo and you are probably not for each other.
Something you can't do with an 18650 triangle pack is: if you have 2 ebikes, you can split your pack in half, and go riding with a companion. Then merge the pack again when solo. And possibly more-easily move the entire pack over to another bike (those big 18650 triangle packs seem like they'd be a pain to move back & forth--then again, less time plugging everything in). But you could lego a bit with the 'smaller' [non-triangle] 18650 packs (running identical packs parallel). Obviously, you don't want to run any lithium in serial OR parallel unless they are identical everything (including voltage). Being about half the price plus being able to have all my pack on one bike, the other bike, or split between both bikes (and already having some lipo bricks), I continued down that road. If I were just new to this, I'd probably spend the money and get a big 52V 18650 triangle pack from Luna, and they also include a nice charger. Maybe not. The Luna packs certainly involve less studying and less stressing/worry. The way I look at lipo: the more you worry, the safer you are. Kind of like working on a roof.
I found that adding 50% more capacity, yielded MORE than 50% more range... actually, almost double (at equivalent speed). I was shocked by this and have never seen this written so explicitly as I am now. It showed me how hard batteries are getting pushed on ebikes, even when riding gently.
While electric motors are theoretically most-efficient near the peak of their rpm range, I've found from personal experience that nothing drains your batts like riding fast (and frequent starts). The increased range you get from the batteries not working so hard, is MUCH higher than I expected or read about previously. Kind of like if you use alkaline batts in a digital camera, you don't get much capacity b/c they're pushed so hard. Lipo can take a watt-hit better than just about any other chemistry, but is still way affected by it in terms of efficiency. I still don't get any heat While in the upper 50% of my usable capacity, but I still see it on the voltage drop.
Now for the discussion of 10AH vs 12AH vs 16AH.
IIRC, the 10Ah was first, then 16Ah, THEN 12Ah. So, I think 12Ah is newest.
SOMEONE CORRECT ME: I believe the 16Ah model actually uses TWELVE cells, not six, in a 2P configuation? That is what turned me off to buying them originally. If true, you can't truly balance or monitor them. Plus, the 16Ah are so much larger, I worried I would ironically not be able to pack as many watt-hours into my frame. I use a padded EM3EV frame bag. There is another comparable one out there. The Ibera large frame bag sold on Amazon for less is unpadded and garbage by comparison (don't ask me how I know). I use the closed-cell foam padding layers used for protecting bikes and other things during shipping to help cushion the lipos further (still learning how to do this effectively). Some lipo bricks have metal cladding for protection. They weigh more but are safer. Multistars do not.
Another thing I never read was, when you start buying lipo bricks, I found it's a pretty big commitment, as if you want to add to your pack, you have to keep buying that model of batt. If you want to go with bigger bricks, you'll basically be carrying 2 packs with you, and have to change them out while on the ride. See my above revelation about how added capacity yields more than the expected amount of range. I saw Eric/Luna telling a guy on his forum who wanted to run 2 of his 18650 packs in parallel not to do it, to just switch when one is empty. I'm sure his thought was, if he needs to ask, I shouldn't encourage him. But we all start somewhere, and the valuable info no one told the guy is he'd get more than double the capacity by adding an identical pack and running it parallel, vs just double. (This was before I'd increased my own pack and knew of extra advantages.)
If I were buying new, I'm still not sure if 10AH or 12AH ones are the best overall size for packing into today's smaller bike triangles. I'd be tempted to go with the 12AH. I was already committed to the 10AH and it may have been better in the long run, I just don't know. I still think the 10Ah is a good size: not too big, not too small. 12Ah might be a better sweet spot; I wish I knew. I found you really don't know how things are going to fit in your frame and bag, until you start playing around with configurations. At first I wasn't sure I could fit 6 10Ah bricks into my medium-sized triangle (over a kilowatt-hour) (vs 4 originally). Now, playing around more, I think I can get 8 in there. I originally kept the 4 in the boxes and internal buble wrap for protection (I cut holes in the boxes to let the connectors out). But I had to ditch the boxes to fit more in, and it made a big difference.
When people don't know anything about ebikes, their main curiosity and concern is speed. When I started riding a lot, my obsession turned to range. That meant riding slower. Still fast compared to pedaling, but nevertheless frustrating sometimes: say 15-19mph (average 15-16). Adding even more bricks means I'll be able to go just as far, just faster now.
Also, did you know Multistar has a camp chair? lol
https://hobbyking.com/en_us/multistar-folding-chair.html
Dammit, now down to $10.81! I paid more and thought it was a great deal even then (I paid $13.64--still a great deal). It's a steel-framed copy of a very expensive aluminum-tube camp chair.
It's more laid back and more comfortable than right-angle camp chairs IMO (if you like to lean back more), it just sits a little too low to the ground (knees bent a little too much). Really if you want a camp chair, it's a no-brainer; this is a 'real' sale they're having, apparently. The nicest thing was my shipping charge didn't really go up adding it. These guys should be paying me. I found it by accident on a Multistar search and was actually looking for a cheaper version of that camp chair I'd seen in an RV video--voilà.
This is the lowest price I've seen on Multistar "10000mah" 6S lipo bricks.
HobbyKing is not the most-respected vendor around here and yet most of us have still purchased from them more than we'd like to admit. I wish they still had the affiliate link program, as I'm about to make them some money:
https://hobbyking.com/en_us/multistar-high-capacity-6s-10000mah-multi-rotor-lipo-pack.html
Current price: $71.74 + a basically flat rate shipping of ~$13.
Normally these days they're around $90 + shipping.
When they first came out, they were about $100 each, to my recollection, and you had to pay shipping on each one.
That's 32 cents per nominal watt-hour.
I don't know when the price will go back up, so if it has by the time you read this, sorry.
Current price is even lower than the 8Ah 6S, which is $77.18
https://hobbyking.com/en_us/multistar-high-capacity-6s-8000mah-multi-rotor-lipo-pack.html
Some improvements at HobbyKing from past years:
They now allow you to buy more than one lipo in ONE order (gasp!), and ship for the same (basically) flat rate! About 13 bucks. Much better than paying 13 bucks a brick! Yikes! This is another reason to buy more; much savings on shipping.
They seem to not play games with the prices like they used to? I mean the whole "don't add the item to the cart, wait and see if the page will try to bribe you by 'lowering' the price". I haven't seen that happen lately. (Is it still done?) (They only ever did that on the lower-cost stuff--never with the multistar batts themselves.)
There are more items in the USA warehouse. I haven't had to do dual orders (weird system) for awhile.
They don't have listings for "USA East" and "USA West" warehouse. The impression is that they only have 1 warehouse now (in the Pacific northwest--long shipping for most, but beats international).
Nowadays they have 12Ah and 16Ah versions.
12ah $110.35:
https://hobbyking.com/en_us/multistar-high-capacity-6s-12000mah-multi-rotor-lipo-pack.html
16ah $119.86
https://hobbyking.com/en_us/multistar-high-capacity-6s-16000mah-multi-rotor-lipo-pack.html
So you will see that the current price per watt-hour for the 10Ah is excellent. They will raise the price I'm sure, BUT I think the price may now stay permanently below $90, or at least now Amazon and Ebay price for Multistar 10Ah are also noticeably cheaper than they were a few weeks ago. Though all quite a bit more than this sale price.
I don't need anyone warning me about lipo, and am certainly not fishing for another lipo-yes-no war. This post is for people who know about these things, know what they're looking at, and know they want it.
IFFFFFF YOU don't know what these are, or do not know what you are doing, please ignore this sale and look up info on lipo first before you commit yourself to this technology and chemistry. If you are shopping for batteries, and want a safer, more-prefab, and known high-quality option, go with Luna batteries made out of top-quality Panasonic, Sanyo and LG 18650 cells.
Such as:
https://lunacycle.com/52v-18650-ebike-battery-packs/
These are the cheapest highest-quality ebike packs you can get, to my knowledge, at least USA-built & shipped. Comparable packs elsewhere like Juiced Bikes (which I think has better deals on actual pre-built e-bikes) cost more, although Juiced has models with very well-integrated batteries.
I would opt for 52V over 48V anytime I had a choice, and just about any 48V-compatible controller should be able to handle nominal 52V (though it'd be common sense to verify).
Things I've learned about lipo:
I get up to about 3/4 the nominal rating as I stop in the high 3.6V range at the lowest. But I do charge up to 4.2V right now as I still need maximum range.
I could be wrong, but my impression is it's harder on lipo to drain it far, than to pump it up full. So for now, it's full charge, and less than full discharge.
The cells will tell you when they're starting to get unhappy while discharging, as they'll be warm to the touch. Warm batteries: I don't like it. Hot batteries: definitely not good (for the record: I've never made an ebike lipo hot, but have made plenty of non-ebike 18650's hot: laptops, flashlights, USB power banks).
You can buy little voltage monitoring devices for lipos that go on the balance connectors, sold for RC use. Some have built-in alarms. I used to use the alarm before I got the hang of it.
I now actually think the more lipo you have, the safer the lipo is. Risks while riding seem to happen most from lack of capacity (drawing down too far and too fast). Lipo is cheap and small. So you might as well get a lot. That's not what I did though. A nice benefit is you can start with a small amount, and add to it. That's what I did, and damaged one of my first bricks drawing down too far (lesson learned).
I hope this will also appease the anti-Lipo gods...
[The following info is not a substitute for proper lipo education.]
I try to not let my multistars get below 3.70 volts per cell, though sometimes they do get into the 3.6x range. I set my goal for having my ride complete by around 3.75v, though it usually don't go that way. I notice I can feel warmth from the batts around 3.75V, probably a bit higher, but not while in 3.9V/4-volt territory. I have noticed 18650's "lose their mojo" under around 3.8V too, such as with decent-performance LED flashlights. When I first got into LiPo, I thought they would be roughly comparable to being drained like you would an 18650 in an LED flashlight, though--THIS IS NOT THE CASE. The current drawn on ebikes is, on a relative scale, much more gusto than even most enthusiast LED flashlights, and lithium is more sensitive to high current draw the lower you go. So, study up and don't take lipo bricks below 3.6V--which is a lot higher than the low end of 2.8 to 3.2 volts that LED flashlight users are used to with 18650's..
I nearly bought a Luna pack even after owning some Lipo bricks (the plan was to have an 18650 triangle pack, and lipo's in the rear as backup). 18650 packs are safer to take lower, but after my experience with lipo, if I had an 18650 pack, I would figure out what voltage the cells start to get warm at, and make that my nominal "Emtpy" mark. With Lipo, my "halfway point" is about 3.85V, maybe even higher. I know, that sounds high if you're familiar with 18650 with non-ebikes. TAKE HEED.
Lipo is scary. After using it and getting to know the ropes, it doesn't seem so dramatic. You just know you don't want to do anything stupid. I don't like unplugging everything, as plugging everything in is what scares me the most. You definitely must not short anything. XT90 connectors are good like that, but when you start adding in your own lego warning harness caution is the game.
Lipo is the Happy Fun Ball of battery chemistry [reference: old SNL skit]. That little 'instruction booklet' that comes with multistars reads like the Happy Fun Ball commercial, too. The one thing i DIDN'T see, was a warning to not sit them on their sides. The funny thing is, these lipo's are made for RC copters, which... fall out of the sky! IDK if those copters have padded battery compartments. Plus... an RC copter/plane can crash at any angle.
Lipo can either seem to do okay if you accidentally take them lower than 3.6V, or not... sometimes you end up with damaged cells (don't ask me how I know this!). Either way, it becomes dangerous and you don't want to hurt their capacity even if it were not dangerous. You have to understand serial, parallel, and have a reason to prefer lipo over 18650.
For me it's cost (about half the price of the cheapest high quality 18650 packs but NOT without tradeoffs, including safety), and configurability. With 6S, I can do around 48V, or around 72V (or 24V, if I had an actual use for that). 4S is more configurable, but you end up interconnecting more bricks. 10AWG XT90 serial and parallel adapters are available, and whether you buy adapters and lego them, or solder them yourself, you effectively have to make your own wiring harness. Lipo is more DIY. But not as DIY as building your own 18650 pack, either. To me, it was the middle ground. If you're not a nerd and do not have a compulsion to measure and monitor the voltages of batteries, lipo and you are probably not for each other.
Something you can't do with an 18650 triangle pack is: if you have 2 ebikes, you can split your pack in half, and go riding with a companion. Then merge the pack again when solo. And possibly more-easily move the entire pack over to another bike (those big 18650 triangle packs seem like they'd be a pain to move back & forth--then again, less time plugging everything in). But you could lego a bit with the 'smaller' [non-triangle] 18650 packs (running identical packs parallel). Obviously, you don't want to run any lithium in serial OR parallel unless they are identical everything (including voltage). Being about half the price plus being able to have all my pack on one bike, the other bike, or split between both bikes (and already having some lipo bricks), I continued down that road. If I were just new to this, I'd probably spend the money and get a big 52V 18650 triangle pack from Luna, and they also include a nice charger. Maybe not. The Luna packs certainly involve less studying and less stressing/worry. The way I look at lipo: the more you worry, the safer you are. Kind of like working on a roof.
I found that adding 50% more capacity, yielded MORE than 50% more range... actually, almost double (at equivalent speed). I was shocked by this and have never seen this written so explicitly as I am now. It showed me how hard batteries are getting pushed on ebikes, even when riding gently.
While electric motors are theoretically most-efficient near the peak of their rpm range, I've found from personal experience that nothing drains your batts like riding fast (and frequent starts). The increased range you get from the batteries not working so hard, is MUCH higher than I expected or read about previously. Kind of like if you use alkaline batts in a digital camera, you don't get much capacity b/c they're pushed so hard. Lipo can take a watt-hit better than just about any other chemistry, but is still way affected by it in terms of efficiency. I still don't get any heat While in the upper 50% of my usable capacity, but I still see it on the voltage drop.
Now for the discussion of 10AH vs 12AH vs 16AH.
IIRC, the 10Ah was first, then 16Ah, THEN 12Ah. So, I think 12Ah is newest.
SOMEONE CORRECT ME: I believe the 16Ah model actually uses TWELVE cells, not six, in a 2P configuation? That is what turned me off to buying them originally. If true, you can't truly balance or monitor them. Plus, the 16Ah are so much larger, I worried I would ironically not be able to pack as many watt-hours into my frame. I use a padded EM3EV frame bag. There is another comparable one out there. The Ibera large frame bag sold on Amazon for less is unpadded and garbage by comparison (don't ask me how I know). I use the closed-cell foam padding layers used for protecting bikes and other things during shipping to help cushion the lipos further (still learning how to do this effectively). Some lipo bricks have metal cladding for protection. They weigh more but are safer. Multistars do not.
Another thing I never read was, when you start buying lipo bricks, I found it's a pretty big commitment, as if you want to add to your pack, you have to keep buying that model of batt. If you want to go with bigger bricks, you'll basically be carrying 2 packs with you, and have to change them out while on the ride. See my above revelation about how added capacity yields more than the expected amount of range. I saw Eric/Luna telling a guy on his forum who wanted to run 2 of his 18650 packs in parallel not to do it, to just switch when one is empty. I'm sure his thought was, if he needs to ask, I shouldn't encourage him. But we all start somewhere, and the valuable info no one told the guy is he'd get more than double the capacity by adding an identical pack and running it parallel, vs just double. (This was before I'd increased my own pack and knew of extra advantages.)
If I were buying new, I'm still not sure if 10AH or 12AH ones are the best overall size for packing into today's smaller bike triangles. I'd be tempted to go with the 12AH. I was already committed to the 10AH and it may have been better in the long run, I just don't know. I still think the 10Ah is a good size: not too big, not too small. 12Ah might be a better sweet spot; I wish I knew. I found you really don't know how things are going to fit in your frame and bag, until you start playing around with configurations. At first I wasn't sure I could fit 6 10Ah bricks into my medium-sized triangle (over a kilowatt-hour) (vs 4 originally). Now, playing around more, I think I can get 8 in there. I originally kept the 4 in the boxes and internal buble wrap for protection (I cut holes in the boxes to let the connectors out). But I had to ditch the boxes to fit more in, and it made a big difference.
When people don't know anything about ebikes, their main curiosity and concern is speed. When I started riding a lot, my obsession turned to range. That meant riding slower. Still fast compared to pedaling, but nevertheless frustrating sometimes: say 15-19mph (average 15-16). Adding even more bricks means I'll be able to go just as far, just faster now.
Also, did you know Multistar has a camp chair? lol
https://hobbyking.com/en_us/multistar-folding-chair.html
Dammit, now down to $10.81! I paid more and thought it was a great deal even then (I paid $13.64--still a great deal). It's a steel-framed copy of a very expensive aluminum-tube camp chair.
It's more laid back and more comfortable than right-angle camp chairs IMO (if you like to lean back more), it just sits a little too low to the ground (knees bent a little too much). Really if you want a camp chair, it's a no-brainer; this is a 'real' sale they're having, apparently. The nicest thing was my shipping charge didn't really go up adding it. These guys should be paying me. I found it by accident on a Multistar search and was actually looking for a cheaper version of that camp chair I'd seen in an RV video--voilà.
