The Final Update: Problems with a new Ping Battery/Charger

I don't understand the anger. Ping sells a decent product that he stands by, but it's well known the fans in the chargers have problems and it's clear their was an issue with the balance lead on the pack. Also, re-reading his first post I don't see where he stated the battery worked until he ran it to LVC. He said it worked until he charged it the second time. If I didn't know Ping and his reputation, I would be questioning the quality of his product too.

You guys were pretty mean to a guy that was more than willing to do his part to diagnose and repair his battery rather than force ping to take a huge hit by paying for shipping. He showed the problems and how he fixed them and was even graceful enough to write about Ping's good customer service. Someone new to the hobby with the skills to repair a battery and good manners too? I'd say he'd be a welcome addition to the forum, but you guys probably scared him off. :(
 
Auraslip, Have you not heard the snap of the whip in the air ? I have. Dogman is right this is the wild west. Careful you may be next. Ha Ha. easy
 
dogman said:

Heh, mine resembled a cardboard ball by the time it got to my front door, but was well cushioned by bubble-wrap.

The ES forums ain't a business with a reputation to protect. You're going to encounter many kinds of people here, warts and all. Slip into your thick skin before entering and welcome to the ES forums!
 
I'm in a snappy mood today after such a lame performance in the death race. Today I'm ready to go to the cesspool.

Very understandable. I'd be pissed as hell too after two bullshit track days in a row. BTW, I liked your bike. Very slick looking setup, the blue paint job was a nice touch.
 
The similarity between Chinese vendors is that they occasionally ship out shoddy looking and/or partially broken things.

The difference between Ping and other lifepo4 pack vendors is that Ping actually will make things right instead of leaving you in the cold.

I would buy a ping pack if one worked for me. Nothing beats a good warranty.
 
Ping asked me to provide suggestions for improvement. I am CC'ing below.

I have been pondering the potential cause of the failure(s) as you asked me to provide suggestions for improvement.

I believe I can offer a couple of easy & inexpensive suggestions.

Charger fan, not much to say, a simple QC problem, just test before shipping.

Low/questionable cell, pre-assembly testing and matching should minimize these problems. You might consider selling the individual "B" grade cells on Ebay for cost, not mis-representing them of course, but just dumping them for the hobbyists to use. Just get them anywhere but in an expensive assembly where replacement is problematic.

BMS looking reworked, I suspect the one I received was new & reworked during manufacture. I expect it had a problem & was "repaired" before it left the manufacturing process. As it turned out in this case the BMS was OK & never would have been noticed if not for the series of events.

The sense wire failure seemed to be the result of flex in the structure as a whole coupled with no support at the weakest part of the wire. Gluing the wires to the fiberglass board and running them as short as possible seems to transmit any flex or movement in the entire pack to the point at which the wires are soldered to the cells (and are the weakest)

I suggest allowing slightly more wire length so the wire is not so "tight" it needs room to accommodate the flex. Also apply a spot of glue directly over the solder joint where the wire jacket has been stripped to protect the fine wire from flex & fatigue, this is where the failure occurred.

Packaging for shipping is also a problem. The rigid foam board does not suit a heavy battery well as it has very little resilience/durability or shock absorbing properties, it just breaks, crumbles and readily transmits force & impact to the battery. When disassembling the battery for repair I found shards of foam inside every place that was not completely sealed.

I suggest packing with material that will absorb & bounce back or recover. 5 cm foam rubber or bubble wrap, wrapped tightly and taped well should do the trick
 
The sense wires as there are solder to the cell pads is a weak point, and on my 48v20ah was a split pack that had a 8 pin connecter where the pins inside had back out do to installing. so I glued them in place at the point where the wires go in making sure the electric connection was good first. Even the wire going into the 16pin con. for the bms had a broken copper wire under the insultlation. This is one cell measure zero the next one was at 7.8v ( clue ). Koop what amp. is your controller I think ping would have you run at 25amps. or lower. ?
 
Thank you KE. I hope my rant didn't run you off the forum for life. Off to delete everything I said now. One comment got copied by Go Go. Could you please delete it for me? The one Auraslip copied doesn't matter I think.

One of the issues I have with a thread like this, is the way it will pop up on Google. Then folks see only the thread title there, and it slams vendors that may not deserve it.
 
so kopp guy, i don't believe you. if the sense wire had been disconnected originally the pack would not have discharged at all initially. you lied. you broke the sense wire when you took the pack apart, it was not broken during manufacture or it would not have worked for them when they tested it. you don't have clue. you have never owned a pack before, don't have the slightest idea of how to diagnose what is wrong, and then trashed li ping for no reason and now you are trying to cover your ass for tearing the pack apart. you just want someone else to pay for your mistake. li ping is an easy target because he bends over backwards to make sure no customer is unhappy.

fan works when you tilt the charger this way or that. sure, what a joke.
 
Dnmun, Please have a look at the posts. I have not asked for your technical assistance, yet you sought to force it upon me. I am perfectly skilled & capable to diagnose any issues related in this thread. My post was an inquiry about a businessman and any experiences others had with quality issues. To be clear, I did not ask for your help. In fact you have not been helpful, but rather aggressive, rude and taunting. I am guessing you must suffer from a malady such as Autism or Asperger's disorder as you seem to possess some technical knowledge, but not the wisdom or insight to carry yourself respectfully. I will cut you as much slack as possible given the level of personal attacking you are engaging in and try to explain just once at a level I hope you may comprehend.

“so kopp guy, i don't believe you.”
Your behaviour so far in this thread been as poor as to ensure I don’t care what you think. This is why you have been ignored in this thread so far. I now only feel pity for your ignorance and shallow thought. This pity is why you are even getting this response.

“if the sense wire had been disconnected originally the pack would not have discharged at all initially.”
Correct, as clearly stated the failure happened after the second use.

“you lied.”
If it in some way makes you more comfortable in life to believe this then keep believing it, however, I have not. Try to understand publicly accusing another person of lying is generally insulting and will not win you any favour with anyone.

“you broke the sense wire when you took the pack apart”
Your perception of the order of events flawed my good fellow, I dissembled the pack to accommodate Ping & get to the root cause of the failure.

“it was not broken during manufacture or it would not have worked for them when they tested it”
Again correct, however, you have again overlooked the fact that I said the battery functioned for two cycles then failed.

“you don't have clue.”
Again my good fellow, publicly saying these sorts of things is generally insulting to anyone who reads them. It is this is the sort of statement that makes me believe you have a neurological affliction. You would be better suited in life to refrain from these outbursts.

“you have never owned a pack before”
True, I have never owned a Ping Battery.

“don't have the slightest idea of how to diagnose what is wrong”
I understand you must feel the need to assert yourself as the dominant technical authority in the world you perceive as yours, In this case, your statement demeaning another helps you to this end. But understand, everything you have learned has already been learned & forgotten by someone before you. Humility is not such a bad thing my good fellow it will take you many miles farther than allowing yourself to engage in such outbursts.

“trashed li ping for no reason”
Every item I have brought to point is accurate and with reason, there was no “trashing” whatever that is meant to indicate, every detail is a key point of an unfortunate quality control failure. Even exposing me to your attacks via this post has reason. In keeping with trying to help you understand, I will share some of my reasoning and desired outcomes.

First, I enquired via this post if Ping had been known for even occasionally sticking a customer with a poor quality product; I wanted to know so that I might adjust my handling of him accordingly. The responses I received indicated he is responsible & honourable; therefore I was able to interact with him on a more sedate level than I might have otherwise.

Second, as we all know the many in the world turn to the internet for information, this forum is one of those sources. I have used this forum, and wanted the good feeling of contributing, even if that contribution is an unpleasant subject, I knew the subject would be of interest.

“now you are trying to cover your ass for tearing the pack apart.”
Again, I encourage you to endeavour to control your self my good fellow, such outbursts will not benefit you.

“you just want someone else to pay for your mistake”
Again, self-control is your friend; such outbursts are generally considered insulting and will serve you no good in the end.
Again my dear misled fellow, this thread is a recount of a series of unfortunate quality problems that led to a failure of a product. There was never any question of mistake, there was no mistake and the unit is warranted. Also I am protected by the payment service; there is no point to the statement.

“li ping is an easy target”
It is clear by your outbursts it is I who is being regarded as the easy target.
Mr Ping is a businessman who represented his product as “excellent”; I purchased his product based on this and his visible reputation. The product I received did not measure up to “excellent” I have "called" him on it so to speak & he has responded well so far.

“because he bends over backwards to make sure no customer is unhappy”
I applaud him for this. It is a great quality. I am sure it will serve him well overall, it is a sound business stratigy.

“fan works when you tilt the charger this way or that. sure, what a joke.”
Goodness, these outbursts will surely be your undoing.
Again, such statements are considered insulting by most and will not serve you well, but I suspect you probably already know this.

Dnmun, I encourage you to seek some help with your anger issues, your world must be truly stressful and I suspect your quality of like has suffered for it. One only has so much life granted to them to waste even as much as you have in this thread alone being so angery is trully sad.

It is my hope that the time I have now donated to your specific anger issues helps you understand there is nothing in this thread for you to be angery over and may someday benifit you and help you find cloesure.
 
Alright.. i just read this whole thing.. .and imo Dnmun i think you are being rude and unjust in your accusations.....

regardless of source, Hobby king, Ping or Vpower etc... shit happens..

I've had Soneil chargers ( 90$ each.. ) with finicky fans, lay them flat on the floor and power them up they run nice and smooth, bump the charger and Brrrrrrrrrrrr.... until you power cycle it on and off again... that i have personally had happen. ( Want a video of it ? )

A connected but poorly connected sense wire will cause eratic behavior, the BMS may run but any slight bump of the pack will cause it to trip, and can even cause the ballancing function to un-ballance a cell in the process because of a high resistance connection between channels of the bms..

Kopps posts were polite and well written, i don't see any un-just slams here...

Dont' think that Ping hand builds his packs personally one at a time, he has them made in a factory to his standards and certainly will happen that on occasion a pack will work on the bench in china but after shipping across the globe imperfections in assembly poke their ugly heads.. ping honors his packs with good warranty, it sucks to have a dud but they happen.. it's that simple.
 
I just received an email from Ping with tracking for the two new batteries.

A day or so past his self imposed ship date, so he said he used a more expensive shipper to make sure it was "on-time".

I do hope they arrive in good order as we all expect they should. I would like very much to report a happy ending to this thread.

Stay Tuned!
 
Thanks very much for your input Ypedal!

I don't mean to whine, I just responded to him the first time he went off but his hate is spreading to other posts as well:

http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=27411

It seems like he will not see the truth through his own hate.

This is a great forum and I would very much prefer to contribute without the distraction the hate causes.
 
I just received the replacement battery & the additional one purchased. They are both on the chargers (this time with good fans) as we speak.

I will report more later.
 
I just heard a loud pop from one of the batteries or chargers both chargers are hot though one more than the other....the saga continues...
 
Stuck back at work for the moment, I'm gonna bet I will find a filter cap blown open or maybe an output transister but the charger was still "lit" so I am betting cap, we shall see when I return to diagnose. Any takers for a transistor?
 
Here is where I stand; the replacement (2nd) 60v 15ah is in good order so far. After a couple hours of charging all cells have come up to voltage & all channels of the BMS go into shunt (LEDs are lit).

The new 60v 10ah is likewise in good order.

One of the new chargers operated for ~20 mins before it failed with a loud pop. I have scavenged the fan from it to replace the bad fan that came with the first charger.

In summary:
Out of three batteries one had a bad cell cluster.
Out of three chargers one had a bad fan & one failed outright.

Ping has stood by his warranty and made it right to the best of his abilities. While I am a little disappointed with the hassle of quality issues, I must say, I am happy with Ping’s willingness to honor his warranty and cover the expenses of shipping.

In short Ping has earned my respect and recommendation as a good business person to do business with even in light of the obvious quality problems I experienced.
 
Wow. the bad juju just wont leave you alone. Knew ping wouldn't screw you though. He's got a good reputation, and his prices allow him to fix problems. Sometimes a cut rate battery vendor doesn't have the money to cover the bad stuff.

I don't think he has much controll over QC on chargers. 1 out of 10 going pop may be standard, but you got two for three! Were these the metal 5 amp chargers, or the smaller plastic ones. Some of the plastic ones have not been too good in the past.
 
dogman said:
Wow. the bad juju just wont leave you alone. Knew ping wouldn't screw you though. He's got a good reputation, and his prices allow him to fix problems. Sometimes a cut rate battery vendor doesn't have the money to cover the bad stuff.

I don't think he has much controll over QC on chargers. 1 out of 10 going pop may be standard, but you got two for three! Were these the metal 5 amp chargers, or the smaller plastic ones. Some of the plastic ones have not been too good in the past.

We all get lucky sometimes ; )

I agree, he just buying/oem'ing chargers same as many other builders. interesting that he sells em for ~33$ whereas I see others asking 90$-135$

I did examine the one that failed expecting to see a part in pieces, but not so, the only thing I saw looked like cold solder on the switching inductor. I expect there is enough energy stored in the flux (all the charger's energy come to think of it) when it is operationg to make a pretty good pop. The PC board is glued into the case so unless I cut it free further examination was not possable. Since I will be sending it back to Ping I left well enough alone other than swapping the fan.

The ones I have are all the same metal shell "3 amp 75 volt"
 
I have the 5 amp chargers, you pay a bit more to upgrade to them. One 36v and one 48v, and both have worked really great for me. The cheaper plastic ones tend to break a lot sooner, if not immediately.

It's sort of a lottery, you keep buying tickets (chargers) and then eventually you get a winner with the cheapies. Took me a few years to get cheap plastic box chargers that would last but eventually you accumulate some keepers.
 
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