Lipos at a sensible price?

[Rocker]

Now Hobby King are not a option anymore to buy cheap lipos. Anyone tell me where I can get some 4s 3600 lipos at a sensible price. Ever where I look they are ridiculous prices. Or is this just the state of play now Hobby King have basicly no more???? 

[Simon Chaddock]

Rocker

I think you will find it has more to do with the upsets in world trade and energy prices than purely with Hobby King.

China is no longer the world's 'super cheap' manufacturer and transporting anything from there is now whole orders more expensive. 

[Brian Cooper]

Electric flying was never cheap. . . But it has just become more expensive. 

[John Lee]

My experience with AliExpress:

 

     
 
 

[Peter Jenkins]

7 hours ago, Rocker said:

Now Hobby King are not a option anymore to buy cheap lipos. Anyone tell me where I can get some 4s 3600 lipos at a sensible price. Ever where I look they are ridiculous prices. Or is this just the state of play now Hobby King have basicly no more???? 

The other point to bear in mind is that HK, in common with a great many Chinese companies, managed to work a VAT swindle for many years.  That loop hole was closed and all of a sudden the cheap stuff became 20% more expensive.

[SIMON CRAGG]

Amazon, 4Max, and Overlander are the main contenders.

 

Most of the main stream and popular model shops and CNHL UK are also worth a try.

 

As others have said though, the days of really cheap good quality Lipos are gone.

 

Bit like cheap ARTF,s really!.

[FlyinFlynn]

Don't worry... come Novembers gas bill LiPos will be very far down the 'nice to have' list.

[Peter Miller]

I bought three 2250 3S lipos from Amazon for £45. Very good they are too. And free delivery with Amazon Prime.

[Martin Harris - Moderator]

2 hours ago, FlyinFlynn said:

Don't worry... come Novembers gas bill LiPos will be very far down the 'nice to have' list.

The way bills are going it will soon be worth buying a boatload of lipos and charging them before the next energy price rises!

[Jake Bullit]

HobbyRC are fast and reliable.

[Phil Green]

Not tried them yet but clubmates recommend GNB lipos from Hobbyrc

 

eg https://www.hobbyrc.co.uk/gnb-3500mah-4s-50c-lipo-battery-xt90

Edited September 5, 2022 by Phil Green

[Wookman]

There seem to be some quite ambitious claims regarding C rating.

[Peter Miller]

From what I am told, I believe that there often are

[Simon Chaddock]

A 60C rate (not that uncommon) would fully discharge a LiPo in less than a minute.

I have never seen a claimed high C rating actually state the effect on the battery if you actually do it. 😉 

[Chris Walby]

On 05/09/2022 at 13:11, Phil Green said:

Not tried them yet but clubmates recommend GNB lipos from Hobbyrc

 

eg https://www.hobbyrc.co.uk/gnb-3500mah-4s-50c-lipo-battery-xt90

Hi,

 

Not had the GNB lipos 3S2200 that long (3 months ish) and would recommend them so far. I fly foamboard deltas (FT Versa, even have a Do335 version!) plus Woohoo and its noticeable they have extra punch over the rather tiered Nanotechs. No noticeable change on the FMS Kingfisher, but as you would expect it does not press the lipo even if flown WOT most of the time.

 

I also have a 4S4000 that is just larger than the Nanotech 4S3300 that I fly in a Grumpy Tiger Cub and again it has noticeably more top und speed.

 

Another point much like the 4Max Purple power lipos is the smaller case and weight. No expert, but I would say there has been a jump in lipo technology as both types seem to handle the higher current demands with less voltage roll off. George at 4Max explains this better than me (in one of his articles), but at high current you want the voltage to stay as high as possible after all P=VI and if V goes down in the same proportion as current going up there is no net power increase, but increased heat generated. 

 

Next model destined for the GNB treatment is my Outlaw running 6S4500 Nanotech which pulls 90A +2KW, but this time due to space it will have to be 6S4000 and I'll report back once I have slackened my bike clips 

 

PS - I don't believe any of the C ratings, however some applications (EDF's and Outlaws) do directly benefit from the additional power available (higher C rating) while on less power hungry applications you may get longer flight times

[Andy Stephenson]

I think the original manufacturers of the cells we get in hobby LiPos probably specify conservative C ratings to achieve the cycle life in the commercial products they were designed for. It would be very interesting to get hold of the original manufacturers spec if you could find out who they were. But cycle life is not so much of a concern to hobbyists and how many of us actually count those cycles anyway. Hobby suppliers tend to play the numbers game with each other for marketing purposes.