# New LiFePo Distributor



## david85 (Nov 12, 2007)

Well I guess that settles it then, my batteries are definately hipower. Those are the exact chargers I have. Good pricing.


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## Voltswagen (Nov 13, 2008)

David
Yeah, I was also looking at their charger/bms system for 120v.
Seems reasonably priced.
Have you had a chance to use yours yet?


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## david85 (Nov 12, 2007)

Nope, not yet but on my build thread we were thinking it might be possible to trick it into "eating" single phase 220V. The only problem so far that I can see is the cooling fan didn't run, and that might has caused the problem.
If only I could look inside one of their chargers to see how they tick.....

I should add that in my case, the charger and BMS modules are separate and powered separately and not in a single case when it comes to the HD charger. The smaller one (also shown on the website) is however self contained but if you take it apart you will find that the charger and BMS card are still separate internally but the case is big enough to contain both of them inside.

Not sure if these are newer versions that integrate BMS and charger into one case, or of they are only showing the BMS module with the LED strings on top.


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## EVComponents (Apr 20, 2009)

FYI. We also offer these Hipower cells at a lower price than anyone. 
We charge for shipping still with our price, but our price per cell is significantly lower. 

http://www.evcomponents.com/SearchResults.asp?Cat=59

We have to include the shipping as a seperate item because we are dealing with so many different countries. It would be impossible to advertise one price for everywhere in the world with shipping included. There are too many different costs for customs and shipping.

I think if you do the math, even when we have to add a seperate charge for shipping, our final cost delivered is the lowest of anyone.

We have tested the China Hipower cells and the performance is lower compared to ThunderSky and Sky Energy. 

They are available and they are cheap. 
But the lesser performance is reflected in the price. 

I would personally rather have a ThunderSky 90 AH cell at $99 than a Hipower 100 AH cell at $100 each. 
ThunderSky and Sky Energy cells typically perform at higher levels than their marked AH.


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## Voltswagen (Nov 13, 2008)

James
Your Thunder Sky 90ah doesn't appear to be $99.00
It's $99.00 x 1.10 (adding 10% for shipping from China) plus about another $10 per cell for domestic US shipping (basing that on a shipment of 40 batts you made to the east coast for approx $400.00)
$99 x 1.10 = $108.90 + $10 = $118.90

Your HiPower ad doesn't mention the Chinese shipping charge.
Is it still there? 
Do you offer any other prismatic sizes in HiPower? 120ah....160ah?
BTW I look at your pricing nearly everyday and this is the first appearence of HiPower I have seen.


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## EVComponents (Apr 20, 2009)

Voltswagen said:


> James
> Your Thunder Sky 90ah doesn't appear to be $99.00
> It's $99.00 x 1.10 (adding 10% for shipping from China) plus about another $10 per cell for domestic US shipping (basing that on a shipment of 40 batts you made to the east coast for approx $400.00)
> $99 x 1.10 = $108.90 + $10 = $118.90
> ...


Your numbers are off a bit.
Our ThunderSky 90 AH cells is $99 per cell plus shipping.

If you live in any other country on the planet, it would ship direct from China to your nearest port for only the ocean shipping costs. That is typically about $250 to $339 depending on the order. The customer would be responsible for customs on their end. It is impossible for us to know those figures and quote them accurately for every country.

If you live in the USA, we add 10% for ocean shipping, customs and port fees. So the TS 90 AH cell would be $99 per cell plus $9.90 for all of the importing expenses. 

Then ground shipping to the final destination. 
The ground shipping cost depends on the destination state and size of the order.
I cannot say a fixed dollar amount per cell for ground shipping. It is different for every order based on if we are using USPS or a pallet with ground freight.
The quantity, size and weight of the order all figures into the price.

We can obtain any of the China Hipower cells. In the past six months, nobody has ever ordered them. The issue is that most people recognize that they are poor quality. They are only a little bit cheaper. But the performance is MUCH lower and the quality has a poor reputation. It is impossible to offer a warranty on the Hipower cells. 

With ThunderSky and Sky Energy, the manufacturers provide us with warranty protection on their products. If our customers have a problem, we can get replacements included on our next container.

If you want to save 3% on total cost and go with a Hipower cell, it is certainly available. 
But most people have decided that ThunderSky and Sky Energy are better performance and quality for the money.

I hope that helps to explain some of the differences at issue.


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## Voltswagen (Nov 13, 2008)

James
You say I'm off on the Thundersky 90ah numbers but you reiterated exactly my numbers.
It's $99.00 + $9.90 (shipping & port fees) + $10.00 per cell shipping to the east coast from you = $118.90
Where am I off here?


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## EVComponents (Apr 20, 2009)

FYI, the discharge performance of the Hipower cell is significantly lower than the ThunderSky and Sky Energy cells.

Hipower = 1 C with 5 C pulse
ThunderSky = 3 C with 10 C pulse
Sky Energy = 4 C with 12 C pulse

However the Sky Energy calls are only quoted at the 4 C for 20 seconds. Then they are also 3 C continuous.


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## EVComponents (Apr 20, 2009)

Voltswagen said:


> James
> You say I'm off on the Thundersky 90ah numbers but you reiterated exactly my numbers.
> It's $99.00 + $9.90 (shipping & port fees) + $10.00 per cell shipping to the east coast from you = $118.90
> Where am I off here?


Your ground shipping estimate was wrong. You state it as a cost per cell. That is not accurate.
It depends on quantity, weight and other issues. Is it a small order that can ship via a flat rate box?
Or is it a pallet that ships via ground freight. Those issues all come into play.
We often are able to ship other parts of an order (motor, Zilla, charger) on top of a ground freight battery pallet at $0 extra cost.

East coast ground shipping, especially to New Jersey for some reason, is extremely expensive. 
Something about trucking companies in the northeastern USA makes shipping there outrageous.
I am always shocked when we get those ground shipping quotes back from the freight companies.


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## david85 (Nov 12, 2007)

Can't say I noticed a quality issue with mine, at least not yet. With my testing I found the AH capacity of my 200Ah cells to be at least 210-220ah. Indeed documentation I received from SE indicates all of the LiFePO4 cells are under rated in that way.

The cycle life graph from SE shows capacity starting out at about 100%, then quickly rising up to about 110~115% by about the 500 cycle mark. Then at that point, is where the capacity starts its slow descend as the cell ages. I don't have it in front of me, but I think it falls back down to the 100% mark right around 1000 cycles.

However it is fair to say that SE and hipower are mortal enemies.


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## CroDriver (Jan 8, 2009)

In my opinion the price price difference is not worth the risk. ThunderSkys are already tested and have proven that they are good quality and last long if you don't discharge them at high rates and you use a BMS


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## jorhyne (Aug 20, 2008)

James why do you even offer a product that you admit is inferior to your existing lifepo4 offerings? And as you point out it is barely cheaper, I don't see why you're including one crappy product on your website when as far as I can tell everything else EVComponents sells is high quality.


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## MN Driver (Sep 29, 2009)

jorhyne said:


> James why do you even offer a product that you admit is inferior to your existing lifepo4 offerings? And as you point out it is barely cheaper, I don't see why you're including one crappy product on your website when as far as I can tell everything else EVComponents sells is high quality.


When the competition sells them and they gain peoples attention and they were available to them as well for sale, then it gets put out there. Of course a note on the site indicating that the Thunder Sky and Sky Energy cells are recommended over the HiPower cells could be beneficial in directing people to a high quality cell stating that the HiPowers don't come with a warranty or something, whatever the case is with the fact or opinions to back it up. It would be nice to the see specs on the EVComponents site for the HiPower cells and also for the Sky Energy cells since I have a hard time tracking down a Sky Energy cell spec sheet from the manufacturer for whatever reason. Even just the C rate discharges posted on the site for the HiPower cells might be helpful since it feels a little bare. There are also little things like a category for Curtis controllers but none actually in the category. I don't mean to put pressure toward site development but it's helpful for the sales of product to be able to know the most information possible. With that aside, You do provide an excellent storefront and plenty of people seem satisfied with your service.


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## EVComponents (Apr 20, 2009)

jorhyne said:


> James why do you even offer a product that you admit is inferior to your existing lifepo4 offerings? And as you point out it is barely cheaper, I don't see why you're including one crappy product on your website when as far as I can tell everything else EVComponents sells is high quality.


There are always going to be customers that are on a budget looking for the cheapest product. We can provide that product. But nobody is going to offer a warranty on Hipower cells. If a brand new distributor is offering a warranty on Hipower cells, then they probably don't have any experience with those cells. 

We have Hipower cells in our warehouse now. They arrived swollen already. 
You would think that Hipower would send us testing cells that were their best so that we would be impressed. 
They were not.

We have had customers inquire about Hipower, so it is available.
Everyone chooses ThunderSky or Sky Energy once they learn more about the differences in specs.

Since April of 2009 when we started ordering in bulk, we have yet to have a single customer choose Hipower for any order. 
That should tell you enough. If customers wanted those Hipower cells, we would be ordering them in bulk also. 

We are neutral on the battery companies. ThunderSky, Sky Energy, Headway and Hipower all compete with each other. 

So far Hipower has not even been a serious player. That may change in the future, but I think the burden of proof is on Hipower to prove that they can deliver a quality product that compares with ThunderSky and Sky Energy.

These are all just my opinions. I do not have any special ownership in any of these companies. We can distribute for any of them. We are not an exclusive distributor of any battery.


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## EVComponents (Apr 20, 2009)

MN Driver said:


> There are also little things like a category for Curtis controllers but none actually in the category. I don't mean to put pressure toward site development but it's helpful for the sales of product to be able to know the most information possible.


We have only the good Curtis controllers available on our website. 
We removed all of the models that people have problems with. 
You can see the remaining ones listed in the Curtis controller category.

http://www.evcomponents.com/SearchResults.asp?Cat=54


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## Voltswagen (Nov 13, 2008)

James
So you just told us that *only* the distributor offers a warranty on Lithium Cells and not the manufacturer?

Another question: How long ago did you test the HiPower Cells?
You say they arrived swollen. Did you test those or return them for a
a more suitable set to test?


I also have no affinity or association with any particular battery company.
I'm just a consumer trying to weed out the hype from the truth and just because a manufacturers product is more expensive doesn't necessarily make it a better product.
For example: Curtis and Zilla Controllers are more expensive than Kelly and yet myself and others here have owned and operated (abused in my case) their Kelly Controllers and yet they continue to operate flawlessly. I don't count one or two incidents as a blanket manufacturing defect. And in the case of Thunder Sky from all accounts they too had their initial defects but corrected them haven't they?


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## EVComponents (Apr 20, 2009)

Voltswagen said:


> James
> So you just told us that *only* the distributor offers a warranty on Lithium Cells and not the manufacturer?


You have to deal with a company in China. 
As an individual, do you have the ability to enforce a warranty claim against the company in China? 
Probably not. 

The only reason that ThunderSky or Sky Eneregy or Headway are likely to honor their warranty responsibilities to EV Components is because they want us to continue ordering large volumes by the container. If we ever have warranty problems with a manufacturer, we would start avoiding their products and sales would be shifted towards the China factories that are reliable partners for us.

So the end result is that your warranty is only as good as the US based distributor that you purchase your cells from. If you are purchasing your cells from a US based distributor that doesn't have the staying power to be around, then your warranty is not worth much.

There are customers of EV Components that will confirm that we have replaced problem cells. There have only been a few isolated cases. In each situation, we have handled it and then dealt directly with the manufacturer (in China) for our customer.

We are battery neutral. We will sell any of them. ThunderSky, Sky Energy, Headway, Hipower, A123, Kokam, etc. 
If it makes sense and our customers want them, we will provide them at the lowest cost possible.

Even Hipower has published that their discharge rates are only 1 C.
Compared to ThunderSky and Sky Energy at 3 C, there is not much comparison and most customers recognize that.
Hipower is simply not competitive at this point in time based on all of the information that we have.
So Hipower has not been a priority for us. That may change in the future if Hipower improves their product.
We will see.

If someone wants to order Hipower cells for some reason, that is fine with me. 
We can include them on our containers at any time.
But looking at the data, I don't see why anyone would purchase a 1 C cell for such a small cost savings.


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## Russco (Dec 23, 2008)

EVComponents said:


> We have only the good Curtis controllers available on our website.
> We removed all of the models that people have problems with.
> You can see the remaining ones listed in the Curtis controller category.
> 
> http://www.evcomponents.com/SearchResults.asp?Cat=54


Since your referenced web page re: Curtis Controllers was blank, I'll assume this is your way of stating you have had problems with all Curtis Controllers? 

I don't see any reference to the Synkromotive Controller that you used to sell. Do you dislike the Synkromotive Controller also?


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## EVComponents (Apr 20, 2009)

Russco said:


> Since your referenced web page re: Curtis Controllers was blank, I'll assume this is your way of stating you have had problems with all Curtis Controllers?


The Curtis AC motor and controller appears to be a good product.
We are working on getting that and offering it on our website at a good price. 



Russco said:


> I don't see any reference to the Synkromotive Controller that you used to sell. Do you dislike the Synkromotive Controller also?


The Synkromotive DC controller is a good one. We have many of them backordered. But due to the amount of time it takes to get them delivered, we have stopped taking new orders until we are able to provide a reasonable estimate of delivery date.


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## david85 (Nov 12, 2007)

Some of my cells had slight swelling too. However after using 12.8V sample battery for our boat trolling motor for a while, they settled down and all are flat now. No performance complaints at all. No strapping was ever used on them. The trolling motor is what broke instead


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## JRP3 (Mar 7, 2008)

Have you tried to run them at higher C rates for extended periods? What broke on the motor?


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## JRP3 (Mar 7, 2008)

EVComponents said:


> The Curtis AC motor and controller appears to be a good product.
> We are working on getting that and offering it on our website at a good price.


Do you mean the Curtis AC controller and HPG AC Motor?


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## david85 (Nov 12, 2007)

JRP3 said:


> Have you tried to run them at higher C rates for extended periods? What broke on the motor?


The worst I put them through is documented on my testing thread. ~3C for 10 seconds. Right now, I have no way to test them for 5C or for longer durations although if there is still interest I might see if its worth trying to rig something up. 

The MinnKota simply burned up. Turns out the POS isn't up to being run at full power for sustained periods on a battery that will not sag its voltage. I did a quick repair that bypasses the horrible resistor style speed controller and we'll see if it holds up but last time I took it apart, there was some water inside as well so the seal may be shot too. Being a brushed motor, there is also a risk of internal short as carbon dust builds up inside. I would not recommend it anymore and in practice the filthy evenrude 2 stroke main engine is more reliable.


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## JRP3 (Mar 7, 2008)

I would think the lack of voltage sag would be better for the motor, less amp draw and heating.


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## david85 (Nov 12, 2007)

Whats strange is I ran that thing for hours on end at 60 amps in a tank. When out on the water, it only draws 60 amps for a few seconds until the boat speed catches up, then it drops to 50 amps. If anything it was worked LESS in the real world.

Brush arcing is the only thing I can think of with slightly higher RPM/voltage than if it were run on lead. After seeing that, and how the starter in my truck also gets clogged with carbon dust, I am really getting sick of brushed motors. You think ICEs are dirt, wait till you take apart one of those puppies

Fan cooled motors like warp and ADC probably stay cleaner because they blow the dust out, but still....


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## JRP3 (Mar 7, 2008)

I tended to kill truck starters with mud and water, so I know dirt  NAPA lifetime warranty to the rescue after a good power washing  
Your testing for hours may have been the cause of premature death. I think most trolling motors get intermittent use at varying speeds.


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## david85 (Nov 12, 2007)

Oh, you are such a bad person taking advantage of the good people at napa LOL!

Very possible that the testing sealed its fate. Or maybe it was bad karma for me to buy something EV related that wasn't made in china for once. I got it working again, but only in full power forward or reverse. If it holds up, I might get a solid state controller for it. Seem to remember EV craft in ontario has some nice 12V controllers.

If it doesn't hold up, then I will have to build something that does. Don't feel like spending a few grand on a gas kicker when electric can be so much more reliable (and enjoyable). There is something nice about simply turning on a motor instead of having to prime, crank, prime, cuss, crank, prime then catch it with the throttle just when its about to stall. Then finally its running!

Anyway, I think I better end my little thread hijack here.


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## JRP3 (Mar 7, 2008)

You might look at the Torquedo http://www.jamestowndistributors.com/userportal/show_product.do?pid=11643
Not cheap, but supposedly rugged, intended as a drive motor, not just a troller.


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## MN Driver (Sep 29, 2009)

JRP3 said:


> Do you mean the Curtis AC controller and HPG AC Motor?


I'm also curious about this too, if it were the HPEVS motor(formally known as HPGC), then unless something big is changing, it would likely come with the Curtis AC controller. ...but if it were the Curtis AC controller, there are a handful of options for motors, relatively very small handful but there are choices.

I'm curious to know where EVComponents is going with this. This would make things more of a one-stop shop for me unless I change my mind away from the AC50, which I'm not dead set on since I've got plenty of time to decide and new things to come about.


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## mszhao (Oct 17, 2009)

EVComponents said:


> FYI, the discharge performance of the Hipower cell is significantly lower than the ThunderSky and Sky Energy cells.
> 
> Hipower = 1 C with 5 C pulse
> ThunderSky = 3 C with 10 C pulse
> ...


it is not the truth.
Hipower has different version of batteries which can stand different C rate.
some of them are of high capacity cell,others are of high power cells.
it makes no sense to compared them mixing together.
if anyone claim 1C continuous discharge,it certainly show Hipower cell performance is not as good as others'??? this is really a question.
if anyone know batteries and EV well,they know how to make a fair judgment.
lifespan of Hipower cells tend to be longer always.


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