Oh #%@!! What did I do to my SMC Lipos?

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Freezebyte

Member
Messages
34
Location
Missoula, Montana
Ok, I think I just seriously bit the weenie on this one. I just finally got done upgrade my Savage Flux with a new Spektrum DX 2.0 with some Proline Badlands and Velocity dish wheels. I programmed the DX 2.0 as per the usually HPI way and made sure the EPA's were at 125% and the throttle and steering where as even as possible without using trim. I kept the gearing stock at 20/44.

I"m using SMC Sport Max 6000mAh 28C hardcased batteries which have been awesome batteries up until this point. I've been using a Triton 2EQ with balancer at each and every charge and iv'e had the LVC set from 3.0v to 3.2v using the Castle link.

Today was my first day running the new truck and I kept it simple and was just running it in average grass height at a variety of speeds testing out the new tires and rebuilt shocks. I kept checking the temps and I didn't feel the motor, ESC or batteries were getting dangerously hot.
It was working good for around 15 or so minutes when I noticed it started to loose power pretty quickly, more then it used to.

So I shut it down and brought it inside and I about had a cardiac arrest when I took out the batteries that were very warm to the touch and had damn nearly puffed out of the hard pack casings!!

pufflipo.jpg


I immediatly put them outside to cool off and hopefully not explode, so I haven't taken a voltage reading on the charger but the LVC was set at 3.1v and it didn't kick in at any point, I just noticed a loss in power sooner then I expected.

Anyone please give me incite or suggestions on what the hell went wrong here? I'm ****ed that just ruined $190 worth of batteries and I don't know how or why!

newsetup.jpg


EDIT: Added photo of voltage test results for both Lipos

lipo1.jpg


lipo2.jpg


settings-1.jpg
 
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one thing no need to blance every charge good batts need balncing at the very least 15 to 20 charges or if you hit something very hard. in this case looks like you could possably over discharged them or just simply just pooed out from to much heat
 
Sometimes there's not anything else you can say except DAMN!!!
 
If you really want details, here are some photos of the grassy area I was driving on when this occured. Sure as hell don't look like it would cause my batteries to fry like that but then again, anythings possible at this point I guess.

area1.jpg


area2.jpg


area3.jpg


area4-1.jpg
 
I"m so upset I just wanna throw up. First my HDD fails on the 4th with all my data that I didn't back up, then my power supply croaks on my gaming rig last week, now this week my 50" Sony LCD screen has screen imperfection and NOW I can't drive my Flux anymore due to this LiPo **** storm.

I'm glad i'm leaving on vacation in a few days in the mountains, I hate everything tech wise right now.
 
Freezebyte,

When you get back from vacation, please give me a call or email me. We would like for you to send the packs in for evaluation. I know that you have been running these for a few months with no problems and it's a bit weird that they would puff under normal usuage and please don't take this as we are pointing the finger at you, it's just strange. Please get with me when you get a chance.

Also, just because a set of batteries puffs up don't assume there is a problem with quality, godspeed1313. These aren't the first SMC LiPo's to puff and they won't be the last. Quite a bit of the time it's due to user error either accidentally or intentionally. There are manufacturing issues just as there are with esc's, motor's, servo's, and anything else electronic. I personally have only puffed one pack out of say 40 and it was my fault as I did not have the LVC turned on.

Thanks,

Bryan
 
Freez check the bearings over and make sure there is not added drag on that chassis somewhere. Odd that a SMC would do this in that grass with the correct gearing and lvc..
 
from the pics of where you was runnin it at it looks as it would bog it out and cause some serious heat build up just not the motor but the batts as well just my .02
 
Ok, so I just got off with Brian at SMC a little while ago and needless to say, it was a very enlightening and professional conversation. I started to speak with him in regards to my problem with my SportMax 6000mAh 28C batteries I purchased at the end of April of this year.

I will relay as much of the conversation as I can accurately remember as the conversation went on for nearly 20 minutes. After stating the above info about myself to Brian, the conversation goes:

Brian: Is this Freezebyte?

Me: Yes it is

Brian: Ah ok, now I know who you are, my names Brian of SMC Racing products and I saw your post on the web

Me: Ah ok, I was wanting to call you about this problem with my Lipos as I didn't hear back from you on the email

Brian: Oh? Hmm I didn't get it, what email did you send it to?

Me: Your on you main website contact info, [email protected]

Brian: Ahh, that actually goes our our president up in Canada whos is pretty busy and it sometimes takes awhile for him to get back to emails. If you wish to contact me directly, my direct email is [email protected]. That was the email I sent to you from our past conversation when you had your first initial problem with the Lipos'

Me: Ah yes, I do remember those but I lost them in a recent computer crash and I couldn't remember it

Brian: No worries, so what exactly has been going on?

Me: Well, I think I bit the farm and its pretty much my fault. My lipos from you guys puffed big time when I was running my newly rebuilt Savage Flux on a grassy area testing out the new tires and body

Brian: Right, I remember seeing your pictures and I saw nothing out of the ordinary on you setup and the grass certainly didn't seem that high or thick

Me: That was my impression, but needless to say, now i've got my Lipos damaged that I paid good money for and I'm still not exactly sure what happened and its fustrating.

Brian: I can definentely understand. Were you running them past the stock LVC from HPI? We personally have never used the castle link on our HPI products, we deam them just fine out of the box and never mess around with the settings and have had hardly any issues with our products in there vehicles.

Me: Yeah, I changed the LVC from 3.1v to 3.3v at random times as I was getting a bunch of different opinions in regards which would be the safest setting. Some people state the LVC is an emergency backup only and shouldn't be used to determine when to stop running the vehicle, only when the speed and power drops drastically is when you want to stop driving.

Brian: Yes and no. Again, we have our Savage Fluxs on stock LVC from the factory and haven't had issues though when know as soon as the truck starts to kick and stop when you hit the throttle, we stop driving it as thats the LVC kicking in.

Me: Yeah, I unfortuantly pushed that envelope a little to far over a month ago and I think thats what caused my first little LiPo puffing in the first place and from recent info from peeps on the web, apparently if you have the LVC set to low, like 3.2v or lower, it tends to spike below that at times and causes slight damaged to the LiPo and over time, it gets worse and worse and the battery fails.

Brian: Well, very possible and yeah, pushing the Lipos past the saftey voltage which we deam around 6.0v will start to cause over discharging and puffing of the Lipos

Me: Yeah, I was being stubborn at the time and I guess once I slightly damaged the LiPo from my first incident an if the the voltages drops with the LVC are true, then I guess it was just a matter of time before they failed.

Brian: It sounds that way and I will be honest, the current batch of the 6000mAh LiPo's have been having problems handing low and high temperatures, especially down in Florida, were I've seen a large problem with puffing of LiPo's due to the heat

Me: Oh really?

Brian: Yeah, we are currently underway in producing more robust cells that will be able to take low and high temperatures better and hope to have them out soon. But we back up our products and I definently appreciate your honesty in regards to damaging the Lipos and we have no problem with replacing your LiPo's at the 50% cost rate.

Me: Awesome, thanks so much! I've just been so fustrated as this is my first brushless LiPo powered RC vehicle so its been a bit of a learning curve and fustrating at times because so many people have their own opinions and experiences about products

Brian: Yeah, some people think they just know everything and unfortuantely thats the tough part about getting info on the web, its hard to sort out the good from the bad. We try to visit the forums when we can, but this is just a two man operation here, so we keep pretty busy but also try to take care of our customers the best we can and we will take care of you.

Me: Yeah, I agree and I thank you again for your understanding and wanting to help me with. I've heard about SMC's customer service and I gladly say I can see where it comes from.

Brian: We appreciate that and we appreciate your honesty and always wanna support our customers and our products, even if some people will tend to blame us rather then their own faults

Me: Yeah, I wanna apologize if you got the impression that I was trying to start a flame war in regards to this issue and lay all the blame on you guys which was not my intent, I just had so many different "opinions" on what went wrong and who or what was at fault, I just wanted to get my facts straight, but in the end, I shoulda just called you directly

Brian: Yeah, again the web can be a good place for information, if you can sort through all the crap and personal biased. Feel free to contact us at any time with any questions either via email or phone and we will help you as best we can. I've been doing this for around 15 years and I''ve seen people do some really strange and stupid stuff at the race track. This company was orginally built to make products for racing R/C cars but lately, the direction of the market has been going to people just wanting to bash and have fun rather then racing, so were in a bit of a transition state, racing isn't as big as it used to be.

Me: Ok, so what do I need to do to get my replacement batteries a pay for the offset cost?

Brian: Well, don't rule out completely that you may not get your money back, as we will send them to the manufacturer and they can tell exactly what happened to the LiPo and if it was for some reason a factory defect, we will reimburse your money, so don't give up quit yet. They may find something wrong with the packs, they are really good about that.

Me: Oh ok, but I have a feeling it was pretty much due to me.

Brian: Understandable and again, thank you again for your honesty, we really do appreciate that and have no hesitation in replacing your batteries. We all make mistakes and i've made my fair share, i've fried and destroyed several ESC's and batteries over the course of this hobby, so I'm not immune to it either. I'm sorry you have to shell out more money then you already have. We will have our replacement upgrades for this LiPo's in the near future so whenever you get around to shipping them back to us, let me know via phone or email and I will set aside two of them for you.

Me: Well thank you very much Brian, I very much appreciate that. I guess in the end its just down to live and learn from your mistakes, even the expensive ones.

Brian: Yep and again, I will state the LVC is a good backup system to rely on, but as soon as you start seeing your power cutting off and on, you need to stop driving immediatly to prevent over discharging the Lipos' as thats what it sounded like you did initially and then it just grew worse from there. I'm not sure about the voltage drops when you get close the LVC, so I won't say yes or no on that theory, we typically stop driving when we notice a big drop in speed.

Me: So you don't think anything was wrong with my setup or where I driving?

Brian: I sure don't think so. Everything looked exactly right and hell, I run with 22/44 gearing on my Flux and i'm running Badlands on another vehicle and I"ve had no such issues and that grassy area from your pics wouldn't definently not cause our batteries on normal conditions to puff like yours did. Unfortuately, I will also state that it really sucks that their is no industry wide standard for measuring and determing LiPo's actually C rating as well as voltage variables and mAH measurements. The brushless and LiPo industry hasn't been around very long and it sucks because due to a lack of agreement upon manufacturers, corporations and the like in regards to LiPo's, the consumer like you, has to find and wade through all the misinformation and garbage to try and determine was it true and what is false or just personal biased opinion.

It also sucks if someone doesn't have a knowledgable local hobby shop to go to for the right information and answers to their questions, especially for brushless and LiPo. They get told the wrong or inaccurate information and they go and unforuantly make an expensive mistake and have to pay for it in the end. What makes it worse is that someone see's them driving or flying a high end LiPo powered product, they get excited and rush and splurge on a expensive setup of either plane, helicopter or car. They don't do their research and find out whats required to run and maintain these high level hobby equipment and the the end result, it broken expensive toys, fustrated and angry customers and empty wallets.

Me: Yeah, my LHS is very good and the guy is very knowledgable, but he's still somewhat new to the the high end monster truck brushless and LiPo stuff, and he pretty much carries and recommends Thunder Power which I've heard are good, but damn they are expensive!
 
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Brian: We along with Thunder Power take our C ratings to a standard beyond what other LiPo makers do and test them to make sure they meet and exceed what we put on our Lipos as far as output, voltage and mAh. Thunder Power does make very good stuff, I will say that other LiPo makers unfortuntely don't go as high in their quality requirements and the customer ends up getting screwed in the end when they fail. Again, feel free to contact us directly and we will help you as best we can in any area that you have questions on, thats what were here for. And I will try to remember you, but to be sure, please call or email me directly when you send your LiPo's back so I can set aside two of the more robust and updated packs when we receive them from the manufactuer.

Me: Wow, thanks so much Brian, I really appreciate it! Until now, your LiPo's were freaking awesome in my Flux, it just flew across the dirt, so I have no complaints against your product and especially SMC now that i've spoken with you twice now.

Brian: Thank you again, and yes, I've watched your youtube video's in that dirt bowl alley place and i've seen your Flux rip and scream across the dirt and it was impressive to watch, its an awesome truck. Thank you again for being honest with us, we do appreciate that as its become rarer and rarer among people AND companies and we strive to be different and better, and please contact us if you have any questions or concerns

Me: Thanks again so much Brian, i'll have to send my LiPo's in around two weeks from nowdue to finacial reasons which is a bit past the 3 month period since I bought them so I was worried about that

Brian: No worries, we will take care of you and get you up and running again with the more robust and updated packs once we receive them.

Me. Awesome! Thanks again so much Brian for your understanding, support and time for me. I know your busy so I'll let you get back to it.

Brian: No problem and again, contact us if you need anything, we want to be their for our customers

Me: Thanks and well keep in touch!

Brian: Thank you Bryce and have a nice day!

Me: You to Brian!

*both hang up*

And as Walker Cronkite so eloquently put it "And that's the way it is...." :D

Thanks to SMC and Brian, I will be taken care of, i've learned my lesson, gained valuble incite and knowledge and looking forward to driving my Flux in the near future with some new SMC Lipos! Oh, and i'll be raising my LVC to 3.4/3.5v
 
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Awesome work Brian and glad you were taken care of Free. Brian is a great guy and easy to talk to and had helped myself out quite a bit threw the conversations I have had with him my self.

I run a set of CMAXX packs in my E-Savage that I should get videos of and posted and love them. However the thing is not BL yet but will be hopefully sooner than later. Anyhow there packs are to die for and are very good.

These packs do not need to be balanced every charge session but should be every once in a while.

SMC Keep up the great work and supplying us with these great packs and customer service. Props.
 
Freeze, i gotta rep you on the way you handled this situation.

Sometimes its difficult to remain calm and deal with situations in a professional manner when an expensive purchase fails...... no matter the caz.

Ive heard great things about Bryan and SMC and your thread just proves its further. SMC is told to have some of the best packs on the market, but the customer service after the sale is very important and I'm impressed to see how SMC reached out to you to see whats up.

Sorry for your loss in money and down-time, but the good that comes out of it is a great thread with great info for other members.

:resp: freddy
 
I cant belive I read most of that... I have had the pleasure to talk with Bryan a few times not LiPo related but a quality guy none the less! I know when I make the change who mfgr will have my LiPo dollars SMC FTW
 
Just got off the phone with Bryan again at SMC, thinking about canceling my battery replacement order and just ordering some new ones, as its been taking forever for SMC to get their updated 6000mAh packs. I was surprised to learn that they arrived on the truck only 15 minutes before I called! AT LAST, the updated and replacement 6000mAh batteries have arrived from customs and are shipping out! Brian felt bad that I haven't been able to drive for almost two months, so he's upping the shipping rate to 3 day at no cost to me! SMC and Bryan, you rock!!!

My Savage Flux "Frostbyte" will be up and running soon, completely rebuilt, updated and with new pics and movies to come! Stay tuned!!
 
Freddy,

The new packs still look the same...Same size, color, and sticker. The way to distinguish the new packs is every pack now has a barcode on the pack itself, not just on the headercard for packaging. It measures about 1 inch by 1/2 inch. It will have the model of the pack on it...MB6000-28-1. In the next month we will have an all new case design. The new cases will have locking tabs where the 2 case halves comes together.

Bryan
 
Snuffleupagus said:
Freddy,

The new packs still look the same...Same size, color, and sticker. The way to distinguish the new packs is every pack now has a barcode on the pack itself, not just on the headercard for packaging. It measures about 1 inch by 1/2 inch. It will have the model of the pack on it...MB6000-28-1. In the next month we will have an all new case design. The new cases will have locking tabs where the 2 case halves comes together.

Bryan
Click to expand...

sick Bryan & thanks. I'm probs gonna have the coin to buy my packs next month so i'll hit you up by then so we can make sure i get the best packs for me.

to Freezebyte:

Glad to see that your packs are on there way so you can get running again. Thank you for such an informative thread and for keeping it up to date.

+ reps to you for adding valuable info to the electric/brushless section.
 
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