Warning regarding Ovonic Lipos and Support

[Shazz4321]

Hi All,

Not sure if this is against the rules (please let me know) however I wanted to give a warning regarding Ovonic branded Lipos as I've had a frustratingly negative experience with them recently.

Before Christmas I purchased a pair of their 6700mah 4s Lipos for the X-maxx. Always used them as a pair, did the proper Carge at 1C, storage after use routine however after only about maybe 20 cycles (Max) one of the packs started to get an unusually high internal resistance (around 10-18 Ohm depending). I noticed this after the runtime took a hit. I assume from voltage sag? The other pack is perfectly fine with around the expected 3-5 ohm so something is obviously wrong and I have now stopped using it.

After reaching out to their support I was very swiftly shot down with their 3 month warranty terms and that was it. I understand the terms are 3 months but there was absolutely no attempt to work through the issue and absolutely no support whatsoever. Maybe I got unlucky and received a bad pack. That's fine, I understand that stuff happens but I've honestly had a better support experience with Banggood.

I paid a bit of a premium to buy from a seemingly decent brand (gets promoted on some of the YouTube channels) and basically got 0 support when something actually went wrong.

Further on this, and it should be obvious for most companies, do not trust any reviews on sites or social media as most negative opinions are removed (I know mine was at least). Notice how (at the time of writing) all their site reviews are 5 stars.

So I hope this serves as a warning... I am not saying don't buy Ovonic but be aware of their basically non-existent support and questionable reviews on social media and website.

 

[Adamj804]

I like gensacearespammers batteries for the point where cost and quality meet.

 

[suchtragedy]

What were your expectations for help besides them just sending you a replacement? It's been 5 or so months since you bought it and out of warranty and been used 20 cycles or so until now. I mean it sucks that your battery is toast but it's a bit biased to throw a warning out about a company for not honoring a replacement 2 months beyond the warranty.

 

[Shazz4321]

What were your expectations for help besides them just sending you a replacement? It's been 5 or so months since you bought it and out of warranty and been used 20 cycles or so until now. I mean it sucks that your battery is toast but it's a bit biased to throw a warning out about a company for not honoring a replacement 2 months beyond the warranty.

Firstly I was actually surprised by the 3 months warranty. I understand they are lipo's and things happen but this does seem quite short. I should have checked before purchasing and that is obviously on me.

What was my expectation? Some acknowledgement or understanding of the issue. A decent company should take efforts to support their customers regardless of the legal requirements and all I got was a single line."[T]hank you for understanding that our after-sales time has expired....". That's it. There was know understanding, no apology, no approach to make good on their failed product.

To be clear I wasn't expecting a replacement. A repair (although probably unlikely in this case), discounted option to purchase a replacement, anything, would have been something seeing as I now have an orphaned pack. But all I got was a simple 1 line reply.

My issue here is that regardless of the warranty terms this is an unexpected premature failure of the pack that is through no fault of my own (at least none that I am aware of). It was not 2 years down the track and 100s of cycles, this was 5 months. And I had a reasonable expectation of quality which was not the case. I have cheapo banggood\ebay packs that I understand the quality based risks I am taking and I would not be hear complaining about these if they die. However for a "High Quality Cost-effective & Best Value" brand I expected more life out of them or at least a little better support.

And you're right, this is a biased opinion based on a negative experience that I've had with a brand and I am hoping to use that experience to help inform others to make their own decision. People can buy Ovonics if they want. I am not going to stop them obviously, just know the risks...

 

[jkflow]

Sorry for your loss but you seriously need to curb your expectations on bargain brands. The 'after warranty. service is simply 'buy new at full price', any company that would support beyond warranty would go out of business quick.

Only suggestion I have on why they might have failed, besides them being bad packs, did yo continuously run these down until you hit LVC during your sessions? On stock ESC that is guaranteed damage and 20 cycles is still low but somewhat expected
If the answer is 'yes' that is your cause, if 'No' there seems to be other issues as you seemed to have been treating them correctly otherwise i.e. just bad Lipos.
If your lipos do not recover to 3.5-3.6V immediately after use you are stressing them, the lower the voltage, the worse it gets exponentially.
I've only heard good things but again this is a bargain brand. For outstanding support, look into SMC but if you are just 1h above your warranty you will get nothing.

Other possibilities, C rating is not as advertised, overheating of packs, charging a hot pack, leaving a extremely discharged pack sit for a while (over ~12h).

 

[slick2500]

Firstly I was actually surprised by the 3 months warranty. I understand they are lipo's and things happen but this does seem quite short. I should have checked before purchasing and that is obviously on me.

What was my expectation? Some acknowledgement or understanding of the issue. A decent company should take efforts to support their customers regardless of the legal requirements and all I got was a single line."[T]hank you for understanding that our after-sales time has expired....". That's it. There was know understanding, no apology, no approach to make good on their failed product.

To be clear I wasn't expecting a replacement. A repair (although probably unlikely in this case), discounted option to purchase a replacement, anything, would have been something seeing as I now have an orphaned pack. But all I got was a simple 1 line reply.

My issue here is that regardless of the warranty terms this is an unexpected premature failure of the pack that is through no fault of my own (at least none that I am aware of). It was not 2 years down the track and 100s of cycles, this was 5 months. And I had a reasonable expectation of quality which was not the case. I have cheapo banggood\ebay packs that I understand the quality based risks I am taking and I would not be hear complaining about these if they die. However for a "High Quality Cost-effective & Best Value" brand I expected more life out of them or at least a little better support.

And you're right, this is a biased opinion based on a negative experience that I've had with a brand and I am hoping to use that experience to help inform others to make their own decision. People can buy Ovonics if they want. I am not going to stop them obviously, just know the risks...

Unfortunately Ovonic is still a Chinese brand even though they are offered for sale in the US. So their customer support is going to be just like any other Chinese brand, once the warranty is over they don't care

Not going to lie but that is pretty much the same answer you would get from most any of the companies that sold lipos if you contacted them after the warranty was expired, except Maxamps they would just suggest that you buy another one of their overpriced lipo batteries.

 

[Shazz4321]

Sorry for your loss but you seriously need to curb your expectations on bargain brands. The 'after warranty. service is simply 'buy new at full price', any company that would support beyond warranty would go out of business quick.

Only suggestion I have on why they might have failed, besides them being bad packs, did yo continuously run these down until you hit LVC during your sessions? On stock ESC that is guaranteed damage and 20 cycles is still low but somewhat expected
If the answer is 'yes' that is your cause, if 'No' there seems to be other issues as you seemed to have been treating them correctly otherwise i.e. just bad Lipos.
If your lipos do not recover to 3.5-3.6V immediately after use you are stressing them, the lower the voltage, the worse it gets exponentially.
I've only heard good things but again this is a bargain brand. For outstanding support, look into SMC but if you are just 1h above your warranty you will get nothing.

Other possibilities, C rating is not as advertised, overheating of packs, charging a hot pack, leaving a extremely discharged pack sit for a while (over ~12h).

Yeah I take your point. I was being generous at 20 and it is likely less than that... Regardless, the other pack, under the same conditions (almost exactly... used as a pair, charged as a pair...) is still fine so I do feel I just got a dud pack or something happened to it somehow.

I get that issues happen and I will cop it but my main gripe is the total lack of any support at all... I'm not exaggerating when I say the reply I got was just "[T]hank you for understanding that our after-sales time has expired...." literally that was it. No acknowledgement, understanding, nothing. To be clear Ovonic are not the cheapest and they are trying to position themselves as a high quality brand and I expect their after sales should reflect that, otherwise there is no point in taking the risk.

If its just 3 months and then absolutely nothing then I am better off with the Ebay's, Zop's and HRB's of the world as at least I know what I am getting myself into.

I have "expensive" packs and cheapo packs and recognise the risks of quality I take with the cheapo's but for the most part they have already outperformed my expectations and on the odd occasion that I have had issues it has been resolved above my expectations.

I suspect I just got unlucky, either through an Ovonic defect or something else external but the support, or lack thereof, a company gives to their product is very indicative of how little they care and this is main issue I have.

 

[razorrc]

All of these batteries are pretty hit or miss. Ovonic (and something like Awanfi) is pretty much a 3rd tier brand. Don't feel too bad, I had an expensive Reedy Lipo that I used about 5 times before it puffed, that was like $80 for a 4500mah brick pack.

 

[Shazz4321]

All of these batteries are pretty hit or miss. Ovonic (and something like Awanfi) is pretty much a 3rd tier brand. Don't feel too bad, I had an expensive Reedy Lipo that I used about 5 times before it puffed, that was like $80 for a 4500mah brick pack.

Its a shame because I was hoping they would be better given their marketing effort but I guess they’re just clever.

Lipos are one of those tricky things that you can have a good one that puffs and dies after 5 cycles and a cheapo that lasts 100s so I do agree it is a bit of luck


I mostly bash nowdays so its dificult to justify spending lots of $$$ on something I’m just mucking around with.

The point of the post was more to highlight that they are an overpriced 3rd tier and for people to evaluate accordingly. Personally I will be avoiding as there is no real point in spending more money when I can get better support and the same quality cheaper direct from china.

Now I just need a 4s truck to justify using my orphaned good Ovonic. Something something sunk cost fallacy.

 

[Adamj804]

I have a HiTech 4 battery charger. Do I need to be checking more on my batteries than just balance charging them and checking the cells to make sure they are even? What else am I looking for?

 

[jkflow]

Plenty of threads on Lipo's over here:
https://www.arrmaforum.com/forums/arrma-electronics/

To sum it up:
Store them at storage voltage level, charge prior running, try to minimize time at full charge (or being empty) , don't run them below 3.5V/cell and store them in a fire safe place.

All chargers balance charge by default, yours is just labelled as such as a marketing term.
Highly recommend to read through some threads as your understanding of 'what is right' might differ from reality.

 

[Jimbobjr]

whenever I buy a lipo I always know there’s a possibility I’m throwing money away. At least you got 20 runs out of it. Maybe try those China hobby ones guys are liking on these days. You are right Banggood has great support (for being, for me, on the other side of the world...) and sincerely answers all their email. There’s a bit of a language barrier but I never had an issue that wasn’t resolved. Too bad about the ovonics, I own 6 of them and haven’t had any issues.
Vant has a great warranty, though not highly toted...copied from description:
Warranty: Vant Batteries are warranted to be free from defects upon delivery to the customer. They are warranted against failure for a period of 6 Months from the date of purchase. Misuse, abuse, or neglect by customer is not covered in this warranty. After the 6 Month warranty period, the Lifetime Replacement Plan takes effect. Under the Lifetime Replacement Plan, you can send in your battery to receive a replacement for 50% off the retail price of the battery.

 

[Wmorgan]

Hi All,

Not sure if this is against the rules (please let me know) however I wanted to give a warning regarding Ovonic branded Lipos as I've had a frustratingly negative experience with them recently.

Before Christmas I purchased a pair of their 6700mah 4s Lipos for the X-maxx. Always used them as a pair, did the proper Carge at 1C, storage after use routine however after only about maybe 20 cycles (Max) one of the packs started to get an unusually high internal resistance (around 10-18 Ohm depending). I noticed this after the runtime took a hit. I assume from voltage sag? The other pack is perfectly fine with around the expected 3-5 ohm so something is obviously wrong and I have now stopped using it.

After reaching out to their support I was very swiftly shot down with their 3 month warranty terms and that was it. I understand the terms are 3 months but there was absolutely no attempt to work through the issue and absolutely no support whatsoever. Maybe I got unlucky and received a bad pack. That's fine, I understand that stuff happens but I've honestly had a better support experience with Banggood.

I paid a bit of a premium to buy from a seemingly decent brand (gets promoted on some of the YouTube channels) and basically got 0 support when something actually went wrong.

Further on this, and it should be obvious for most companies, do not trust any reviews on sites or social media as most negative opinions are removed (I know mine was at least). Notice how (at the time of writing) all their site reviews are 5 stars.

So I hope this serves as a warning... I am not saying don't buy Ovonic but be aware of their basically non-existent support and questionable reviews on social media and website.

I understand what you're doing with this thread and appreciate the heads up. Always good to hear someones first hand experience with a product. One of the benefits of this forum.
A few brands I've had good luck with are Zeee, HBR, gensacearespammers and Spektrum. None have failed after over a year and 100+ uses. The Spektrum I've had around 50 runs through, but none have given me any issues (knock on wood)...just fyi.

 

[LMC]

Hi All,

Not sure if this is against the rules (please let me know) however I wanted to give a warning regarding Ovonic branded Lipos as I've had a frustratingly negative experience with them recently.

Before Christmas I purchased a pair of their 6700mah 4s Lipos for the X-maxx. Always used them as a pair, did the proper Carge at 1C, storage after use routine however after only about maybe 20 cycles (Max) one of the packs started to get an unusually high internal resistance (around 10-18 Ohm depending). I noticed this after the runtime took a hit. I assume from voltage sag? The other pack is perfectly fine with around the expected 3-5 ohm so something is obviously wrong and I have now stopped using it.

After reaching out to their support I was very swiftly shot down with their 3 month warranty terms and that was it. I understand the terms are 3 months but there was absolutely no attempt to work through the issue and absolutely no support whatsoever. Maybe I got unlucky and received a bad pack. That's fine, I understand that stuff happens but I've honestly had a better support experience with Banggood.

I paid a bit of a premium to buy from a seemingly decent brand (gets promoted on some of the YouTube channels) and basically got 0 support when something actually went wrong.

Further on this, and it should be obvious for most companies, do not trust any reviews on sites or social media as most negative opinions are removed (I know mine was at least). Notice how (at the time of writing) all their site reviews are 5 stars.

So I hope this serves as a warning... I am not saying don't buy Ovonic but be aware of their basically non-existent support and questionable reviews on social media and website.

Considering how lipos are disposable I prefer to go cheap and take my chances, $80 for 2 of these on amazon and I’ve charged them 20-30x so far and even left them fully charged for 3 days without using them (no discharger) so far so good. (Knock on wood)
One thing worth mentioning is they’ve never exactly precisely balanced, always 4.20 on one cell and 4.19-4.21 on the other 2 which I’ve been told is no big deal.

 

[Shazz4321]

I have a HiTech 4 battery charger. Do I need to be checking more on my batteries than just balance charging them and checking the cells to make sure they are even? What else am I looking for?

Just to answer your question. Generally speaking, internal resistance is a measure of how 'healthy' your cells are. Generally as a battery is used it degrades over time and the internal resistance of each of the cells increase. The longer you have a lipo battery fully charged or fully depleted the quicker it will degrade. The idea behind storage charging (at the 3.8ish mark) is to keep the chemistry inside each of the cells as close to 'neutral' as possible so the degradation is reduced.

Some chargers have the ability to measure this resistance in each of your cells. However this isn't an exact science and should be used more of a guideline to how happy your cells are. <3 Ohms is generally good, anything above 10 Ohms and they might be getting tired. Doesn't mean much apart from seeing some shorter run times or greater voltage sag under heavy loads triggering the Low Voltage Cutoff sooner.

There really isn't anything you can do to change it except to properly look after your lipos which you are doing. I don't check them all the time. I only did this as a troubleshooting measure to figure out what was going on.

If you are using packs as a pair then it would be best to try and keep the resistance in all cells similar however there isn't much you can do about it. The bigger issue comes if one cell in a pack has a higher resistance than the others as then your cells become un balanced and you end up over discharging one of the cells which kills them faster. Again, nothing much you can do to fix this when it happens anyway. The cautious may choose to just stop using them for fear of explody things happening...

In my case I now have a pack that has good resistance and a pack that has bad resistance which isn't too good. I can still technically use it so I will either have to just suck it up and deal with it and run the risk of killing both packs, or find a replacement for the dud pack (from another brand preferably) and seeing what happens.

Considering how lipos are disposable I prefer to go cheap and take my chances, $80 for 2 of these on amazon and I’ve charged them 20-30x so far and even left them fully charged for 3 days without using them (no discharger) so far so good. (Knock on wood)
One thing worth mentioning is they’ve never exactly precisely balanced, always 4.20 on one cell and 4.19-4.21 on the other 2 which I’ve been told is no big deal.

Yeah that's basically my philosophy on lipos now. for bashing I don't mind taking the risk on cheaper ones (they are sometimes less than half the price of quality packs) and on the whole I am ahead.