HobbyKing is a… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Hi fellows,

Been recently looking for a source of quality high-discharge sub-C cells for a DeWalt battery powered drill (topic: Sub-C NiMH cells for a DeWalt DE9502 overhaul).

I must confess this last week has been hyper. I went out to party with some friends this last weekend, and between the party's highs and lows I ended up disabling my debit card, you know, just in case, as I was thinking I had lost it (found it later in my wallet). I immediately requested/activated a new one (this last Sunday).

The funny thing comes from the fact I have to explicitly enable any new card for it to work for online commerce. This is the reason the AliExpress system kept complaining with my new card data until I realized this and activated the @#$% while logged into my bank's website. In the meantime, I tried to order with HobbyKing, two cancelled orders (card not working) and one which ended up somehow pending payment (I was already trying to activate my card). Take a look:

Not much else to say except that I've live chatted with these mor@#$ many times now and they've DONE NOTHING to cancel that last order or delete my account. At this point, it is like if my own mind is telling me “Stop, nothing is random, you know. Those folks aren't serious and you have NO BUSINESS to make with them”.

By the way: https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/www.hobbyking.com

Worthwhile contributions appreciated (LoL!).

Do you believe LiFePO4 chemistry would charge well on an NiMH charger?

Cheers ^:)

Hobbyking’s pretty cheap though, sans the shipping time and customer support.

Nope, different charging methods.

Doubt it. NiMH is 1.2V, LFP is 3.2V. Full voltage for a NiMH would be quite dead to a LFP cell.

I’d try a regular Li charger but through a resistor, and watch how long it charges. LFP cells have a pretty flat discharge curve.

Never had problem with them, i even had 3S 5000 Lipo sent twice for free because of the missing package sent by Fiji Post.

You can’t expect excellent customer support from a low cost massive chinese company…

As long as you don’t screw up your payments then it’s fine.

I’ve ordered batteries from them and they arrived perfectly fine, with fast shipping and no border problems.

Oh well, when I said “do you believe LiFePO4 etc etc on a NiMH charger” of course I didn't explained myself too well. What I really meant is, do you believe a 4-6S LiFePO4 battery pack would charge correctly on a DeWalt DE9116 7.2 - 18V (2.8A output) charger?

The DeWalt charger must be using some sort of -dV/dT algorithm to determine end of charge condition. But LiFePO4 won't do -dV/dT…

Thanks for the tips anyways. I'll avoid logging in their site for a while, hope they can hold true to their own words and I can finally order those sub-Cs.

Cheers everyone

ordered almost every single part on my RC car from HK and they all came through. Are there any recent issues that are frequent? was considering buying a lot more from HK.

Barkuti

I believe that the original Dewalt battery has a built in Balancing circuit that regulates the charge to each cell, and tells the charger when to stop. (This is what I found inside my Milwaukee 18V battery)

The battery packs sold by Hobbyking are great, I have never had any problems with them, and I have been dealing with them for RC car stuff for years.
However you need a proper balancing charger to safely charge those batteries. Somthing like this https://hobbyking.com/en_us/pd606-charger-us-plug.html
It needs to be at least 5S capable for an 18V drill battery replacement.

I recently did what I think you are trying to do by retrofitting a 5S LiPO battery pack from Hobbyking into my old Milwaukee 18V battery shell. It works like a charm and only cost me $25, but I have the proper charging system.
I still have to access the balancing plug and main battery plug to charge it, but it looks pretty good.

I once ordered a small Motor and like 10 Minutes after that, I realized that I ordered the wrong one.
Contacting the CS didn’t do anything, the order was already sent to the warehouse…
Pretty much every chinese site has a “cancel order” button where you can cancel your order for at least a couple of hours…

So now I have a motor (only 15$ or so so nevermind) laying around with no use :confused:

I live in germany, so I pretty much always order from the europe warehouse - no problems so far with that - but I only ordered like 3 or 4 times there (LiPo packs), so my experience doesn’t count so much :wink:

Not going the li-ion route for this overhaul fellows, this is the reason I created this thread. My friend's drill came with a NiCD/NiMH charger and this is not going to change (no frankensteining stuff too).

If I were given carte blanche I'd for example stuff 4S2P LG HE2s with BMS and balancing in the drill pack basket. Li-ion packs like that, however, require current tapering/constant voltage phase which the stock DE9116 charger won't do. After a fully discharged battery condition one could charge the pack in the DE9116 for ≈1½h and it would work good as 2P HE2s is ≈4.8Ah, but heck, that would be botchy without a proper li-ion charger (no more room in the drill's suitcase).

I believe I'll end up ordering a pack tomorrow, I am unimpressed with the eBay stuff.

Cheers

Hi fellows, what's up?

Well, something got messed with my order. Received an email from HobbyKing telling me my package had been delivered bla bla bla… Well, just sent this claim to GLS courier a few minutes ago:

Hope you can get my sheesh right, HobbyKing/GLS.

Cheers


I think the image speaks for me on this matter.

When I ordered a hobbyking package to spain, the package tracking info said it had been delivered to some random town outside Barcelona to a consignee, but it had actually been dropped off at my neighbour next door since I wasn’t home, and the neighbour passed it to me.

GLS replied to my inquiry…

Sort of what happened yesterday to me, Enderman. Antonio is the owner of a bar/restaurant just in front of where I live and he and his family just had a free afternoon yesterday; got my stuff this morning.

@#$% happens once in a while.

(^̮^)

Haha, I knew it :slight_smile:
Seems like in spain they give the package to someone near you rather than leaving it at the door or taking it back to a postal office where you can pick it up.
Bit different than here in north america.