Rhino Lipo's

[Stephen Mason]

I purchased my first Lipo from Hobby City in Hong Kong.
It was a Rhino 4S 3750mAh pack (25C).
I ran it in a Campbell Classic Shovelnose hull with a UL-1 motor and speedo combo. I typically ran Oct X-440 or 442.

Although the pack never really got very hot. One of the cells died and the pack puffed up after less than 15 to 20 cycles.

My experience with Rhino's is therefore negative.

[Don Wollard]

Hey Steve. I have heard of problems with some of the chinese packs. Becareful charging those, too.

[Twinpowered]

I've heard mixed results. There seem to be more problems than with the more expensive brands, but then again the price is much lower. Did you try a warranty exchange?

[sv27-bj26]

My rhinos are going strong after over 100 cycles, only had one 5s pack have a cell die- but just pulled it apart and made into 2x 2s packs. The way they solder the packs together w/ a big board and tons of solder make it very easy to remake packs-unlike the expensive brand lipos that are useless if a cell dies and theres 4 more in there you can do nothing with cause theres no way to solder them back together

[Stephen Mason]

You gotta be kidding!!!
A warranty exchange would probably have taken a year to work out with Hobby City! and would probably have caost me more than the d*&@! pak was worth.
I feel grateful that I FINALLY received all the stuff I ordered last time!
Now if they would just pony up the money that I spent for the expedited shipping I might get back on an even keel with them.:eek:

[Memoriesman]

I had a problem with a charger I got thru Hobby City. I contacted them and they replaced it and gave me instruction as to mailing it back. The whole thing took only about a month for me to get a new charger.

PS. I got several Rhino 2s 2200's from them and have had no problem with them which is better than I have had with the Flight Power that I got 2 years ago all of which have puffed.

[Twinpowered]

You gotta be kidding!!!
No, I'm not. It only costs a few bucks to send a package to the other end of the world. If you want it fast & insured, sure it costs. But if it's broken and not in a hurry you can get the price down considerably.

[encroacher]

ive had nothing but good results apart from one 2.95$ microservo which failed, which I got replaced in my next order, so far from hobby city and my turnigy/hextronic stuff. I have learnt not to order anything that isnt in stock and I always use EMS for fast shipping which gets to my desk in New Zealand in about 4 days, which is faster than anywhere else in the world I have ordered from. Main delay is getting them to ship it quick.

I have found that if you harass support about the fact you paid for fast shipping they sometime seem to magically send you a tracking number pretty quick and then its here.

I own rhino/zippy lipos from 800mah 2s in planes 3s in helis to 4s2p and 6s in boats. 'touchwood' I havent had any duds, any go up into flames etc.I ONLY Charge through the balance plug and even use a hextronic balance charger. I have puffed a couple of cells in the boats, but due to my own stupidity. I know it would be easier to blame the cheap cells, But thats not how I roll.

You must have been very unlucky to get a dud on your first purchase.

[Stephen Mason]

I ran my Aeromarine StingRay 43 with the four Turnigy 5.0 5S packs configured to 10S2P for the first time. The packs seemed to perform well and did not give me any problems or concerns. The boat ran very well and showed no signs of overheating anything.
When I got home I went through my normal routine to service the boat and check all the packs. One was badly out of balance, but balanced up with a blinky in about an hour. I recharged all the packs and cycled them by discharging them to about 50% of capacity then recharging. All the packs were much more closely balanced after that exercise.

One thing I did learn was don't leave a blinky plugged in to a pack overnight. one of the packs "balanced itself" down to about 23% of capacity. I was worried that it might have been damaged but is charged up fine and shows no signs of puffing.

With a couple more runs on these packs hopefully they will continue to improve and discharge the cells more evenly under load..

[Allan]

One thing I did learn was don't leave a blinky plugged in to a pack overnight. one of the packs "balanced itself" down to about 23% of capacity.. The Etti balancer will turn itself off and stop the drain.

[Jeepers]

I used a set of Rhino packs at Nats in one heat in N2 sport hydro 3700mah 2s2p, it was just as fast as Randy Naylors an Doug Twaits boats!

[Memoriesman]

Oops. Wrong forum.

[Andrewg]

The way rhino solder the cells together with the big tab is likely to be the source of most of the issues.

Other makers join the tabs using a method which has a only very localised heating and doesnt damage the cell