REVIEW of OPTIPOWER 3500mAh, 6S, 35C (90C Burst) Lipo battery packs

[LaurenceGough]

Hi all,

This is my review on the OPTIPOWER 3500mAh, 6S, 35C (90C Burst) packs.







OPTIFUEL (Optifuel - HOME PAGE), have followed up their successful RC model fuel line-up by releasing the OTPIPOWER lithium polymer packs.

I use these packs in series on my Mikado Logo 600 so they run as 12S with 3500mAh capacity.

My Logo 600 setup
ESC: Kontronik Jive 80+ HV
Main Blades: EDGE FBL 623mm
Tail Blades: EDGE 95mm
Motor: Scorpion HKIII-4035-500kv 11T

Pack construction and packaging:

The packs arrived in well padded boxes, with pack information on the outside.

Build quality is among the best packs I have used but with slight differences. I like that heatshrink is used where the wires exit the packs. The 12AWG Silicone wires are also of good quality.

There were also some useful instructions included in each box.

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Flight Performance:

I broke in (formatted) the packs by flying 10 flights, from flying gently around to progressively getting slightly more aggressive, by my 10th flight I was doing mild/normal 3D flying. I believe this is beneficial for the packs life, as supported by the OPTIPOWER instructions. I might have broken in my packs for longer than required but I prefer to be on the safer side.

After my 10th flight I flew these packs as normal, putting some 3D routines through them and I was impressed with the power, it was really allowing the motor to keep the headspeed up even through the more stressful manoeuvres. These packs powered me through the UK 3D Championships without breaking a sweat, I used them in every round. The temperature after flying with these packs is the best I have experienced, they are just slightly above ambient temperature with no swelling of any kind. I am getting a good 5 mins plus of 3D flying. If you are just sport flying I could see 7 minutes + quite easy on a set-up close to mine.

I have now flown 35 flights on these packs and they are still performing flawlessly. The balance has remained consistent, using my Cellpro Powerlab 8 I can see that all six of the cell’s balances have never been out. I have been charging at 1C (3.5A), I did a few charges in parallel, at 1C and this also worked fine as expected.


Here is a video of the OPTIPOWER packs here in this review being used for my Freestyle round at the UK 3D Championships.

Laurence Gough Freestyle at UK 3D Championship 2011 - YouTube

(thanks to Adrian for recording)


Specs:

Capacity: 3500mAh
Cells: 6S
C Rate Continuous: 35C
Max Burst C Rate: 90C
Recommended Charge C Rate: 1C
Max Charge: C Rate: 3C
Plug / Silicon Leads: 12AWG
Balancer: JST-XH
Weight: 565g (+/-5g)


Warranty:

A full warranty and crash back discount statement is available to download from the OPTIFUEL web site or by visiting http://www.optifuel.co.uk/public/e0e...5267556f1e.pdf

There is a up to 6 month warranty period for any cell defects.
The 50% crash back discount, available up to 6 months after purchase date is a great benefit over other brands which do not offer this, especially for the frequent crashers (you know who you are ).

These warranties are a very strong benefit in my opinion and it shows that they stand behind their products.




Attached are some not very useful graphs of one of my break in flights. I apolgise as I did not realise saved graphs do not show the cell voltages...

OPTIPOWERFRONTCHARGEup Ahr.JPG OPTIPOWERREARCHARGEup Ahr.JPG

After a 4:30 of quite hard flying:



To sum it up...
I'd highly recommend these packs to everybody. I can see (and hope! ) these batteries to be strong performers over time.


If anyone has any questions, let me know and I'll do my best to answer.

Cheers,

Laurence

[adieuk]

hehe very nice flying laurence i tried my hardest to keep up lol
and the lipos gave you plenty of power i can see these coming on strong for the future

[mattie-lodge]

Nice write up Laurance. These are the same packs I use in my Logo 600. They are a perfect weight and deliver superb power. As you said, they don't even break into a sweat :-)

[prostaljic]

Hi guys well here I go sorry to be the bringer of bad news I bought four 4500 mah 6s from a good heli source have these running in a 630 goblin .When charging them on sunday 17/11/13 in my shed could see that one was getting hot by the temp gage I use for each battery let I run for a while longer and had to disconnect one of the 6 cells as was getting red hot I decided to put this battery out side as now the blue plastic was starting to come off from around the battery I placed the battery in the center of my patio and as soon as I put it down it burst into flames fire extinguisher at hand too late burnt out in a mater of seconds all other three are fine and have only been charged a max of 6 times at a very slow rate has there been a probs with any others these batteries are not cheap and were only purchased 3 months ago can you help ????????

[waveydavey]

I think you have to take this back to Optipower, they give good service and I'm sure will help out. Glad that you are okay and the house isn't burnt down. Could easily end in disaster, a reminder that we have to take care with these packs.

[p4ddy]

What charger were you using?? This sounds to me like a charging issue rather than the lipo? Glad you were keeping a close eye on it though saving a potential house fire

[cycled]

This was a nice review, but to me 35 flights is not many. To the OP or other OptiPower users: how do they hold up after 100 flights? How many would you expect to get for your flight styles?

[brin]

You dug that one up.That was 5 yrs ago and laurence hasnt flown for 3 years lol

This was a nice review, but to me 35 flights is not many. To the OP or other OptiPower users: how do they hold up after 100 flights? How many would you expect to get for your flight styles?

[JoeBailey]

This was a nice review, but to me 35 flights is not many. To the OP or other OptiPower users: how do they hold up after 100 flights? How many would you expect to get for your flight styles?

Thread from the dead


In answer to your question, I've got opti 5000 50c packs with well over 300 cycles and over two years old, my oldest packs are 4 1/2 years old now and just over 250 cycles (used in a lesser flown model.

I expect my packs to deliver 400 cycles in a life as a minimum. They are used in a goblin 700 KSE for competition practice and flying.

[Peteski]

Thread from the dead


In answer to your question, I've got opti 5000 50c packs with well over 300 cycles and over two years old, my oldest packs are 4 1/2 years old now and just over 250 cycles (used in a lesser flown model.

I expect my packs to deliver 400 cycles in a life as a minimum. They are used in a goblin 700 KSE for competition practice and flying.

Wow, that's a lot of cycles! How do the 300 cycle packs feel compared to a fresh one? Is the difference obvious or not? Since packs tend to lose their performance very slowly, I was thinking of keeping a fresh pack to use as a benchmark pack to help decide when to retire old packs.