Don’t get me wrong… Can’t go wrong with LiPo’s especially with HobbyKing’s most recent sales. Cheap and great source of power, not too costly to replace. But some people want a more convenience factor.
IMO If you don’t mind the LiPo’s and charging in parallel. Go LiPo’s all the way. Don’t bother with a custom pack. But some people just don’t like having to deal with the LiPo’s. Zippy Flightmax 6S1P 25C for $31.12 that’s a steal… x3 sets (6) batteries = $186.72. It’s a great deal. @LowGuido - I wouldn’t get the Multistar packs 6s5.2ah $27.99 as they don’t pack as much of a punch vs the Flightmax. If the Flightmax is on sale it’s worth the 3 bucks difference.
@kaywerks The he4 have 20 amp discharge but they also have a very low resistance as a result. To me it seems the lower the resistance the greater the punch. Could be a placebo effect? So many factors at play on these builds it can be hard to tell sometimes. I can say honestly that the panasonics or any other low discharge will do fine in an 80 cell pack, anything smaller and you want to jump up to a 10 or 20 amp discharge cell. This is assuming you are going to ride like a savage and full throttle hills. Ride like a civilized citizen and you can drop it much much lower.
@AbrownMN I used a rabbiting router bit from diablo. Nice bit but it is still a difficult cut. You have to follow up with a rabbit plane and chisel on some of the transitions.
@Hummie The 8600rpm rule was something Vedder had mentioned regarding anything beyond this resulting in a reduction in efficiency. I have not used more than 12s on the vesc yet.
for hub motors you’d probably want a battery that can deliver higher currents compared a battery for a belt drive setup. if you want to go down the DIY 18650 route, Id go for high power medium capacity cells like the LG HG2 - I made a 10S4P pack from those cells myself and its holding up very well. sadly the cells are quite expensive compared to others (for a reason I guess).
In the end id always use as many cells as possible to share the load. for my mountain touring board Im currently building a 750Wh 10S6P battery with high capacity medium discharge rating cells sold on the endless sphere forum (sanyo ncr18650GA) -> https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=61608
the 10S3P from enertion is a pretty cool product with fairly high discharge ratings, but imo its a little small - at least for my touring desires. a colleague of mine has that one and when his BMS is cutting off his power, im still at healthy 36V and ready to go for another 10km. due to the fairly large (and convenient) electronic package of the space cell, it has the exact same dimension as a 10S4P 18650 DIY battery without any electronics. dont think you can go much smaller/slimmer in the electronic department than my tesseract build:
Finally @whitepony is on esk8. I was wondering when you would join here. You are awesome at making packs.
EDIT: Why are you using those Sanyos? On the info page that the guy linked it says they have 10 amp continuous discharge? I thought you were going with the Sony VTC5?
always depends on the currents you are aiming for. with a massive 10S6P battery, I got 60A continuous current from 6x10A cells (and even larger motor phase currents) - thats more than enough to have a lot of fun!
at the same time, the 18650GA have a 10% larger capacity for half the price!
my 12S feels weak sauce…
soo happy I didnt bite on multistar deals when I have the zippy option
