my 2 hobbypeople 2s 5000 35c start at .01 to .02 and balance perfect and quickly and they are 2 years old. my reedy shorties 1 year old are always within .01 when i start charging and balance perfect and quickly also. My brand new SMC packs will sit at 4.20/4.17 for 30 minutes trying to balance tells me there is an issue.

Also like i said they seem to work fine but how long do you let it charge putting 1mah in at a time before you take it off and call it good because it won't balance?????

My charger seems to know when to call it quits. I actually understand your question about that. Its weird because all of my chargers seem to have a cut off....maybe they stop when the amperage drops to near zero and the cells just can't take any more. I also charge my packs pretty aggressively, some of the bigger packs @ 7amps. The other thing that I always look at is the IR which my charger shows me and the SMC packs are inline with the rest.....I want to say 28-30 ohms? I really need to start writing that stuff down. I want to be clear that I'm totally objective and not trying to sell SMC packs. I just ordered a bunch more and I'll give everybody an honest assesment. The 2 5800s that I have in service now seem to work ok but they're not blowing my mind or anything. If I had to pic a "best" pack I'd say the 40c TP packs that they sold a couple of years ago were the best. They had a lot of punch for a 40c pack....as much as their 65c packs. I find the orange Trinity 65c lipos to be pretty good too. I do have an old Hobby People 35C 5000 that I run in my kids slash. I'll charge it and post up what I find in terms of balance....as far as punch its borderline sucky but it has never swelled or done anything weird.

I put that old battery on the charger. Amazingly it still reads 29.4 ohms of resistance and is already @ 4.18/4.19. I probably have not touched it in 9 months to a year. That's amazing.

Is it possible that the higher the C rating the more volatile the cells are? I don't know. I'm curious.

The .4v low cell is a concern.

But .05v is nothing. Those cells are fine.

When it comes to this sort of thing I usually just write it off as I am in Australia, so getting warrantied is usually more effort than its worth.


While all the batteries are out I am not too concerned, as discrepancy is expected parictularly with batteries, but yeh that one that is .4 out is a worry. Might try and cycle it and see if the charger can wrangle it back in line.

It may well be a dud (and I accept that every product no matter how good has the occasional dud) so we will see how the others fare with more time.

Hi Suteki, as the Smc importer for Australia I'd like to know the details, I'm sure I can look after you even if you bought the packs direct from Smc previous to me importing there products, I don't believe .03 is an issue on an older pack but .4 is a concern, please call me on 0438238189 and well work something out, Danny, myself and all the international importers stand behind our products and unless it's user abuse well all be to happy to help out.

Cheers Justin

Hey justin, I did purchase the pack from yourself. Just have to check and see if I still have the paypal receipt.

I am just in the process of storage charging a few of the packs again now. I will give you final readings when they are done. Worth noting I thought the other 3 packs were out up to .05 but one pack is in .02 tolerance which is great of course.

No worries, send me a email with the details [email protected]

I'll replace the pack with a cell at .4 difference, I'm sure the others at .05 and less will be fine, just curious as to what you have your LVC set at.

Just a note, all packs that we sell are checked when they arrive from the factory and if the cells are more then .01 of a volt in difference they are not sold, the packs are also re-tested before they are shipped for piece of mind and the voltages put in the box, the IR is also checked for parity with the other cells.

Cheers Justin

Yeh the batteries came with the little sticker on the box I think it was with the measured voltages.

As I said, 2 of the other batteries are measuring between .07 or less out, which still seems a little high to me? One is fine at .02 between all cells. But the .4 is a concern. Just doing a cycle on it at the moment to see what it comes back at with another balance charge at it has very few cycles through it. There has been no puffing as far as I can tell as the case looks to be intact. I am wondering if it has a bad solder somewhere in the case. I run foam underneath my batteries on the battery tray just to take out any extra shock also. Anyway I will see what happens with this cycle and email you the voltages of the 4 packs. Unfortunately dont have any way of measuring ir.

Huh? What are you charging at 7amps and calling it aggressive?

I just put in an order for a few packs! Can't wait.....
I don't know what it is about these old hobby people lipos(5000 2s) I have, but I've been charging them at 20amps for the past year and they won't give up..... I can't wait to give these smc's a shot.

I only know one other guy who charges batteries at more than 5 amps. Since most cells are rated to charge at 2s 7 amps is low.....most people consider that aggressive....as far as I know.

I saw that too & chuckled.

I have a cell lab charger so 7 amps is moderate but I guess it is relative.

Aggressive would be charging at 4-6c which for a 5000 mah pack would be 20-30 amps, Danny does alot of testing with all his packs before he decides to put the SMC name on them, he doesn't just buy packs and slap stickers on like some companies do. Danny's testing shows his packs can handle a 6c charge, of course that will drastically reduce the cycle life of the pack. Danny recomends charging no lower than 2c.