No matter what Jack or I say it will be twisted in some sort of negative comment from some of you. Bottom line I did some Lipo research and I'm glad to be working with a small manufacturer who can produce high quality Lipos. If we would of decided to go the Kokam, Ennerland or Saehan route we would just be supplying the same packs as others. SMC has always tried to offer the best matched packs and the most powerful cells. Since some think that using Lipos in racing is the way to go we have decided to launch our own Lipo line and were committed to making them as good as possible.
Since some of you think Kokam is the only safe lipo I sent the safety and testing info posted on the Orion site to our manufacturer.
http://press.team-orion.com/press/av...am_quality.pdf
Here is his reply to this info. I'm sure some of you will still not be satisfied with this response but for those who wanted the info here it is.
Dear Danny,
I read via the Kokam quality file. It looks very impressive for the consumers if they don't understand Li-po much, actually, it is kind of standard for any high quality Li-po cells. All our cells are passed the National battery safety standard.
1. The international standard for the over-charging test is limited at 5V(single cell) only. Kokam is using a small cell (740mAh) to do the test, and it is normal that the cell will be swelled when charge at 18V. Our cell can be charged at 18V and will get swelled also. No fire and explosion will be happened. It is all depands on the material that we used in the cell.
2. Our cells passed all the nail penetration test, no fire and no explosion.
3.It should be safe for a cell to discharge at its "labelled" discharge C rate even the temp. is hot. Our cell will not catch fire when discharge at its maximum discharge C rate and it's capacity should remain at at least 90%. This is also an international standard to measure a ture C rate of a high discharge C rate Li-po battery pack.
4. For the cycle life, in Kokam's data, its cell will remain 80% of its capacity after 60 cycle times. However, Kokam discharge the cell at only 8C. Our standard is to remain 80% of the cell's capacity after 50 cycle times but with 22C discharge rate. Thus, with only 8C discharge rate, our cell can do over 60 cycle times with 80% capacity remaining.
5. Our max. charging rate will be 2C, this is based on the protection standard for the cell. It will more or less damage the cell if charge the cell over 3C.
I will provide you our testing data for your reference on the 28th since we are on the mid-autumn festival national holiday now.
Thanks,