LiitoKala 21700 12s5p 20Ah Build

I guess this topic goes here? There was electronics on the other site… anyways lets keep the chit chat short and get to it!

This is probably my 4th battery build, or so, and i decided to just say fuck it…and for science lets try this budget cell. I know people had varying issues with the liitokala 30q knock offs… which still kinda intrigue me BUT the last reviews of this cell online were a year old BUT they also showed good specs “as advertised” so I pulled the trigger.

20ah was probably a bit more than I actually needed as I had a 4p 30q in my board and got about 10mi per charge of medium hard riding. A 5p from the get go would have been nicer, and a 6p just to showoff =P

At any rate I chose a 5p of the cells as insurance if the cells couldnt perform at 15amp each as advertised I could use the extra group as buffer amps… so far so good… Ill link you to my first video… its going to be a 3 part video, 2nd video is almost done… and so far after a couple weeks of riding this pack the range is great… 60 mins non stop riding and my feet fucking hurt… with 25% left to kill…

performance is the same without changing any pre pre programmed settings in my unity…

Stay tuned, as I did some discharge and temp tests on the cells…

If you like pics here some to get u going…

cells separated by variance… (up for scrutiny Im sure)

glued together…used 18650 ring insulators as I didnt find 21700 one accessible nor did i care enough

packs welded together… (yeah yeah… some sharp edges… cite longhairedboy recent post)

A cute trick i learned from another post for insulating between groups…

I’ll leave this here now but way more to come…

Lets discuss… and by discuss I dont mean my battery building skills :wink:

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Do you have vesc_tool app or metr pro? I am interested in seeing what WattHr do they report when you ride for 1 hour and the leftover battery voltage. That will give us an indication of the true capacity.

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I would like to see how much they sag.
Would give a good indication if there rating is up to specs.

@Accrobrandon how much was the variance of the cells?

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I’d really like to know how these cells perform. From whom did you purchase these?

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I assume that OP got them from LiitoKala Official Store

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zero room left in the case for my watt meter but was totally the plan… at some point when I get a free moment Ill have to solder some extension leads to run the wires out of the case to the meter and back in to the unity… im curious too about what data it has to offer.

if you click on the pic you can see the numbers on the foam… pen was weak… but only .06 from lowest to highest… grouping made the balancing job easier in the end

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yeah Liito official store… was $185 shipped for the lot and arrived in under 3 weeks…

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didn´t see that from the phone… I did the same on my packs. think even if it is just a bit, it´s worth grouping them out.

e-cig flashlight forum for the rescue
http://budgetlightforum.com/node/60419

Conclusion
The cells has the rated capacity and capacity is fairly constant with load, but they do get rather hot at high current. This means they may handle high pulse current, but 20A or more in constant current is not a good idea.

so i guess the take away is it’s slightly worse than 40T but at a 3+ p config it shouldn’t be a problem and ofc the more the merrier.

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heres comparing them to the sanyo 20700b . I know these are 1mm wider but thats really neither here nor there. Seems like sanyo is slightly better in the first 50% but these seem to blow the sanyos away in the last half and less than half the price.

What am I missing? these seem like an absolute bargain


So seems safe at 15a x 5p = 75 amps. fucking plenty.

And yeah, dont do 20a on these

Heres the prices for a 10s4p setup. Half the cost for arguably better performance.

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Well just as a start, they are bigger?

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Who doesnt enjoy an extra bit of girth eh?

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Certainly not I

Wait, what are those sharp vertical line at 20amp. Why do they go up?

cell recovering from voltage sag

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vertical line is probably when it overheat.



http://budgetlightforum.com/node/60419

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@Winfly Aha, that’s correct. It automatically turns off when the temperature limit hits. When the load is lifted the voltage bounces back. That’s the spike.

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yeah im still editing the discharge test video… but was solid till about 2.8v roughly… then it started tanking hard… but rebounded nicely…

yes more size and weight…and this will be discussed compared to an 18650 which with a 30q would probably still be the overall winner, especially if money aint no thing…but it is :wink:

but the main reason is I wanted to be the first lol… not one fucking “anything” for eskate use that i could find…maybe ebike but didnt even care to search for it cuz thats not my world nor where Im at…

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I like the use of the buttons, no waste

I’m using them on top of the anode in cell level fused packs, underneath where the nickel folds over itself - where the fuse wire is soldered and sharpness abides. Basically hiding the anode (and neg- casing) from anything to short it

Don’t throw em away!

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