Final video about these cells and pack tear down. Layed a bit more nickel across the parallels… and if someone wants to buy it im open to offers. pack has 350mi max… probably less in reality. comes fully assembled and with bms…
$200 plus shipping and fees?? Just under cost new for cells and bms, and threw in my labor/parts/materials to offset the range testing fun. thoughts?
Thanks for doing all this testing, and publishing such detailed info! There are so many cells out there with no good experience in esk8, so thanks for taking a chance on these!
Great review. This is how a review should be like.
Looks a really nice build
I bought the battery from him and used it in my build. I got 49km range and I am very happy 
Thanks @Accrobrandon!
The price of these cells are a real game changer…
Though, sad to see they are like 4x overspeced, if they can only do 10A continous safely.
@Movation mind to share more details about chinese cells? What other data u have on their life cycle and capacity loss over time?
Otherwise kudos to @Accrobrandon for making this monster pack (even though u sold it)… and also wanted to comment that u do seem to ride hard! 50kph is no joke.
Not relevant to this topic but your finger trauma did make me rethink a couple of things about faster speeds.
Otherwise, I guess it is not like u wont ride again just more cautiously around specific parts of road
I don’t recommend building packs this way. I spent most of 2017 and 2018 fixing people’s packs i built like that because those welds are going to break/tear under vibration, leading to cell imbalance and potential shorting. The individual pgroups should be jumped with either copper braid or silicone insulated wire to allow the individual pgroups to vibrate on thier own and “float” if you will inside the heat shrink.
To fix this pack, you can either tuna can the nickel with a pair of pliers and grind down the weld spots with a dremel, or if you have surgeons hands, dremel through the nickel directly between cells and fold the excess over, then bridge with braid or silicone wire.
Also wrap those pgroups individually in fishpaper while you have it torn down. LAst thing you want is can wrapper wearing out and shorting your negatives between pgroups.
inst this a fairly common battery construction method? i am a bit surprised that those welds are vibrating loose…currently building a battery pack in a similar way, do you have a picture of the method described above?
oh i see what you are saying, you are talking about the individual p goups. good to know, i was going to do something similar to what @Accrobrandon did, but now i am reconsidering
@Skyart
On the forum there is also this Battery Builders club topic but since Im not in the game of building batteries now it is not such useful to me but might be worthy to take a look, if u got time to skim through many posts
In this test they are good for 15a continuous. 20a if you’re watching the temperature:
http://budgetlightforum.com/node/60419
yeah in my current packs I put a piece of fish paper between groups…this one I actually used the left over ring dots…but like a slice of paper between each.
yeahs its about as healed as its gonna be…range of motion came back and thumb looks like normal again but the nail to me is noticeably not the same but most people would never know.
The problem with liitokala is consistency I use their 26600 for work, not related to eskate or ebike. I have seen so much variety with different batches from the same supplier and granted my application isnt high current they are contantly being cycled. I capacity test all my cells and capacity on some batches 10% less than stated. I have 2 esk8 packs built using liito 26650s 12s2P and a 12s3P both sag like no ones buisness under load. One pack caught fire see my kracken build post.
I have a 12S8P 21700 pack built for a torqueboard 40 board waiting for the deck to ship. I have had the pack running my 48 volt inverter in the shed and its gone though a few cycles now, it is destined to power 2 x 80100 or 6880 motors.
My feelings on liitos of using them for over 2 years over 1000 cells.
They are not a game changer. Korean cells are still way better but for experimenting and low cost or high capacity builds go for it but check them regularly.
Longevity is good - cells 2 years old still are showing 70 to 80% of capacity I originally budgeted for 2 year life span I will likely get up to 4, my packs charge via solar during the day and run cameras and nvr at night.
Capacity this will change with the batch but most will be within 10% of stated.
Current and sag. Also related to the batch Its # obvious right away these cells will never do the stated output. My own application only pulls 4 amps max. But what i have seen with the 2 x 26650 packs and when I test 1/2 of my 27100 (4P) sag is obvious compared to my vtc6 pack. So use them in atleast 5P, 6P would be better.
I had 1 batch of 100 cells only last 20 cycles before they died. Supplier refunded me. but factoring in this ots closer to 11% failure. Point is you cant trust any specs online tests littokala obviouly change manufacturers all the time and rumours they are B grade cells its possible.
My final thought on liitokala. If you are comfortable with building and rebuilding packs, use them. iI you want a pack that will last a few years that is super reliable with zero maintenance buy Original Samsung or Sony cells not from china or ebay. Chances are I will not use my 8P 21700 pack the fucker is too big and too heavy for this urban board. i am already considering a Sony 12S6P VTC 6 or 7 replacement. Lately the quality of the 26650 Liitos has gone down the toilet I have changed to Queen cells.
They are a viable option for esk8 but they are not on par with Samsung and Sony if you goal is range and cost they are perfect at $2 for a 4000Mah cell that’s magic, the downside is they are bigger than 18650 and current output is meh. 6P would be perfect balance of weight and output. I wouldnt do 4P unless you do single motor or 50mm’s or you ride an evolve and voltage sag is your middle name.
Thanks for the extensive feedback.
So yeh, as always should be extra careful using chinese made stuff, with over speced data and changing suppliers under them.
I stumbled upon some of these ‘china brand’ cells as well.
Some of them were Liito Kala while some are VariCore. They list their cells with same names as brand names (VTC6, HG2) but under analysis they dont really perform like the real deal.
They are also almost half price cheaper.
I think I got some of these Varicore ‘VTC 6’ cells for under 2.5 Eur, even when buying just 8 of them.
Havent tested them yet though and they will go into power tool pack.
Yeah its a bit hit and miss I bought some varicore lg mj1 cells dirt cheap from ali I was hoping for atleast 2500mah as the real mj1 are 3500mah but these babies top out at 1700 mah I have 200 of them as budget powerwall for my shed. For the price I cant complain $1
Yeah they obviously exagerate the specs.
I’m running these “40a” cells at 12a per cell and they are doing great for a large 5p pack.
For the price, definitely they are definitely a good deal. You just can’t expect to run them at 40a.
I always rely on this guy. Up to know realy good.
https://lygte-info.dk/review/batteries2012/LiitoKala%2021700%204000mAh%20Lii-40A%20(Yellow)%20UK.html
