Giant Shark Closed for New Business

Just went to check out a few items & following message came up.

BUSINESS NO LONGER VIABLE DUE TO CURRENT MARKET CONDITIONS
SUPPORT STAFF WILL HANDLE OUTSTANDING QUERIES UNTIL 30TH JUNE .

The website no longer shows any products but gives information on outstanding orders etc.

Guess HK have finally killed them off - who next ?

Colin.A.

Damn! I really liked their GensAce LiPos and HobbyWing Platinum ESC..

Looks like a new startup along the lines of Giant Cod /Giant Shark.

This is being run by Graham Back who worked with both companies.


rclife.co.uk/about_us

Well spotted, Ron. I had a look and found that they were selling a battery capacity meter for just £5 and a Simon Series 80A controller for just £18. These are now both in my possession for the princely sum of £3.30 shipping.

The ESC is the one I have been using in the Blue Angel (and Wot Trainer before that). It's one of the nicest performing controllers I've had, no doubt due to the SimonK software. In fact, those of you who have been buying ESCs recently might have noticed that they mostly refer to their quadcopter functions. Don't be put off, they can be used in fixed wing aircraft just as well, and we all then benefit from the lovely smooth throttle response. Some might need to have the super-soft start programmed out, but this is straightforward. The Simon Series controllers appear to come shipped with the fast start-up set as default.

The capacity checker also balances and measures internal resistance, BTW. Definitely a bargain at £5.

Hi Mike,

Could you do a quick test for me, check the voltages of the cellmeter against your iCharger and the same again for the internal resistance, just curious how closely they agree with each other.

A new ESC... just to have in stock or...

Chris001 wrote: . just to have in stock or...

Just building up a stock of parts for the next build.

Chris001 wrote: Hi Mike,

Could you do a quick test for me, check the voltages of the cellmeter against your iCharger and the same again for the internal resistance, just curious how closely they agree with each other.

The answer is...they don't

iCharger Cellmeter iCharger Cellmeter
4.18 4.182 5 6
4.17 4.161 2 2
4.16 4.156 7 2
4.15 4.184 5 2
4.15 4.146 6 2
4.15 4.188 4 5

3 hundredths of a volt worst difference - that cannot be significant. Also what unit of internal resistance are we looking at?
If under load conditions those voltage values are consistent then surely we have to take into consideration the microscopic quality of the welds or the thickness of the connecting tabs or the cleanliness of the connector pins on the balance plugs?
Surely only a full load test will show the real internal resistance of the cells and those appear to be open circuit voltages?

I notice that the Cellmeter spec says it can measure the capacity of LiFe batteries. I thought the discharge curve for LiFe made this impractical. Is this a genuine feature or just marketing hype?

Resistance is measured in mOhm
Voltage is with no load.
From memory, internal resistance does not change under load.

To be honest, the absolute value is of no real importance. Knowing the numbers is, however, a good sign that something is going wrong. If you record the iR and monitor it over time you will know that your battery (or cells within the battery) are getting close to needing a replacement.

The reason why I said they don't is that, for example, cell 4 has equal lowest voltage on the iCharger but 2nd highest voltage on the cellmeter. Also, cell 3 is highest iR on the iCharger but equal lowest on the cellmeter. IOW, treat the readings with a pinch of salt.