Prodigy Battery Packs

[AZ ChopperCam]

I just picked up one of these new Prodigy packs. It's a 5s 5000. Rated at 50 amps. It's 3 oz. lighter than a FP 5s 5000.

Since my Logo 10 draws only about 26 amps I figured I'd try one out. The guy I know well at the hobby shop says he flies them and loves em.

At $99 each (yes $99) I figured it was worth a shot. I plan to fly it as soon as it's charged. I'll continue to fly it everyday for at least 2 flights to get an idea on how well they hold up over time.

[dreslism]

Huh.

Never heard of them, and just searched all of hf, and rcgroups, and google, and found nothing about them.

Who makes them, specs, website or anything?

[AZ ChopperCam]

not as good as I had hoped. In fact not even close. They are rated at 50amps. yeah right. I was pulling 22 and it went instantly from 21v on a full charge down to 18.6v. It stabilized there for the duration of the flight but the performance was less than spectacular.

I was consuming 300mah/min though which is quite a bit lower than the FP packs. I flew for 10 minutes and consumed 3000. But that was pretty much it for this pack. You'd think being a 5000 it would give up at least 4000.

Nope... no good... I'm gonna email them (www.prodigybatteries.com) and ask them what they were smoking when they rated them at 50A.

side note... also stay away from the Hacker X70-Pro ESC. why? well lets see.. the words gay governer, gay slow spoolup and stripped main gear and bent flybar come to mind. The Logo is down until I get some parts.

EDIT 8/1/06 I had a bad pack. the new pack is working great!

[dreslism]

side note... also stay away from the Hacker X70-Pro ESC. why? well lets see.. the words gay governer, gay slow spoolup and stripped main gear and bent flybar come to mind. The Logo is down until I get some parts.

Man that sucks. YOu just got that think in the air!

What happened? Tip over or fall from the sky? or ???

[AZ ChopperCam]

well I just got the USB programmer today. Up until today I had been running a very low curve at throttle start since without USB you cannot do soft start.

Well let me tell you that soft start doesn't work. I ran something like a 0,75,90,90,90,90 and also activated gov mode

I started it up like I do my Raptor... throttle stick to mid point. Instantly it wrapped itself around. Tipped over. Stripped the main gear, bent flybar, spindle, Main carbon blades survived. My ground in the back is soft due to all the rain lately so it just dug a couple strips into the ground.

I came back inside to verify the esc settings via the software and sure enough I had it on soft start.

And governer mode? yeah right. When I had it in gov mode it was too slow to spool up. It seriously took like 45 seconds to come to power.

so.. no gov mode no slow spoolup, gov mode forever and a day spool up.

I'm not happy at all. I'm going down to Hacker tomorrow and ask them what the dealio is. I get nothing when I search the forums for the X-Pro controller. It's just too damn new. I don't even want it. I'll put a CC in that beast. I'm gonna ask them to take this thing back.

Stay FAR from these until they get them figured out.

[askman]

too bad about the esc. I love Jazz ESCs, but they do cost a bundle. CC45HV is good, but more prone to noise/glitches. I run 40-6-18 on several of my helis. 45HV on few other larger helis , and align 70 on one. (good cheap esc for 6S or under)

as far as cheap packs are concerned, I had best luck with xushobby 8C/16C packs. 5S4400 is about 110 bucks, and it is honest 8c pack. I flew a swift on 4S4400 pack (mostly hovering with small forward flight) and put back 4300mah when I landed after when it started to cut.

[AZ ChopperCam]

I'm wondering about a possible bad cell in this new pack. my charger is acting a bit funky with it.

I think I'll return it and get another tomorrow. so... hold off... they may not be as bad as I said.

it would be just my luck.. I seem to get packs with dead cells. More news tomorrow.

[R Hudson]

Sorry to hear about th Logo incident. It seems that Hackers often have BRUTAL startups with many of their controllers. CC will be ok, but if you can get your hands on a Kontronik or Schulze, you'll never mess with a Castle or Hacker again. It seems that Hacker makes decent motors (although according to some folks in Europe, they're the "Old Milwaukee" of motors), but the ESC's always get less than stellar reviews.

Oh yeah, one tip: Try a Raptor 30 3mm flybar instead of the logo one. It's stronger and cheaper. Those Logo ones bend so easily. The Rappy one works great!

Hope you get it all squared away.

Rod

[Yukonho]

I had troubles with the hacker as well, didn't cause as much greif as yours has though.
I went with the CC HV 45 and it has worked well, although I would have preferred a Kontronik though, but $$$$
I am running 8S on my logo 10 and will be happy if I can find a cheap source for good packs. Be sure to keep us updated.
Colin

[enigma]

Huge bummer! I'm expecting my logo tomorrow and guess what esc it's coming with! I wonder if Wes at Modefo's would swap it out for the cc45HV? Is it worth keeping if you have the pc link?

[AZ ChopperCam]

I went to Hacker today and showed them. The kick was bad enough that it stripped a couple more teeth today. I yanked that crappo ESC and bought a CC45HV. Will fly it later today.

enigma... I'm VERY curious to hear how yours does. be prepared for a wild start!

[enigma]

Is it possible to run a curve and start it up slowly like the fixed end points on the cc45?

[AZ ChopperCam]

nope. tried that. it kicks hard whether ist's a slow curve or not

[miami6]

maybe in airplane mode

[enigma]

I believe I'll have the blades off when I try it :shock:

[AZ ChopperCam]

maybe in airplane mode

makes no difference.

BUT back on topic.. Prodigy Packs. I did indeed have a bad pack. This new one does great. Not quite as much punch as a FP pack but that is only noticed on full power climbs of which I never do for AP/AV flight.

I do like this pack. For the price it's great. What remains to be seen is how well they hold up. I will fly the crap out of it the next few weeks. I plan to abuse this one after a few weeks of normal use.

but as of now I likey!

[fitenfyr]

Well for what it is worth....
My "cheap'o" packs lasted about 30 cycles on the AP ship.
The one 5s pack never would balance correctly and took way more time than it was worth to balance by hand.

Last weak it puffed at least 2 cells. :(

I have vowed to stay away from anything right now that isn't built by Flight Power, TP or Tanic.

They are the only ones I trust with good performance and longevity.
Hope these ones hold out for you though.

As for controllers......
Got a Schulze 32.55K and have not looked back. :D

I did just buy a Kontronic 55-10-32 though as the shop was out of the Schulze and it can take forever and a day to get the stuff from Germany.

Everybody I know of raves about how good the Kontronic is.

I have an Actronic I will sell somebody cheap. :D :D
That thing isn't worth the silcone it is stamped out of in my opinion. :D

[enigma]

where do you find the prodigy packs?

[dreslism]

DJ,

Do the prodigy packs have TP taps on it?

[AZ ChopperCam]

nope no TP taps. I sent them an email asking about adapters. I'm not sure what tap are on them now

www.prodigybatteries.com not much info on the site

DJ

[dreslism]

Well at least they are tapped with something so you can make a adaptor.

[AZ ChopperCam]

4 more flights today. It's performing better now at about 12 cycles than it did brand new.

Still getting 10 minutes on the Logo with this pack and it's just barely warm at landing. When I reach 50 cycles I think it's safe to say these are worth keeping and at that point I plan to buy another 4 or 5 more. Then I plan to abuse the first one with 95% drains and hard flying just to see what happens.

at these prices they beat the pants of Emoli packs are are a damn bit lighter with more capacity

[GJestico]

Boy that price is tempting, But what if this "Value brand" pack craps out halfway through a flight over the neighbours houses.....

[AZ ChopperCam]

time will tell... just as long as it's not the woman who would love nothing more than to feed my Logo to her dog

[dreslism]

I sent an email to prodigy about 30 minutes ago asking about taps, and they just replied with the following, its 2:10AM my time, so I am impressed with the responsiveness.


"Yes our packs over 1000mah have taps on them. They work directly with the
Astro Blinky balancer. They are not the same as the TP's. Adapters can be
made if you are using a TP balancer. I prefer the inexpensive Astro
balancer because it's so universal and you can balance while charging, after
charging and even before charging if you want.
"

I think there are adaptors already available for the astro to TP taps.

I would definately want to use the taps with my TP1010 on these batts to help them maintain their life.