3S 800mah - FlightPower vs Align vs Loong Max

Written by Ashley Davis Tuesday, 17 November 2009 00:00

Comparison

This test we step up the lipo comparison a gear and look at some mid-range and premium brands as well as back referencing a budget brand as a base line. So on the test bed today we have the FlightPower EON-X Lite 3S 800mah 25C, Align 3S 850mah 30C and the Loong Max 3S 800mah 25C.

Firstly the supplier and pricing info:

Note: HeliTuning supplied the Loong Max but for info it was purchased from GiantCod

Lets take a look at the three packs in question and their relative specification.

The test process

So, how are we going to test these three packs? Well it's the usual setup for a 'tuning' lipo test. The test is to be performed within the model, so no fancy dischargers placing completely unrealistic loadings on the pack, this is real world 'what does it do in the model'. The helicopter used for the test is my own T-Rex 250 which has an upgraded Scorpion motor and runs carbon blades all round. Of course we are going to control this test and not just fly around in the hope the packs are stressed in the same way.

The test consists of a 30 second run in idle up with 0 degrees pitch on the blades, this is to get us past the initial extra power all lipos have at the beginning of the flight, I want to see what happens once you are past that and into the main body of the flight. At 30 seconds we introduce full positive pitch and hold it for 10 seconds, essentially this is the equivalent of a nice long climbout. This is followed by 5 seconds of 0 degress pitch to allow the lipo to recover and then we go into a full pitch pump with maximum positive and negative pitch for the last 15 seconds. Essentially we are mimicking a very badly controlled tic toc for this last section.

This is a comparative test of the battery, so headspeed is of little relevance, what we are looking at here is voltage, the higher the better the pack is coping.

Lastly I check pack temps after the test and if any pack is significantly hot (over 50 degrees C) I take a temp measurement.

This test does not encompass any cycle life measurements, it is purely a power / voltage test.

Results

The packs were tested one after the other with a suitable break inbetween for the motor and ESC to cool down. The FlightPower was tested first, followed by the Align and lastly the Loong Max.

OK, so lets take a look at the three charts on their own and lastly the size by side comparison. Bear in mind when looking at the charts that axis and scales of the charts are sized to fit, so the bottom voltage on one graph will not be the same as the bottom voltage on the next. I've included a side by side summary chart to highlight this.

The top of the chart shows the session for the test.

Session1: FlightPower
Session 2: Align
Session 3: Loong Max

The most telling chart regarding performance is the side by side comparison, here you can see the red amps are almost identical across the sessions, so the same loading was placed on each motor and the blue line is the voltage. The FlightPower is on the left, Align in the middle and Loong Max on the right.

OK so that's the graphical bit, here in tabular form are the summary numbers from each test:

Working through this information let's de-mystify the data and explain what's going on.

Firstly the FlightPower 3S 800mah Eon-X 25C, which sounds fantastic and looks great (as well as being a premium brand) but on the test put out a pretty poor result. During the full power test the volatge dropped to below 9.4V. Had I set my low voltage cutoff at the usual 3.2V per cell it would have cut out and gone into low voltage lipo saver mode. Considering this is just a 10 second climb-out at only 30 seconds into the flight this is abysmal. We then get a recovery for 5 seconds and the pitch pump test, which the FlightPower completes but at a significantly lower voltage than the other two packs on test. Bottom line, this pack is a poor performer, it put in a lower perfromance than our Zippy 3S 800mah (which is a $4 budget pack).

Next up we have the Align 3S 850mah 30C, this is the highest capacity and highest rated pack on the test and unsuprisingly turned in the top performance so far in our 3S 800mah lipo tests. There is enough performance here for some lively 3D and the pack doesn't drop below 10.47V across the whole test. Definitely a good result for Align and an entire volt better than the FlightPower and on average 0.6V higher across the entire test.

Lastly our baseline pack the Loong Max 800mah 20C, this is the test budget pack at half the price of the other two offerings in this test. It turns in a relatively strong performance, not far off the Align with a low voltage of 10.08 (0.4V below the Align) and a test average of 11.03V which is only 0.14V off the Align pack. Impressive stuff for such a cheap pack.

Conclusion

This test really shows that all that glitters is not gold. The FlightPower is the premium brand on this test and manages to deliver the worst test result so far, worse than a $4 Zippy pack from China. Let's not dwell on that though as the test did highlight two things, firstly that Align these days are producing some quite powerful packs and the Align pack would certainly give a spirited 3D perfromance in any 200/250 class helicopter. Secondly, the Loong Max (our budget pack test winner) showed a strong performance and was not far off the Align pack at approxmately half the cost price of the Align.

3D and performance minded fliers should probably look towards the Align as the pack of choice, the more frugally minded who value number of flights over power should look at the Loong Max and the ability to buy two for the same money as a single Align pack. As for the FlightPower, do I need to say to avoid this pack?

Bear in mind these are just performance tests and do not give any indication to cycle life, which could be significantly different across manufacturers.

Lastly please do visit our test sponsors, T-Rex Mad and Align UK / Skyline Models without their support tests like this would not be possible.

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