Battery Couriers

[wheeliepete]

Thought it might be useful to the forum to find out about a UK courier who is willing to transport battery packs or cells as it's a problem that comes up fairly regularly. I plan to give Jimmy a call next week, as I'm sure he would be willing to share info with the forum and he must be using someone for his business. One of the strange things about this is that AFAICS, GLS will transport batteries in Europe, but they are partnered with Parcel Force in the UK, who will not. This means that if you order from Europe using GLS, your parcel is delivered by PF, but you can't return it by the same route. If anyone who has dealt with Nkon or Jimmy can throw any light on this, I think it would be of benefit to us all.

 

[anotherkiwi]

HobbyKing won't deliver batteries from the UK to the rest of the EU which is a pain because the UK always has what I need in stock and the EU warehouse doesn't...

I think it is part of the big logistics racket... Or maybe the chunnel regulations has something to do with it?

 

[Nealh]

Possibly some sort of a racket of some kind. With batteries most logistics only appear to play ball with companies and not the private citizen, separate rules for one and another set for the other.

Hobby King not to the EU, but Nkon O.K from Holland to UK and both have been delivered via PF.

 

[anotherkiwi]

I wrote to HK and informed them that under EU consumer law one simply can't refuse to deliver product from one EU country to another and, for the moment, the UK is part of the EU. Result? I stopped seeing the UK warehouse in the list of warehouses for a while!

They will deliver things other than batteries so it is definitely a transporter thing - I would guess extra costs for batteries that HK is unwilling to pass on to consumers.

My mind is made up, I am converting to 20700 cells and will keep the lipos as boosters/get me home backup. The 50E is in stock at nkon and a 3P10S 15 Ah 36v battery will cost a little over 199€ with the nickel strips. I will salvage the BMS, switch, charge port etc from my old 10.4 Ah bottle battery. I would have stuck with LiPo but the unavailability in the EU warehouse of sales price large capacity packs has put me off.

 

[wheeliepete]

Your both prob. right about business and private rules, which I guess they are permitted to do. I guess they trust business users to package them properly and not just wrap them in an old bin liner with wires poking out like some private sellers would do.

My mind is made up, I am converting to 20700 cells

That's great AK, now get it built so we can all know how they perform. Under 200 Euros is not bad when you consider capacity, weight and size using the very latest cells.

 

[Nealh]

Gleaning some charge /discharge figures on ES, the 20/21700 format only seem to just about replicate the best 18650's. A lot more cost per cell but less cells needed, the consideration is amp supply and 3s only 45a max headway.

 

[anotherkiwi]

Gleaning some charge /discharge figures on ES, the 20/21700 format only seem to just about replicate the best 18650's. A lot more cost per cell but less cells needed, the consideration is amp supply and 3s only 45a max headway.

About 30 Amps with the 50E but I don't intend using at over 15 Amps so 0.5C, here is a test of the 48G

https://electricbike.com/forum/forum/batteries/18650/68165-top-21700-cells-lg-m50-5000mah-vs-samsung-48g-4800mah

Comparing to the 35E, another 10 Amp discharge cell but 18650, of course there is a price per Wh advantage but 4650 mAh more for a very slight weight/size increase wins hands down in my usage scenario. I use 4650 mAh at the moment in just two runs into town and back. The Sanyo has dropped 0.50€ at nkon, probably to counter the arrival of the Samsungs on the market so from here till next March I am optimistic about pricing.

Each usage case is different and mine is a very small triangle to fit a battery in and I think it is worth the premium price to be able to squeeze 15 Ah in there.

 

[anotherkiwi]

No more batteries on US passenger planes:

https://www.cnet.com/news/us-bars-lithium-ion-batteries-from-passenger-aircraft-cargo/