Hi, after many years as ham I have some plans to get portable. I see in this forum that many order batteries and chargers from Hobbyking. At this time, it seems that there are not many items in stock at the EU och UK warehouse.
Has anyone recently order items from the Global (Hong Kong?) Warehouse to EU, how about delivery time etc? I know that in Sweden you have to pay import fee and taxes, but that is OK for me.
73
Lars SM0TGU
Hello Lars nice to meet you on the Reflector.
Its has been a long time since I purchased any batteries for SOTA but I do have 3 that I use for the job.
Some batteries I have bought were a bit wrong for the job as I was non the wiser back then. The Hobbyking LiPo I have is 5000 mA 4S, it fully charges to 16 volts so I need a voltage dropping device in my KX3 power lead the rig has a built in over voltage system.
The Hobbyking LiFe is 4200 mA 4S it charges to 14.3 volts so is ok to connect straight to my rig.
I have this other bigger battery Multi Star 10.0 Amps this battery is 4s also but I carefully charge it to 14.3 volts as well but it will charge right up to 16 volts. I did a Hack to the charger and told it it was a LiFe not a LiPo. This battery has a much slower discharge of 10c but it runs my kx3 or ft 817 for ages I finally flattened it the other day to 11 volts on a summit it took a lot of hours use to finally need a charge. Down side is I need a bigger charger as it pull a lot of current from my shack power supply at start up on charge. The smaller batteries I use a Turnigy ACCUCELL 6 which has done a great job for the last 7 years.
I guess the moral of my story is if you buy LiPo get 3s they fully charge to 13 odd volts and you don’t need to reduce the voltage to run your rig and have all these “accessories” in your SOTA bag.
Regards
Ian vk5cz …
I only have one 4S2P LiFePo4 and has been my only SOTA battery for years now. I connect it directly to my FT-817ND without needing any voltage reduction and I’ve run over 3 hours QRP from a summit without flattening it.
I’ll get another 4S2P when this one had died.
I highly recommend it.
73,
Guru
Sorry no, my only orders have been from the UK warehouse and the EU (Netherlands) warehouse.
Thank you @VK5CZ and @EA2IF for your battery recommendations - I know what to get but as my subject stated I would really know if someone in EU has ordered from Hobbyking Global with good result and delivery time the last weeks.
HobbyKing (like a lot of places) are out of stock on lots of lines because of the factory’s being shut for a while and selling what they had.
Last week was my first time using HobbyKing (EU warehouse), but other Far East suppliers (Ali Express, BangGood, etc) are they are usually reliable, I have never had a problem but others have, PayPal is usually wise and watch the time limit on Ali to object.
Batteries are problematic now with the postal shipping rules (which make sense for safety) so I personally would be a bit cautious to order a LiPo or LifePo4 from outside the EU in case of problems.
Update: All items I would like to order was out of stock at EU and UK warehouse. Also at the Global (Hong Kong) warehouse there was a lot of items out of stock.
I managed to order a charger (Turnigy M8), two 3S Lipo 5000 mAh, a low voltage alarm and some other small items from the Global warehouse. Now I just have to wait and see when I receive the order…
I also need to pay a import fee and swedish taxes, but I will be a lot cheaper then buying all in Sweden.
My order arrived from Hong Kong today after 7 days. Very fast with FedEx! So yes, order from Global warehouse to Sweden (EU) without any problems!