I'd like to touch on another battery trend I've noticed. The 3S Zee in OP's post, if they're these from
Zeee's official site, weight only 137g. A 3S
Spektrum 22200mah weighs 170g, almost an ounce more.
That Hoovo has a marked weight of 211g. A 6000mah 2S hardcase lipo from a reputable battery manufacturer like
Turnigy weights 340g, over 50% more! Does Hoovo possess special battery chemistry that packs twice as much power into every gram of lithium? No! It is simply impossible for the Hoovo to be a 6000mah battery, and what's even crazier, they are priced
the same.
The truth is that Zeee, Ovonic, Hoovo, etc, are all
pretty bad value in terms of what you're actually getting per dollar spent. This isn't some elitist opinion that you should only run $100+ SMC's, I'm saying you're literally paying more for less, buying those garbage brands rather than something honest in its labelling like Turnigy.
Also, Turnigy doesn't inflate their C ratings. They have 20C, 25C, and 30C batteries available in their "normal" line-up, and I'd sooner take a 20C Turnigy over a 50C Hoovo because Turnigy's number actually has some bearing on reality and will deliver more power.
Even more telling, that 3S Zee pack has almost the same weight and dimensions as an 1800mah pack from various other manufacturers, and this trend emerges with many of their other cells. I remember that in
@Greywolf74's testing, some of those brands would underperform on their advertised capacity by up to 80% or more. And if the budget-brand batteries lied about their capacity, then their C-rating situation is even worse, because they're claiming 50C x 2200mah out of an 1800mah cell that would struggle to deliver half that. An 1800mah battery
will work in the place of a 2200mah one, so the deception goes by unnoticed for most users. It won't run for as long, it'll puff sooner because they're over-stressing it, and the user will think, "eh, cheap batteries do that" and buy another, but in doing so they're supporting the bad practices that lead to this situation.
Lithium battery capacity isn't subjective. When a manufacturer wraps a cell, they know how many mah it should be able to deliver, and how much current its rated for. Somewhere in the management of those budget brands is a conscious decision to lie on the label, and that practice should not be rewarded with our business.
Hobbyking is reputable, they don't carry batteries with falsely-labelled capacities, and their prices are often
lower than what's available on Amazon or eBay, so that's where I get mine. I recently got 3x 2200mah 3S's and a 500mah 2S for $40 shipped.
Edit: I'll add that although they are similarly cheap and marketed as a budget-brand, NHX-branded packs have always delivered on-label capacities for me.
