Re-visiting Infinity Batteries (Patreon)

In my Group Three battery testing, the Infinity 1500 really stood out. Costing under $25, it delivered a 28 second longest burst at 60 amps discharge rate--an exceptional result. So I was really excited when Banggood agreed to send five more of the packs, several months later, for a followup.

The full results will be in my Group Five battery testing, releasing some time in the next few weeks, but the short version is that the very same batteries, ordered a few months later, didn't perform as well. Their longest burst was in the range of about 8 seconds. This is still an excellent result! About half of all batteries I've tested fail to exceed even 5 seconds. 

To go from a 28 second burst to an 8 second burst is perplexing. What's the explanation? Was the 28 second burst a fluke? I don't think so, because all five of the Infinity 1500's I tested today had very consistent results. Was it a cherry-pick by Banggood? No! The original 1500 was sent by a viewer! So what's the explanation? Maybe it's just that manufacturing standards change over time, and these are simply worse cells than the ones that were sold months ago.

Unfortunately, there's really no solution to this kind of thing except to repeatedly test batteries on the market, and there's just not enough incentive to put in all that work. I still think that the Infinity 1500 is a solid performer at only $25, although I can't help but notice that the Turnigy Graphene 1300 is just a few dollars more, and performs similarly to the Infinity 1500. The kicker on the Turnigy is that it's only a 1300, and it's still 10 grams heavier than the Infinity 1500.

I also tested the new Race-Spec Infinity 1300 today, and shocker! the higher C rated battery actually performed better than the lower C rated battery. No, I'm not being sarcastic. That's actually a surprise! The 1300's actually seemed to perform as good as or even slightly better than the 1500's in terms of burst length and voltage sag, although they obviously delivered less mAh and power. Take that with a grain of salt until I can fully analyze the data.

The other rock star battery which must be acknowledged is the Indestructible Quads Black Label. It's a superior battery to all of these, at only $21. The problem is that it's been a victim of its own success. Ever since my battery test results, it's been sold out (now due in stock mid February).

Here are links to the batteries I've mentioned, for your convenience:

Infinity 1500 Graphene:  https://goo.gl/36nP4a 

Infinity 1300 Graphene:  https://goo.gl/AMBwoM 

Turnigy 1300 Graphene:  https://goo.gl/8EvJq1 

Indestructible Quads Black Label:  https://goo.gl/9Qd15T 

I originally tested the Infinity 1500 Graphene in my Group Three battery testing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8ARrprtmDw

You can jump right to my test of the Black Label with this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9YeIaDMIY4&t=1779s