A quick question - do you leave these in your car parked outside in PA? Really cold temperatures can also lead to LiPo batteries swelling. I had my Mac Book Pro battery swell up inside the computer in Antarctica one year in my backpack at ~ -30C. I was wondering why the touch pad was popping out of the computer, and it turned out the battery has swollen to the point where it pushed it out of the case.
The other thing to note is that pretty much all the LiPo batteries available are made in China, but that doesn't mean some aren't better than others, just that you shouldn't dismiss something because it it made in China.
Hi, Rando--
Yes, I just left them in the vehicles year 'round. I hadn't thought about the effect of cold, perhaps because it's fairly rare to get below-zero (F) temperatures here.
I'm starting to think the swelling is more related to aging than anything else. In post 5 I said the XP1 hadn't swollen but since then I disassembled it and found its battery had also swollen. I could see its case was built stronger and I believe there was some expansion room for the battery in there so I didn't notice that swelling before taking it apart. The expansion of that one wasn't as bad as my others.
That led me to call my brother and he checked two of his and found those also pushing open their cases.
So to summarize, my brother and I have six micro-starters, 5 Whistlers and the XP1. Five of the six (and probably the sixth) are swollen. It is important, however, to realize that these are all three years old or older.
As to the China-made issue, I found this article at Sebastian's Garage which says the XP1 and XP3 are made overseas. But I also see it's a 2013 article and I know Antigravity came out with a re-design of the XP1 since then. So I called Antigravity Tech Support earlier this week and the tech told me the XP1 is indeed made in China.
The Antigravity versions of these do seem to be superior in quality, regardless of where they're made. That does come at a price, though. My brother and I made a conscious decision to buy the Whistler (Walmart) units after I had several successes with one and my brother had the same experience with his first one. We bought them for half the price and they had twice the warranty---(a two-year, no-questions-asked return guarantee from Walmart). They had somewhat lower capacity but worked fine for jump-starting cars for two years. But they--- and the XP1--- started to show signs of decline after that 24 months of occasional use.
Edited by Old Crow, 10 December 2017 - 12:42 AM.