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Battery evo and big battery

thanks, are they same batteries (quality, etc) just different labels?
 
It almost feels like Battery Evo is a clearance outlet for the older Big Battery models.
 
Battery Evo sells a 120aH/1.5 Kwh battery not available through BigBattery. I bought one off of Ebay recently for $500 plus sales tax. Externally everything looks the same as a BigBattery. I wonder what it looks like on the inside? Will Prowse, please do a teardown!!!

Bigbattery has a 10 year warranty. Battery Evo only has a 1 year warranty. Both are in the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles but I didn't verify the addresses are the same.
 
Battery Evo sells a 120aH/1.5 Kwh battery not available through BigBattery. I bought one off of Ebay recently for $500 plus sales tax. Externally everything looks the same as a BigBattery. I wonder what it looks like on the inside? Will Prowse, please do a teardown!!!

Bigbattery has a 10 year warranty. Battery Evo only has a 1 year warranty. Both are in the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles but I didn't verify the addresses are the same.
Correction to my previous post. Apparently there was a typo in the email BatteryEvo sent me regarding their warranty. Their warranty is 10 years not 1. I think they meant coverage on components was 1 year.


New message from: batteryevo Top Rated Seller(2,869Red Star)

1 year​

Our hours are 8:00am – 4:30 pm PST Monday – Friday and Holidays
If you are contacting us outside those hours please allow up to 48 hours for a response. Thank you for your patience!

We strive for a positive experience and five-star service! Thank you and have a great day.


Your previous message​
Your previous message​
What is the warranty on the battery? What is the coverage on components? Thanks.
 
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Battery Evo, Big Battery and Tech Direct Club are all one and the same. Buyer beware. Recently I had a customer purchase a 120ah 48v ( 24v units in series). These supposedly have new A123 LFP cells in them with a 10 year warranty. These batteries were a close match in size and output to the existing batteries at a far lower price, which was important for my customer's budget. The batteries arrived quick enough and I welded together a pair of wall mounts for a clean install as well as built some independent switching along with a new pair of bus bars to handle the increased amperage.
The batteries were about 2 volts different when I turned them on so I brought the lower voltage battery up to equal the second one. Then I made sure the existing batteries in the system were at the same voltage and set the charge parameters on the inverter to be within the voltage range of all of batteries which they all had the same LFP chemistry and capacity anyway.
Things were clipping along nicely until 4:am the next morning when the Evo batteries fell off a cliff and shut down. I went to the site and started testing the equipment. The two Evo batteries showed a two volt difference in the built in display. Both showed above a minimum shutdown level though. One at 24.6v and the other at 26.5v. I proceeded to attempt to charge the lower battery again with two separate 24v chargers to no avail. The display would just shut down. I called and got through to Fred at tech support at their Washington state number. He proceeded to through some softball questions at me finally indicating that I needed to send the unit back since it wouldn't accept a charge while insinuating that there was something wrong with both of the chargers that I had tried to use. During our conversation he directed me to take the cover of and try to reinitiate the BMS by removing and reconnecting the leads. The battery re-initiated so I went on to attempt charging again after ending the call with tech support. As I hooked up the 24v charger again the BMS shut down. Wanting to get to the bottom of this I decided to do a cell check. Remember, these are purportedly brand new A123 cell packs. The results were as follows:
1. 2.627
2. 3.175
3. 3.188
4. 3.181
5. 3.161
6. 3.181
7. 3.172
8. 3.172
The obvious culprit was of course cell pack 1. I called Fred back and informed him of my findings. He told me to use the form on the Battery Evo website and get an RMA. A new battery would be sent out immediately. After a number of tries by both me and my customer to get in contact with Battery Evo a replacement was sent out along with a return shipping label for the original battery. Unfortunately, it was a battery of, as I came to find out later, lesser capacity because they were more degraded used cells. The replacement battery was of the same size and shape, it just had a multi color case instead of the black case. I called Fred again and got John on the line and told him about the battery I got that looked like it was assembled from spare parts. Eventually Fred got on the line and I asked him if I could take the replacement battery out of the multi color case and put it in the original defective battery case. He agreed that that was a good idea rather than send back a second battery.He did not indicate at that time that the cells were of lesser quality in the replacement pack.
While I was on the phone with Fred this time we were also having a discussion as to how to get the second original battery to accept a charge as it was 2 volts lower than the replacement battery. Fred had me take the cover off of that battery and jump across the BMS to activate it. Which worked. Unfortunately when I connected the 24v charge to that battery it shut down again as well. I decided to test the cells to get a better picture. So, the second original battery with purportedly brand new A123 cell packs tested as follows:
1. 3.013
2. 3.655
3. 3.156
4. 3.167
5. 3.161
6. 3.151
7. 3.122
8. 3.143
It was obvious that the #2 high voltage was causing the shutdown.
At this point I was starting to think that maybe there was some deception going on. I made that case changeover on the original battery #1 and it's replacement and made the following discovery as shown in the attached images of the cells
IMG_20210430_145424.jpg
IMG_20210430_145429.jpg
These two images are of the original battery #1 and its replacement
IMG_20210430_151316.jpg

IMG_20210430_151245.jpg
So it became obvious that Battery Evo, Big Battery or Tech Direct Club intentionally sent out batteries that were not what they advertised them to be. This is an ongoing experience. As of today, after requesting a refund and getting the run around I'm not sure what direction I will take. Unfortunately it won't be pleasant from this point on.
Don't get me wrong, I am 100% in favor of upcycling and reusing lithium batteries that are fully tested. I have successfully purchased and used batteries from Battery Hookup, EV West and others with excellent results. The difference was that they are up front about what they are selling and conduct real testing on their products.
 
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Battery Evo, Big Battery and Tech Direct Club are all one and the same. Buyer beware. Recently I had a customer purchase a 120ah 48v ( 24v units in series). These supposedly have new A123 LFP cells in them with a 10 year warranty. These batteries were a close match in size and output to the existing batteries at a far lower price, which was important for my customer's budget. The batteries arrived quick enough and I welded together a pair of wall mounts for a clean install as well as built some independent switching along with a new pair of bus bars to handle the increased amperage.
The batteries were about 2 volts different when I turned them on so I brought the lower voltage battery up to equal the second one. Then I made sure the existing batteries in the system were at the same voltage and set the charge parameters on the inverter to be within the voltage range of all of batteries which they all had the same LFP chemistry and capacity anyway.
Things were clipping along nicely until 4:am the next morning when the Evo batteries fell off a cliff and shut down. I went to the site and started testing the equipment. The two Evo batteries showed a two volt difference in the built in display. Both showed above a minimum shutdown level though. One at 24.6v and the other at 26.5v. I proceeded to attempt to charge the lower battery again with two separate 24v chargers to no avail. The display would just shut down. I called and got through to Fred at tech support at their Washington state number. He proceeded to through some softball questions at me finally indicating that I needed to send the unit back since it wouldn't accept a charge while insinuating that there was something wrong with both of the chargers that I had tried to use. During our conversation he directed me to take the cover of and try to reinitiate the BMS by removing and reconnecting the leads. The battery re-initiated so I went on to attempt charging again after ending the call with tech support. As I hooked up the 24v charger again the BMS shut down. Wanting to get to the bottom of this I decided to do a cell check. Remember, these are purportedly brand new A123 cell packs. The results were as follows:
1. 2.627
2. 3.175
3. 3.188
4. 3.181
5. 3.161
6. 3.181
7. 3.172
8. 3.172
The obvious culprit was of course cell pack 1. I called Fred back and informed him of my findings. He told me to use the form on the Battery Evo website and get an RMA. A new battery would be sent out immediately. After a number of tries by both me and my customer to get in contact with Battery Evo a replacement was sent out along with a return shipping label for the original battery. Unfortunately, it was a battery of, as I came to find out later, lesser capacity because they were more degraded used cells. The replacement battery was of the same size and shape, it just had a multi color case instead of the black case. I called Fred again and got John on the line and told him about the battery I got that looked like it was assembled from spare parts. Eventually Fred got on the line and I asked him if I could take the replacement battery out of the multi color case and put it in the original defective battery case. He agreed that that was a good idea rather than send back a second battery.He did not indicate at that time that the cells were of lesser quality in the replacement pack.
While I was on the phone with Fred this time we were also having a discussion as to how to get the second original battery to accept a charge as it was 2 volts lower than the replacement battery. Fred had me take the cover off of that battery and jump across the BMS to activate it. Which worked. Unfortunately when I connected the 24v charge to that battery it shut down again as well. I decided to test the cells to get a better picture. So, the second original battery with purportedly brand new A123 cell packs tested as follows:
1. 3.013
2. 3.655
3. 3.156
4. 3.167
5. 3.161
6. 3.151
7. 3.122
8. 3.143
It was obvious that the #2 high voltage was causing the shutdown.
At this point I was starting to think that maybe there was some deception going on. I made that case changeover on the original battery #1 and it's replacement and made the following discovery as shown in the attached images of the cells
View attachment 47511
View attachment 47512
These two images are of the original battery #1 and its replacement
View attachment 47513

View attachment 47515
So it became obvious that Battery Evo, Big Battery or Tech Direct Club intentionally sent out batteries that were not what they advertised them to be. This is an ongoing experience. As of today, after requesting a refund and getting the run around I'm not sure what direction I will take. Unfortunately it won't be pleasant from this point on.
Don't get me wrong, I am 100% in favor of upcycling and reusing lithium batteries that are fully tested. I have successfully purchased and used batteries from Battery Hookup, EV West and others with excellent results. The difference was that they are up front about what they are selling and conduct real testing on their products.
Very thorough post, great read and thanks for keeping it more of a presentation of facts rather than opinions, I liked that.

From my understanding working with these companies, BigBattery is supposed to be the top of the line, a-grade, polished up stuff that does really good performance wise and quality wise, and BatteryEvo/techdirect is the mid-grade/lower price side of things.

Tech Direct, Battery Evo, and BigBattery have quite similar ownership, however totally different leadership. BigBattery is Eric Lundgren's project, he does not play a role in the operations of Tech Direct, Battery Evo, or another company of his, ITAP...They each have their own chairman.

Hope everything gets cleared up with your batteries though and your frustrations get sorted out soon!
 
Very thorough post, great read and thanks for keeping it more of a presentation of facts rather than opinions, I liked that.

From my understanding working with these companies, BigBattery is supposed to be the top of the line, a-grade, polished up stuff that does really good performance wise and quality wise, and BatteryEvo/techdirect is the mid-grade/lower price side of things.

Tech Direct, Battery Evo, and BigBattery have quite similar ownership, however totally different leadership. BigBattery is Eric Lundgren's project, he does not play a role in the operations of Tech Direct, Battery Evo, or another company of his, ITAP...They each have their own chairman.

Hope everything gets cleared up with your batteries though and your frustrations get sorted out soon!
Thanks for the response. So in other words, Battery Evo/Tech Direct repair and resell the returns from Big Battery. I wonder who will be around from those companies a few years down the road to honor the 10 year warranties. The most curious 10 year warranty they offer is the one from A123. It doesn't seem reasonable that A123 would honor a full warranty for re-purposed reconfigured battery cells that were take out cells from another manufacturers product. Looking at LithiumSolars review of the 48v Big Battery, it's clear that they will send out defective products, even though LithiumSolar tries to defend them, the reconfiguration of the (new) A123 cells in that video is sketchy at best. I wonder what regulatory guidelines they are under for construction and sale of these batteries, if any.
 
So in other words, Battery Evo/Tech Direct repair and resell the returns from Big Battery.
No, not at all. Battery Evo is the components that MAKE the BigBattery products. Tech Direct is items that still are good items, but aren't "grade a++" polished up items.

In most cases, these companies are covering the warranties, NOT the original manufacturer...as a general example, if a pack using an A123 cell were to fail, they would not go back to A123, just like if one of their lishen cells starts leaking, they don't go back to NEC who they got the cells from when NEC went out of business, as an example.
 
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Battery Evo is now it's own company as well. https://batteryevo.com You can buy Battery Evo products from Battery Evo that are shipped from Tech Direct. Which is what I did from the Battery Evo website.It's all a convoluted mess. Who's on first?
Also with regards to the warranties, prior to purchase in a conversation with Fred ?? he stated that the cell warranties on new cells were from the manufacturer. These guys tell so many stories it's hard to keep things straight.
 
Battery Evo is now it's own company as well. https://batteryevo.com You can buy Battery Evo products from Battery Evo that are shipped from Tech Direct. Which is what I did from the Battery Evo website.It's all a convoluted mess. Who's on first?
Also with regards to the warranties, prior to purchase in a conversation with Fred ?? he stated that the cell warranties on new cells were from the manufacturer. These guys tell so many stories it's hard to keep things straight.
It is possible that one particular cell has a manufacturer warranty and it is not actually false info. I am speaking more "in general". For example when BigBattery was refurbishing Nissan Leaf cells, Nissan wasn't warrantying those cells if they went bad.

I've edit my previous post for clarity
 
It is possible that one particular cell has a manufacturer warranty and it is not actually false info. I am speaking more "in general". For example when BigBattery was refurbishing Nissan Leaf cells, Nissan wasn't warrantying those cells if they went bad.

I've edit my previous post for clarity
Yes, possibly. I think buyer beware is still in order though.
 
Battery Evo sells a 120aH/1.5 Kwh battery not available through BigBattery. I bought one off of Ebay recently for $500 plus sales tax. Externally everything looks the same as a BigBattery. I wonder what it looks like on the inside? Will Prowse, please do a teardown!!!

Bigbattery has a 10 year warranty. Battery Evo only has a 1 year warranty. Both are in the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles but I didn't verify the addresses are the same.
What good is the warranty when they don't return your calls anyway?
 
In life I've found that when companies hide themselves under many names its either for "brand name" reasons, or to cover their tracks, and often both.

I worked at a place that put out pretty much 3 or 4 different products, under 87 different names... Didn't matter if you bought it at Wally world, a $ store, or on 5th avenue, same plant, and pretty much the same product.

I'd rather spend my money on companies that are more honest.
 
Another old thread on BigBattery and BatteryEvo...
Was thinking about buying something from one of them, but now I dunno.

I got a message from Fred with no response to my query on affilication.
I talked to a sales rep from BigBattery - she said batteryevo was 'a separate company' selling their own product.

I always wonder why companies do this as well. Makes them seem shady.

Then I went to the 'TechDirect' site - selling the same batteryevo item but for more money.

ITAP appears to be a battery recycler.
Seems the founder spend some time in the clink: https://www.forbes.com/sites/peterh...enced-to-15-months-in-prison/?sh=304cb89b362a
 
I don't think this is that good of a deal, even if it is a great battery. $0.33/wh sees to be an pretty common price right now, but cell cost is more in the $0.15/wh range.
 
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