SOK Warranty Issues

sunshine_eggo said:

Curious. Then why would you choose to include them in your offerings?

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Yes - well my standard version was based on the bogart engineering controller.

The guy that I built that for insisted on a victron controller and I could not talk him out of it.

It is 400 watts feeding into a 24 volt system, so pretty far away from the 30 amp rating of that unit.

It honestly annoys the heck out of me to have that photo of it installed in his trailer with the V solar charge controller, so I put masking tape over it to hide the branding - obviously not sufficiently. And I don't know how to photo shop - so it is what it is.

At the end of the day, I have to cover the rent on my little off grid hobby space somehow, so sometimes I have to do things that I would rather not, but I am not going to showcase their stuff either.

UPDATE:
After e bit of discussion (I am being kind) SOK finally agreed to send me a new BMS. They claim that their new BMS design may also be suspect (I am being kind again) and the new BMS will not correct any issues.

On May 22, 2024, at 9:34 AM, Sok Battery <sales@sokbattery.com> wrote:
in fact, new version BMS still have the SOC issue.
We think this BMS software can not calculate the correct SOC....
If you install replace a BMS, we could send you.

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These responses just don't give me that warm and fuzzy feeling.

Are there any manufacturers of LifePo4 batteries, BMS hardware and software that are of sufficient quality and good engineering to mitigate these issue?

As a design professional, I have over 30 years of designing corporate headquarters, office buildings, medical facilities and retain centers. The electrical system switch gear we specify has proven to be of high quality and sustainable. I just don't understand the perceived lack of quality in the low voltage solar market.

This is the problem I see far too often - product designers want to incorporate too many features. SOK made AMAZING batteries when they first hit the market. Never a single issue, they just worked. Then they tried to make the battery a battery PLUS a battery monitor - it's not quite perfect, but it gives the impression of a battery that may not be as robust as they used to be. This is why I kept buying and offering the non-bluetooth models for years after the bluetooth model came out.

I think monitoring the SOC of a battery within the battery is simply stupid. At the end of the day 90% of systems use multiple batteries, and no one wants to sit there scrolling through each battery...it's not like they report to a central system (like Victron) anyway. Plus, you can't meet the accuracy of a precision ground shunt for a price range that is anywhere close to being competitive in this market.

HarryN said:

At the end of the day, I have to cover the rent on my little off grid hobby space somehow, so sometimes I have to do things that I would rather not, but I am not going to showcase their stuff either.

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LOL... you can't hide that shape from a Smurf.

You made the customer happy.

I'm a happy Victron customer, and there seems to be a lot of them.

You're free to hate them as much as you like!

sunshine_eggo said:

LOL... you can't hide that shape from a Smurf.

You made the customer happy.

I'm a happy Victron customer, and there seems to be a lot of them.

You're free to hate them as much as you like!

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He was just dressing it up for a night out on the town, maybe going to a ball

sunshine_eggo said:

LOL... you can't hide that shape from a Smurf.

You made the customer happy.

I'm a happy Victron customer, and there seems to be a lot of them.

You're free to hate them as much as you like!

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I try very hard to purchase items made in the US / North America. Our trade deficit with the far east is already high enough.

If they made their products in the EU or NA, I would not mind using them - and I do use them on occasion when there are no domestic options for the task.

@sunshine_eggo

In post #3 of this thread where you found that photo:


You can see two photos. One of the stuff mounted leaning next to the car. ( with the Bogart version controller ) and then of course the one that you spied with it inside of the trailer - with the V substituted in. It is the same unit - just that aspect replaced.

The guy was a customer from the past when I built systems regularly vs now mostly just a couple once in a while / semi retired. He managed to spill motor oil all over his original power system, so I pulled it apart, cleaned everything inside and out.

Mounted it on that long board to fit under the seat - and put a drip cover over it all so that if / when he spilled stuff again - it would be at least partly protected.

Anyone can build something similar easily enough - photos and info are all right there.

HighTechLab said:

I think monitoring the SOC of a battery within the battery is simply stupid.

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Sorry but can not agree, ask anyone that has been using a JBD BMS the SOC is very accurate (these are the ones with 10 voltage point settings, previous 5 point settings were not as accurate), especially once you put a charge cycle on it. The BMS that SOK uses may not be but that's a problem with there bms and not monitoring in general.

The Victron shunt, a nice unit but does not account for micro currents like under 250ma, this can add up which is why it needs to be reset to 100% when the battery is charged back up.

Epoch also seems to have a very good accurate SOC so the accuracy of the reading has to do with the quality of the BMS.

Alkaline said:

Sorry but can not agree, ask anyone that has been using a JBD BMS the SOC is very accurate (these are the ones with 10 voltage point settings, previous 5 point settings were not as accurate), especially once you put a charge cycle on it. The BMS that SOK uses may not be but that's a problem with there bms and not monitoring in general.

The Victron shunt, a nice unit but does not account for micro currents like under 250ma, this can add up which is why it needs to be reset to 100% when the battery is charged back up.

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This is more true of almost all BMS, including JBD, not a Victron shunt. Victron shunts have a stated accuracy of ± 10mA.

So, with all of this discussion, and with all of the warranty/BMS issues, if purchasing new batteries today, what brand would you purchase?

Eg4 or pytes for me

EG4 or SunGoldPower.
SunGoldPower batteries are SOK clones (or Jakiper, Ruixue?) but SGP does provide great customer support

N7QX said:

So, with all of this discussion, and with all of the warranty/BMS issues, if purchasing new batteries today, what brand would you purchase?

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For non rack batteries here are the ones I have seen personally and people having success with:

Epoch is probably the company gaining the most market share a lot of users in the boat/marine are using there stuff now, Many people in Galveston bay area are using the roypow versions of there batteries. Keeping on its current trajectory I think this will be the biggest lithium battery vendor by 2025.
SOK is still overall good, recently people have had a few issues, but I know a lot of users happy with there stuff.
Sun fun kits batteries and kits is another one to look at they put them together in Louisiana so repairs are close, good value for the money and it has victron coms.
Millertech makes some solid batteries, although lacking in features like bluetooth and comms but a lot of boat / bass guys are happy with them
I haven't seen Voltgo in person but that is supposed to be a very good brand with built in comms
We use to see people using the Kilovault batteries a good bit but they are out of business now so its kind of shame.

Some honorable mentions:
Aolithium
Monster Marine
Lion Energy *When on sale at costco you can pick these up at a steal.
BattleBorn * yes I know, I know, but I have seen people that have 6 year old battle born batteries still going strong so not everyone is a dud.

Budget Brands that seem to have the least amount of problems:
Redodo
GoldenMate

As I general rule I avoid Amazon batteries like wieze, litime, chins, lossigy, powerqueen and the like I have seen too many issues and inconsistencies with these.

N7QX said:

First post here, but long Tim reader.

own 3 SOK 206 AH batteries. One of the BMS stopped working and shows 0 charge and a continuous 22 Amp current drain.

I asked SOK to repair the battery, replace the battery, replace the BMS or fix the BMS. Nothing unreasonable.

I have received nothing but a run around.
They tell me everything is fine and the ABC application is the issue.

If I isolate the battery, the power is 0% by morning and shuts down. After recharging, the same issues occur.

Anyone have any suggestions?

I am getting ready to buy 48v server rack batteries for a new project, but. in all honest, I think unless something changes i am done with SOK.

Very disappointing.

Mike

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The problem with this kind of thing is that you’de probably have to pay for shipping. And since lithium and weight is involved, it could be expensive. If you live near Las Vegas, you might able to drop it off.

You need to have SOK send you a shipping label, if you go to UPS or Fedex and tell them you are shipping a battery they will tell you NO and will tell you need to contact them and setup an account that can ship batteries.

A friend of mine did this just to see what the deal is with an old relion battery and Fedex / UPS said he would need to pay for a class 9 shipment fee of 40.00 and will need to get a 24/7 hazmat DOT Response number from a company called chemtrec... Chemtrec wants $1000.00 / year

So yeah no normie is going to be shipping these batteries at any reasonable cost.

The alternative is to just lie and say its not a battery. If any thing is over 100Whr these rules apply.

Also USPS will simply say Hell no you can not send batteries.