Our NEW GO-TO LiFePO4 vendor...09.20.21

Jaxonwood said:

At $105 + shipping, if these are indeed the same as the best of what "we" have been getting, it appears something just under $4000 for 32 of these all said and done. Am I seeing a best price story or a lesser quality story here?

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I mean it's $5 cheaper than Docan who many people (incl. myself) have bought from and been happy with. Worth saving $5 a battery? Up to you man.

Rossman said:

I mean it's $5 cheaper than Docan who many people (incl. myself) have bought from and been happy with. Worth saving $5 a battery? Up to you man.

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I show $4768 delivered from Docan.
From Gobel, I'm doing some easy math of $3360 + a scientific wild ass guess of $550 in shipping = $3910
I haven't run it on the calculator but it looks more than $5 per cell , hence my inquiry.

Jaxonwood said:

I show $4768 delivered from Docan.
From Gobel, I'm doing some easy math of $3360 + a scientific wild ass guess of $550 in shipping = $3910
I haven't run it on the calculator but it looks more than $5 per cell , hence my inquiry.

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The price from Docan shipped from Houston for 32 LF32K cells is indeed $149*32 = $4768,
plus a 2.04% alibaba fee plus a 3% fee if you use a credit card. Plus sales tax if any.
The price from Docan shipped direct from China is $110*32+shipping+2.04%+3%.
See my post of July 21 for more details. I suspect that comes out quite close to Gobel's.

There is no legal definition of A+, A, or B, vendors are free to claim whatever they wish.
As you say it doesn't much matter, all I want is something that works for off-grid power.
Who I buy from comes down to vendor reputation. Some people thought they were getting
"A" cells from alibaba vendors and wound up with obviously used or damaged cells.

How things like air compressors and automotive jump starters get sold here in the US can be
a bit creative too, the specs many vendors claim violate the laws of physics.
There seems to be no legal consequence.

Yes, I can believe electric vehicle makers get to cherry pick the best cells when buying
several million. When only buying a dozen or two, we pay double that $110 price if
we want the same grade of cells since it's so much harder to deal with so many different
(and often bumbling) customers. What I got from Docan is new, unblemished, and works well.
But other vendors have figured out that they can sell used cells since it is so much hassle
to return defective product.

As an example of slightly mismatched cells, here's what I see with my 32 cell bank at 54 and 56 volts.
At 54v: 3.367 3.382 3.373 3.365 3.386 3.365 3.359 3.378 3.368 3.368 3.367 3.367 3.377 3.366 3.380 3.376
At 56v: 3.508 3.480 3.482 3.523 3.473 3.521 3.530 3.483 3.492 3.496 3.509 3.504 3.482 3.500 3.477 3.483
Note that at 54v, cell #5 is the highest of the bunch at 3.386v and cell #7 is lowest at 3.359v.
But at 56v, cell #5 is lowest at 3.473v and cell #7 is highest at 3.530v.
Currents were very low when these readings were taken, so not a matter of internal resistance.
I would guess this is due to slightly different chemistries of the cells, and this flipping around
will cause my passive BMS balancer to waste a few watt-hours. I'm ok with that, would much rather
have twice the cells for the same money than save a handful of watt hours. If you care, an active BMS
wouldn't waste much power at all, as it moves the power from one cell to another instead of burning it up
in a resistor.

Cells 5 and 6 were built on Dec 10 of 2021 and Jan 6 of 2022, respectively. From the QR codes:
manufacturers product_types cell_types model_codes capacity production_date production_city factory_product_line factory_task_order number_of_cell_produced_that_day original_qr_content
#5: EVE Power Cell LiFePO4 LF280K 280Ah 10/12/2021 Jingmen 84 66 6278 04QCB76846600JBCA0006278
#6: EVE Power Cell LiFePO4 LF280K 280Ah 6/1/2022 Jingmen 84 25 6896 04QCB76842500JC160006896

Jaxonwood said:

wild ass guess of $550 in shipping

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Exactly. A wild guess. Why not get an actual shipped quote from Gobel before you make your claims?

I mean it may be cheaper, I have no idea - but I'm confused how you would think think two suppliers from China will have wildly different shipping rates? They will both ship the same way.

Rossman said:

Exactly. A wild guess. Why not get an actual shipped quote from Gobel before you make your claims?

I mean it may be cheaper, I have no idea - but I'm confused how you would think think two suppliers from China will have wildly different shipping rates? They will both ship the same way.

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Given the $4768 price he quoted, I assume he is buying 32 cells.
My buy of 16 cells from Docan shipped from China was $110 each plus $276 for shipping,
so his figure of $550 is about right.

What he missed was that the Docan price of $149/cell is the price shipped from Houston,
arriving in a week. For $110/cell, Docan can ship to you from China, plus $276/16=$17.25
for shipping, so 127.25 per cell to make a fair comparison of the $149 price from Huston.
Of course, shipping from China will take 1 to 3 months.

Also missing in his calculations are the 2.04% alibaba fee and then the 3.00% fee for credit card use.
That's on top of the prices quoted by Docan, and likely Gobel as well, doesn't matter if it
is shipped from Houston or China. See my July 21 post here for more details.

A quick search of this forum for "Gobel" finds only a handful of references, mostly in regard
to their early QR decoder. They may be ok but I don't see anybody who has bought from them.

There have been vendors asking far less than $110.00 per cell.
When you see a price of $50/cell, best to assume it is used or damaged.

GRBreaks said:

Given the $4768 price he quoted, I assume he is buying 32 cells.
My buy of 16 cells from Docan shipped from China was $110 each plus $276 for shipping,
so his figure of $550 is about right.

What he missed was that the Docan price of $149/cell is the price shipped from Houston,
arriving in a week. For $110/cell, Docan can ship to you from China, plus $276/16=$17.25
for shipping, so 127.25 per cell to make a fair comparison of the $149 price from Huston.
Of course, shipping from China will take 1 to 3 months.

Also missing in his calculations are the 2.04% alibaba fee and then the 3.00% fee for credit card use.
That's on top of the prices quoted by Docan, and likely Gobel as well, doesn't matter if it
is shipped from Houston or China. See my July 21 post here for more details.

A quick search of this forum for "Gobel" finds only a handful of references, mostly in regard
to their early QR decoder. They may be ok but I don't see anybody who has bought from them.

There have been vendors asking far less than $110.00 per cell.
When you see a price of $50/cell, best to assume it is used or damaged.

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Ok, so if the big picture is coming in now, Docan has the big advantage, if true, of being able to return defective shipments to Houston and Gobel, it would seem, is a one way trip, take it or... haggle/beg for some adjustment. Also, all other things the same, it is a $5 difference.

On the Docan site I was not able to get or see the $110 price for shipped from China units, is that an email to Jenny Wu to get that $110?
Also, does anybody feel confident or know that bad cells can be returned to their USA warehouse?

This is the sixth 12 volt 280 ah battery I have done with cells from Docan, all of them balanced well. Here is a screenshot after a 72 hour top balance, 25 amp draw to inverter low voltage cut off at 11 volts and then full charge, I never saw any balancing during charging.

Jaxonwood said:

Ok, so if the big picture is coming in now, Docan has the big advantage, if true, of being able to return defective shipments to Houston and Gobel, it would seem, is a one way trip, take it or... haggle/beg for some adjustment. Also, all other things the same, it is a $5 difference.

On the Docan site I was not able to get or see the $110 price for shipped from China units, is that an email to Jenny Wu to get that $110?
Also, does anybody feel confident or know that bad cells can be returned to their USA warehouse?

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Whether you have them shipped from Houston or China, you can work with Jenny Wu: jennywu896@gmail.com
or Amy Zheng: amy@docanpower.com who I believe are both based in China and both employees of Docan.
Yes, you get the Docan price for shipping from China by sending email to your sales person.
The price for shipping from Houston is on their website at http://www.powerwholesale.net/
Jenny and Amy can help you start an order either from Houston or shipped from China.

The primary Docan advantage is that this thread has a fair number of people reporting success when buying from Docan. (Also one or two reports of trouble, but that seems rare and it isn't always be clear where the fault lies.) There have been vendors where some people got good product, and then they started shipping obviously used or damaged items. Or vendors that always ship banged up used cells after claiming they are shipping new A+ cells. Another Docan advantage is that they have the Houston warehouse, shipments within the continental US typically arrive at your door within a week of the order. Ordering from Docan and having them ship to you from China is cheaper, but it takes a couple months for the cells to arrive, this is comparable with most other alibaba vendors as very few have a warehouse in the US. (I vaguely recall seeing one other that is copying Docan's strategy).
Gobel may prove to be a perfectly fine vendor. At least the price is not suspiciously low. They did good work for the community by making the QR decoder available. But I don't see any reports in a quick search of the entire diysolarforum where somebody bought from them, perhaps I wasn't thorough enough. You could be our test case, and save $5/cell in the process.
It is my understanding that a faulty cell shipped from China by Docan can be shipped back to Houston instead of China if you wish, but you should ask your sales person for confirmation before assuming that is true. There may well be plenty of haggling involved to return cells to Docan. I made a video of my unpacking process so I would have some vague proof that they arrived damaged, but I have had no issues with any of my Docan cells.

Edit: Docan is especially interesting if you are within driving distance of Houston. You can inspect your cells when you pick them up. Or at least stand outside in the Texas heat and picket the warehouse if they do send bad cells.

You can also use this site: https://www.docanpower.com/
I use the site to see what they have then I contact Amy to get the details on complete pricing and shipping.

I did try to look a Docan's website before I purchased, but didn't really find very helpful. In the U.S., the expectation is that you should be able to go to a website, see a product description and a price, figure out your shipping cost and place an order without human interaction.

When dealing with Chinese companies, even on web based commerce sites like Alibaba, they use the website kind of like brick and mortar stores use a guy standing outside of the store spinning a sign. The websites main purpose is to get you to contact them. Their web store information tends to be riddled with errors and contradictions, and is often not up-to-date. The only way to complete a transaction is to text chat with a live person online.

Also, they are often using translation software, or have limited english language skills, so don't use complex sentences and avoid compound sentences. Each sentence should have one subject, one verb, and one meaning or one question. It makes communication go much more smoothly. Of course all slang and regional terms, similes and metaphors, and any English specific idioms should be avoided.

An example of something I thought would be clear, but wasn't, occurred when Jenny contacted me to say the battery cells were being shipped. I replied "Thanks for the update". The word update was confusing, and she had to ask what I was trying to tell her. (I think she might have separated the words 'up' and 'date' which causes it to make no sense. I replied using the word 'information' instead of 'update' and then she understood.

Here's another thread about buying from Docan:

TLDR:
Mostly good experiences with Docan, sets them apart from almost any other vendor folks in this forum have tried.
Buying spendy A+ cells directly from EVE can be problematic, they weren't packed as well as from Docan (one report).
Can wire money to a Chinese bank avoiding alibaba and credit card fees, but zero protection so must trust your vendor.
There are Docan sales people other than Jenny and Amy that get a good reviews.
Docan prices and fee structure have changed a bit over the life of that thread, one person reported
that buying from Houston cost the same as having cells shipped from China, definitely not true now.
I don't really know about buying other than through Jenny and paying the alibaba and credit card fees,
am curious if anyone has a better way than what I posted in this thread on July 21.

Summary: I'm happy with my buy.

hankcurt said:

The word update was confusing,

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My guess is that Jenny thought you might want something about the order updated.
So she followed through to see if further action was expected
English is tricky.

I learned enough Mandarin Chinese to be sort of conversational some 30 years ago, it's now long gone.
Fully sympathize with with anyone doing high dollar business transactions in other than their mother tongue,
dealing with all kinds of people with all sorts of expectations. For example, assuring them they will get
their cells when the ship has been sitting off the port of LA for a month due to the epidemic.

18650batterystore
Same or better price
Us stock
Eve welded dual helicoiled terminals
Shipped in crates if you buy enough.
My experience was free shipping plus 5% off the web price for 48pcs.
No I haven't yet tested them, inverters not up and running.

This is the first page I come up with for Prismatic cells from18650batterystore. Sad Besides the limited variety they are all sold out.

Web reviews are admittedly not reliable, but a google for "review of 18650batterystore.com" doesn't look promising. Here is one of the more alarming hits: https://www.facebook.com/18650BatteryStore/reviews Note that most of the good reviews on that webpage are suspiciously short and generic. On the other hand, this 2 year old reddit page suggests they are legit with some happy customers of vaping batteries (also mentions some other US based battery vendors) As littleharbor2 has stated, they currently have zero stock of their two kinds of prisimatic lifepo4 cells. Current prices are higher than Docan shipping from Houston. On the plus side, sounds like Maitake received his 48 cells at a good price, and they look new.

18650 site showed zero stock when I ordered mine.
They had batteries but no packing. Larger orders they were shipping in crates.

Maitake said:

18650 site showed zero stock when I ordered mine.

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I took a look at some of the threads you have started in this forum. Impressive project, much more ambitious than my own! You have done plenty of homework on your vendors. Hope those 18650batterystore LF280K cells work out for you, I have yet to see bad reports about them. Let us know. Current pricing is very close to Docan from Houston once you count alibaba and credit card fees.

First batch of 16 LF280K cells was ordered through Jenny, had shipped from Houston, arrived in a about a week. Second batch was ordered through Jenny on July 21, arrived at the house via UPS on August 31. Jenny emailed me the UPS tracking number on July 29 even though UPS did not get the product off the boat till Aug 28 at which time UPS tracking flipped from "label printed" to showing the US city where the product was passing through.

This second batch looks good, all boxes and cells were in impeccable condition, all cell were within a couple mV of 3.203 volts. A QR code scan shows all cells were built on the second day of the month, which seems an astounding coincidence. All were built in March through June of 2022, except for one that claims to have been built on Sept 2 2022, which is a couple days after they arrived at my house. Best guess regarding the time warp is that the QR code printer on line 65 was set up incorrectly.

manufacturers product_types cell_types model_codes capacity production_date production_city factory_product_line factory_task_order number_of_cell_produced_that_day original_qr_content
EVE Power Cell LiFePO4 LF280K 280Ah 5/2/2022 Jingmen 84 62 8959 04QCB76846200JC250008959
EVE Power Cell LiFePO4 LF280K 280Ah 4/2/2022 Jingmen 84 61 8789 04QCB76846100JC240008789
EVE Power Cell LiFePO4 LF280K 280Ah 9/2/2022 Jingmen 83 65 540 04QCB76836500JC290000540
EVE Power Cell LiFePO4 LF280K 280Ah 5/2/2022 Jingmen 84 61 8886 04QCB76846100JC250008886
EVE Power Cell LiFePO4 LF280K 280Ah 4/2/2022 Jingmen 84 61 8153 04QCB76846100JC240008153
EVE Power Cell LiFePO4 LF280K 280Ah 5/2/2022 Jingmen 84 61 8413 04QCB76846100JC250008413
EVE Power Cell LiFePO4 LF280K 280Ah 3/2/2022 Jingmen 84 60 8233 04QCB76846000JC230008233
EVE Power Cell LiFePO4 LF280K 280Ah 4/2/2022 Jingmen 84 61 8718 04QCB76846100JC240008718
EVE Power Cell LiFePO4 LF280K 280Ah 5/2/2022 Jingmen 84 62 9136 04QCB76846200JC250009136
EVE Power Cell LiFePO4 LF280K 280Ah 6/2/2022 Jingmen 84 63 8087 04QCB76846300JC260008087
EVE Power Cell LiFePO4 LF280K 280Ah 6/2/2022 Jingmen 83 63 1697 04QCB76836300JC260001697
EVE Power Cell LiFePO4 LF280K 280Ah 4/2/2022 Jingmen 84 61 8594 04QCB76846100JC240008594
EVE Power Cell LiFePO4 LF280K 280Ah 5/2/2022 Jingmen 84 62 9082 04QCB76846200JC250009082
EVE Power Cell LiFePO4 LF280K 280Ah 5/2/2022 Jingmen 84 61 9772 04QCB76846100JC250009772
EVE Power Cell LiFePO4 LF280K 280Ah 3/2/2022 Jingmen 83 60 472 04QCB76836000JC230000472
EVE Power Cell LiFePO4 LF280K 280Ah 4/2/2022 Jingmen 84 61 8457 04QCB76846100JC240008457

Have yet to load up the WindowsPC application to change the JBD 7S-20S-200A BMS defaults, it still thinks I have a 200 Ah battery bank. Adjustments will wait till I have this second bank of 16 cells in service for the final 2p16s configuration. I believe the "Hardware Overcurrent Protection" of 100 Ah in the BMS firmware assumes the battery gets charged at a maximum of 0.5C (so takes 2 hours to fully recharge a depleted 200 Ah battery). And that when I change the 200 Ah setting in the BMS firmware to 2*280=560 Ah, the "Hardware Overcurrent Protection" setting will magically flip to 280 Amps (or perhaps as little as 200 Amps, the nameplate max for the BMS).

Edit: From hankcurt's reply:
"The dates that come out of the QR code reader are in the order of day/month/year. So all of your cells are from February. The portion of the alpha-numeric characters around the QR code that give the date are C29. C is the year, 2 is the month, and 9 is the day."
Yup. Was more obvious in my post of July 4, where we had day codes into the 20's on my first batch of 16. What happens when I post after my bedtime. So all of these were built between Feb 3 and Feb 9 of 2022.

There are no LF280K cells in stock at the Houston warehouse, though was told there are some on a boat headed that way. I suspect they have plenty in China. Prices don't seem to have changed since I started paying attention in March of 2022.

GRBreaks said:

That first buy of 16 LF280K cells plus the JBD 200A BMS from Houston have been working great.
I have now placed a buy of 16 additional LF280K cells plus 16 extra busbars to be shipped from China.
The following describes how my buy process went.
Should be the same for any customer in the continental US.
Prices haven't changed for nearly 6 months now.

Each cell comes with one busbar, I bought 16 additional busbars at $0.75 each in the second buy,
needed to connect all 32 cells in a 2p16s configuration of two rows.
The busbars are sized for a single row of cells, using those busbars on two rows of LF280K cells
leaves a one inch gap between the rows. The older version of the EVE 280AH cell has the terminals
placed differently, and would have no gap between rows.

Each cell shipped from Houston costs $149.00 and the JBD 200A BMS costs $145.00, shipping included.
The price for cells shipped from China is lower at $110.00, but shipping is not included in that price.
Whether you have them shipped from Houston or China, you can work with Jenny Wu: jennywu896@gmail.com
or Amy Zheng: amy@docanpower.com who I believe are both based in China and both employees of Docan.
You could buy through the Houston website at www.powerwholesale.net without a salesperson,
but the price is the same and you then don't have someone at Docan to answer questions and
advocate for your interests. I believe they can inspect cells that ship from China (but not Houston).

Alibaba charges a fee of 2.04% on these transactions whether shipping from Houston or China.
You could pay for the merchandise, any shipping fees, plus the Alibaba fee with a wire transfer.
Using a credit card is safer but incurs an extra 3.00% charge from Alibaba to cover credit card fees.
Buying direct from Alibaba with my Mastercard failed, so instead bought through a paypal account
and paid paypal with that same credit card, still just an extra 3.00% charge.


First buy of 16x EVE LF280K cells plus the JBD 200A BMS, ordered May 31 2022, shipped from Houston:
Total value of merchandise: 16*149.00 + 145.00 = $2529.00
Shipping from Houston via UPS: $0
Alibaba transaction fee: $51.60 (2.04% of $2529.00)
Additional fee for using a credit card: $77.16 (3.00% of $2529.00+51.60)
Total cost as billed to my credit card: 2529.00+51.60+77.16 = $2657.76

Second buy of 16x EVE LF280K cells plus 16 extra busbars, ordered on July 20, 2022, shipped from China:
Total value of merchandise: 16*110.00 + 16*0.75 = $1772.00
Shipping fee from China, arrives via UPS: $276.00
Alibaba transaction fee: $41.80 (2.04% of $1772.00+276.00)
Additional fee for using a credit card: $62.49 (3.00% of 1772.00+276.00+41.80)
Total cost as billed to my credit card: 1772.00+276.00+41.80+62.49 = $2152.29


Total cost of just the 16 EVE LF280K cells shipped from Houston on a credit card including fees
should be around 16*149*1.0204*1.03 = $2505.61
Total cost of just the 16 EVE LF280K cells shipped from China on a credit card including fees
should be around (16*110+276)*1.0204*1.03 = $2139.86
So buying from China saves 2505.61 - 2139.86 = $365.75 on 16 cells
but takes a month or two to arrive instead of a week or less from Houston.
Regardless whether you buy from China or Houston, report any problems to your
salesperson (Jenny or Amy), and any defective product is shipped to Houston.

Well, that's how I understood the transaction, let me know of any errors in the above.

Edit: I'm in the state of Oregon, which has no sales tax.

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From Amy I’m getting a price quote of $145 per cell not including shipping from China which is right at $300 for my order.. wonder why yours were so much cheaper from China. I see cells for around $110 each from China on Ali but they are not grade A.
Just realized I might be talking to the wrong Amy. Her name is Amy Wan (Luyoun). Is Amy Zheng a different Amy...? Apparently they are different people.. I just asked Amy Zheng for a quote

I have 3 16S banks in parallel, all from Houston through Jenny. Working great, no duds! Using 3x overkill solar 100A BMSs. Would buy again!

GRBreaks said:

All were built in March through June of 2022, except for one that claims to have been built on Sept 2 2022, which is a couple days after they arrived at my house. Best guess regarding the time warp is that the QR code printer on line 65 was set up incorrectly.

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The dates that come out of the QR code reader are in the order of day/month/year. So all of your cells are from February.

The portion of the alpha-numeric characters around the QR code that give the date are C29. C is the year, 2 is the month, and 9 is the day.

Cheap 4-life said:

Just realized I might be talking to the wrong Amy. Her name is Amy Wan

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Amy Zheng works for Docan.

hankcurt said:

The dates that come out of the QR code reader are in the order of day/month/year. So all of your cells are from February.

The portion of the alpha-numeric characters around the QR code that give the date are C29. C is the year, 2 is the month, and 9 is the day.

Click to expand...

Hank, thanks for the correction! Silly mistake.

GRBreaks said:

There are no LF280K cells in stock at the Houston warehouse, though was told there are some on a boat headed that way. I suspect they have plenty in China. Prices don't seem to have changed since I started paying attention in March of 2022.

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Yeah, now they show out of stock in China as well. I ordered with Jenny, a first shipment of 16 of the EVE 280 K's just before this change in availability. Wondering now if I have an allotted shipment on the way or an unexpected long wait.