2x 105Ah Epoch or 1x 200Ah PowerUrus & why

Help me decide... I need a new battery for a camper. These both seem like a good value to me. The extra $90 is not the primary consideration.

What vendors are you looking to use?

Choose the vendor you think would support you if there was a problem? Save the money and hope everything will turn out OK?

I have EPOCH purchased from the company in Georgia, USA.

Here is a blurb from the Georgia EPOCH website:

Our first company, 18650BatteryStore, was founded in 2013 with the goal of providing a reliable and trustworthy supply of 18650 lithium-ion cells to the North American market. After personally encountering difficulties sourcing genuine cells and encountering fake cells on various online platforms, we decided to take matters into our own hands. Through in-house testing and establishing manufacturer to distributor supply chains with full traceability, we were able to provide consumers with genuine cells and eliminate the potential dangers associated with fake cells. Today, we are proud to work with reputable companies such as NASA, Space X, Raytheon, and Lockheed Martin.

Building on the success of 18650BatteryStore, we founded Epoch Batteries in 2019. We recognized that the energy storage market was similarly plagued by bad actors, poorly crafted products, and misinformation. With the ease of access to third-party distribution warehouses, foreign companies can now operate in the USA with little accountability for the quality and safety of their products. Epoch Batteries was established to provide honest, high-quality lithium solutions across a range of energy storage applications, from marine batteries to golf carts and RV/Van energy storage. By leveraging our over a decade of experience in the lithium industry, we are able to offer truly exceptional products that we proudly stand behind.

I’m a big fan of redundancy if the system is critical, if you have grid power available and you can afford to have your system down until it’s repaired then one big battery and one large inverter is fine but if it’s your only source split it up

I debated this very issue if it’s the Epoch I’m thinking of.

Yes what Epoch company are you referring to?

If it’s the one in the plastic case marketed as a trolling battery, then both Epoch and Powerurus are made by the same company, Roypow. Roypow has a good reputation. Will Prowse did a tear down video of both of them:


I went with the Powerurus 200Ah, paid $730 total in May of this year. So it’s almost $100 less, that’sa good deal. Their customer service has been most excellent before and after the sale. They have answered every single one of my questions.

The Epoch wouldn’t have worked in my case because 2x105Ah in those plastic cases and the tabs on the bottom wouldn’t have fit in the space I have to put batteries. I like the idea of redundancy, but since this is for our camp trailer (we did use it for 3 months this summer), it’s no big deal if the battery dies, we can just do a warranty return or buy a new one and stay plugged in to the grid for the week or so it’ll take to arrive.

Tomthumb62 said:

I debated this very issue if it’s the Epoch I’m thinking of.

Yes what Epoch company are you referring to?

If it’s the one in the plastic case marketed as a trolling battery, then both Epoch and Powerurus are made by the same company, Roypow. Roypow has a good reputation. Will Prowse did a tear down video of both of them:

I went with the Powerurus 200Ah, paid $730 total in May of this year. So it’s almost $100 less, that’sa good deal. Their customer service has been most excellent before and after the sale. They have answered every single one of my questions.

The Epoch wouldn’t have worked in my case because 2x105Ah in those plastic cases and the tabs on the bottom wouldn’t have fit in the space I have to put batteries. I like the idea of redundancy, but since this is for our camp trailer (we did use it for 3 months this summer), it’s no big deal if the battery dies, we can just do a warranty return or buy a new one and stay plugged in to the grid for the week or so it’ll take to arrive.

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AFAIK, there is only one Epoch company in the battery business. They do carry a battery in a case like the one in Will's video and have them listed as their 100Ah battery, however the ones I am considering for purchase are in group 24 cases. What I am unsure of is if those cases are able to be opened in the event a BMS needs replaced. I know the PowerUrus cases were not. I believe that the cells and BMS are very similar between the two companies, and it is also my understanding that each of those 2 companies has a bluetooth app, and either bluetooth app will work with either battery.
As far as I can tell the only real main difference between them is the 11 year (prorated, 3 year replacement) warranty that Epoch offers vs the 5 year warranty offered by PowerUrus....well, that and I am confident in how Epoch is pronounced!!

thepartyhound said:

AFAIK, there is only one Epoch company in the battery business. They do carry a battery in a case like the one in Will's video and have them listed as their 100Ah battery, however the ones I am considering for purchase are in group 24 cases. What I am unsure of is if those cases are able to be opened in the event a BMS needs replaced. I know the PowerUrus cases were not. I believe that the cells and BMS are very similar between the two companies, and it is also my understanding that each of those 2 companies has a bluetooth app, and either bluetooth app will work with either battery.
As far as I can tell the only real main difference between them is the 11 year (prorated, 3 year replacement) warranty that Epoch offers vs the 5 year warranty offered by PowerUrus....well, that and I am confident in how Epoch is pronounced!!

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Lol, yeah PowerUrus, walk into a bar at midnight and give someone there a piece of paper with that written on it and ask them to pronounce it!

I'm not an expert on the warranties of either battery. What does "prorated, 3 year replacement" mean? Does that mean that after 3 years, they won't give a replacement but maybe simply a discount?

Yes, both the official app for the Powerurus called "Roypow fish" and the Epoch app called "Epoch Liion" will work with the Powerurus. I tend to like the Epoch one better, but the Roypow fish one will show remaining charge/discharge time in days/hours/minutes (though there is a bug where hours is labeled as days, lol) whereas the Epoch Liion app only shows in minutes. My brain doesn't compute what 1875 minutes looks like, lol.

As for the ability to open up the Epoch one and replace the BMS, that's a very nice feature to have. My use of the Powerurus is mostly to run a mid-size fridge. I also charge our phones and occasionally we run the laptops. So I do not expect to be stressing the BMS at all. And since Roypow makes this BMS themselves, I expect the failure rate to be pretty low. So I took the chance and saved some money by buying the Powerurus.

The other contender for me was the Aolithium. You might look at those too. The BMS can also be replaced. They had a really aggressive Black Friday sale, maybe they would extend to you if you asked (I have asked companies before when I missed a sale and they usually extend some kind of graciousness).

At the end of the day, I never buy on a "good warranty". Good warranties are rare. They are those in which you contact them and give them your evidence and they respond with "we will replace that". Those are so rare these days. Some companies are good to honor them and others will find any way to avoid honoring. So I buy everything with the mindset that it has a 90-day to 1-year warranty, regardless of the length of warranty they advertise. In that time frame, any real issues, such a manufacturing defects, should be apparent by then.

I'm happy with my 200Ah PowerUrus. The battery has performed very well and their customer service has been AWESOME, answering my two dozen questions usually within 24-48 hours. If it dies, I will probably replace it with a 280Ah or 304Ah DIY battery (if my wife will trust me enough to put that in our camp trailer, lol). Or if the news is correct (the USA just announced they will source all lithium for electric vehicles in US territory, which is causing China to drop their price on lithium), then an off-the-shelf might be as cheap as DIY for a small battery like this.

FYI the gray plastic cased battery on the left in the image of the video I posted my last comment IS the Epoch battery. Roypow at first was selling their batteries under their own name. So for some time you could find both the Epoch and Powerurus batteries being sold instead as Roypow brand batteries. Same batteries. It's quite the funny thing what these Chinese companies come up with for names for their batteries! Redodo, Enjoybot, TimeUSB, DJLBERMPW (yes that's a real battery name). If you search on Amazon, the top one listed is Power Queen, which I think is one of the better names out there and perhaps has led to their popularity (in addition to the good reports of warranty replacements here on this forum).

Tomthumb62 said:

I'm not an expert on the warranties of either battery. What does "prorated, 3 year replacement" mean? Does that mean that after 3 years, they won't give a replacement but maybe simply a discount?

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Yeah, that was what I took that to mean as well; the discount being the percentage of warranty period left. The only battery I have ever seen specifically listed as being a non-prorated warranty is Trophy battery.

Tomthumb62 said:

Or if the news is correct (the USA just announced they will source all lithium for electric vehicles in US territory, which is causing China to drop their price on lithium), then an off-the-shelf might be as cheap as DIY for a small battery like this.

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Out in I believe Winnemucca, Nevada. Will be interesting to see if the tree huggers allow the processing here in the US, too. Pretty nasty business, but its gotta be done and we really should do it here to sever independence on China.

Tomthumb62 said:

FYI the gray plastic cased battery on the left in the image of the video I posted my last comment IS the Epoch battery. Roypow at first was selling their batteries under their own name. So for some time you could find both the Epoch and Powerurus batteries being sold instead as Roypow brand batteries. Same batteries. It's quite the funny thing what these Chinese companies come up with for names for their batteries! Redodo, Enjoybot, TimeUSB, DJLBERMPW (yes that's a real battery name). If you search on Amazon, the top one listed is Power Queen, which I think is one of the better names out there and perhaps has led to their popularity (in addition to the good reports of warranty replacements here on this forum)

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FYI, those gray batteries you are referring to are not the only batteries available from Epoch and they are not the ones I'm looking at...FYI. 12V 105Ah Epoch Battery is the battery from Epoch I am looking at.

Seeing that neither of them appear to be user serviceable I would choose option 3 with a 7 year warranty.

thepartyhound said:

FYI, those gray batteries you are referring to are not the only batteries available from Epoch and they are not the ones I'm looking at...FYI. 12V 105Ah Epoch Battery is the battery from Epoch I am looking at.

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Oh, thanks for the link, Yeah those must be new. I don't know anything about them, though, but they're probably a good deal.

42OhmsPA said:

Seeing that neither of them appear to be user serviceable I would choose option 3 with a 7 year warranty.

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42OhmsPA said:

12V SOK | Current Connected​

12 Volt SOK batteries are durable and powerful, handling every challenge with ease! When you need the best, you need SOK Battery!

www.currentconnected.com

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Yeah, I would, too. The price on those SOK 100Ah ones are at least $100 less than when I was looking last spring.

42OhmsPA said:

Seeing that neither of them appear to be user serviceable I would choose option 3 with a 7 year warranty.

12V SOK | Current Connected

12 Volt SOK batteries are durable and powerful, handling every challenge with ease! When you need the best, you need SOK Battery!

www.currentconnected.com

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If you decide to go with SOK you should use the links here https://www.mobile-solarpower.com/lithium-batteries.html
@Will Prowse some of your SOK links are broken and the pricing could be updated.

I have looked at the SOK battery. I looked at it really hard. As silly and small as it may be, I'd really like to have internal heaters in the batteries. I know I could just use a heating pad, but I like the idea of everything being self contained. This will be in a truck camper that is primarly used in the cold winter months here in Montana. Besides, are the SOK batteries really THAT much better, and if so, what about them makes them worth the extra $200?

thepartyhound said:

I have looked at the SOK battery. I looked at it really hard. As silly and small as it may be, I'd really like to have internal heaters in the batteries. I know I could just use a heating pad, but I like the idea of everything being self contained. This will be in a truck camper that is primarly used in the cold winter months here in Montana. Besides, are the SOK batteries really THAT much better, and if so, what about them makes them worth the extra $200?

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If you insulate the battery well and will be heating the ambient space in your truck camper, then you probably don’t need to heat your battery, internally or externally.

Needing to heat a battery is I think pretty rare, especially if you insulate it well.

But I understand peace of mind and sometimes we spend money for no other reason than to satisfy that. And there’s no shame in that!

Tomthumb62 said:

If you insulate the battery well and will be heating the ambient space in your truck camper, then you probably don’t need to heat your battery, internally or externally.

Needing to heat a battery is I think pretty rare, especially if you insulate it well.

But I understand peace of mind and sometimes we spend money for no other reason than to satisfy that. And there’s no shame in that!

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Sure, the battery will be insulated and the camper will be heated...while I'm in it. However, for the 8-10 hrs I'm gone it will not be heated and at -30°F, things can get cold quick! Even in this extreme example it is unlikely that the core battery temp would drop below that magic number, but I'd just prefer to be ready for that.

thepartyhound said:

Sure, the battery will be insulated and the camper will be heated...while I'm in it. However, for the 8-10 hrs I'm gone it will not be heated and at -30°F, things can get cold quick! Even in this extreme example it is unlikely that the core battery temp would drop below that magic number, but I'd just prefer to be ready for that.

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Yeah -30F is cold. Get the heater!

*UPDATE*

I ended up deopping a few more bucks than I planned and got the SOK batteries from Current Connected. They are servicable and CC has a really great reputation for taking care of anything that may come up down the road.

Good buy. But wanted to go SOK for the replaceable BMS option, but at the time the price wasn’t competitive enough. It’s come down quite a bit since and so has Powerurus. This was May 2023, so it’s interesting how quickly the price has dropped since then.