AOLithium (48V) Buyer Feedback

Comblay · Dec 17, 2023

Ordered 4 at a hair under $6000 CDN delivered ($4500 US) on Nov 1, and got notice of shipping on Nov 25 with 2 tracking numbers from Ontario to Quebec City. The cables were shipped on their own, that was first tracking number, and arrived a few days later FedEx. Second number tracking number was nowhere to be found online.

Because I could not find the tracking, and I must say without contacting Aolithium, on december 9th I posted a 1 star review after receiving an email asking feedback on my experience on judge.me . To my surprise Aolithium service emailed overnight stating that the order was shipped and if I could revise my one star when I receive the shipment...

During the next few days I emailed them and always got an overnight answer back, they were trying to trace but according to them, that the carrier's site was down for tracking. Aolithium supplied the transporters 800 number, mentionning that the best was for me to phone the carrier. As I was on the phone with the carrier rep that could not find anything in their system, their own truck arrived at the dock...guh...

Examining the bill of ladding, batteries were shipped on Dec 7th, not on the 25 th... Pallet was well packed with no damage...I used the correct Waybill number and found the shipment online immediatly...So all this because the person entering the numbers sadly did not enter the correct WayBill reference..

At least there is a pair of eyes that looks at the reviews, and answers emails...Reviewed to a 4 star because someone answered the emails, lost one star beceuse of the wrong number, and misleading ship date...Will install in cabin up north in May, will post impression then... if they work as advertized, this is quite a bargain.

Kremer · Dec 17, 2023

Comblay said:
Will install in cabin up north in May, will post impression then... if they work as advertized, this is quite a bargain.

Get them on a charge now, if they are like my two they might take until then to top balance.

Detritalgeo · Dec 17, 2023

Comblay said:
Ordered 4 at a hair under $6000 CDN delivered ($4500 US) on Nov 1, and got notice of shipping on Nov 25 with 2 tracking numbers from Ontario to Quebec City. The cables were shipped on their own, that was first tracking number, and arrived a few days later FedEx. Second number tracking number was nowhere to be found online.

Because I could not find the tracking, and I must say without contacting Aolithium, on december 9th I posted a 1 star review after receiving an email asking feedback on my experience on judge.me . To my surprise Aolithium service emailed overnight stating that the order was shipped and if I could revise my one star when I receive the shipment...

During the next few days I emailed them and always got an overnight answer back, they were trying to trace but according to them, that the carrier's site was down for tracking. Aolithium supplied the transporters 800 number, mentionning that the best was for me to phone the carrier. As I was on the phone with the carrier rep that could not find anything in their system, their own truck arrived at the dock...guh...

Examining the bill of ladding, batteries were shipped on Dec 7th, not on the 25 th... Pallet was well packed with no damage...I used the correct Waybill number and found the shipment online immediatly...So all this because the person entering the numbers sadly did not enter the correct WayBill reference..

At least there is a pair of eyes that looks at the reviews, and answers emails...Reviewed to a 4 star because someone answered the emails, lost one star beceuse of the wrong number, and misleading ship date...Will install in cabin up north in May, will post impression then... if they work as advertized, this is quite a bargain.

Good to hear they arrived. I suspect the have a logistics partner that runs the Toronto warehouse and finds the cheapest LTL freight route depending on delivery location.. The logistics people must not relay the correct info back to AOLithium for updating the web orders.

Yes likely good idea to check the cell voltages for deviation. I have to get a 48V charger or a Chargeverter soon myself to manage the new pack. The solar setup is not suited to the dismal december solar potential.

Kremer · Dec 17, 2023

Detritalgeo said:
Yes likely good idea to check the cell voltages for deviation. I have to get a 48V charger or a Chargeverter soon myself to manage the new pack. The solar setup is not suited to the dismal december solar potential.

60V/5A lab power supply works great for maintenance use.

Kremer · Dec 18, 2023

Kremer said:
I have, sent them photos of the indicated imbalances a couple days ago.

AOlithium replied overnight with this:

The voltage difference during the charging and discharging process of lithium batteries is small.
However, at the end of charging and discharging, the voltage difference between 0-10 and 90-100soc will become larger.
Based on the battery cell characteristics and industry project experience,
we formulated The company's standard is charging terminal,
10A current charging to 3.65V, voltage difference <350mv.
100A discharges to 2.5V, voltage difference is 450mv. Within this standard, capacity and consistency can be guaranteed

This morning, 10 days into trying to get them into balance I'm up to 56.5V. Which is holding the two high cells at ~3.620V and my two low cells are currently at 3.357V and coming up a couple mV per day. Most of the rest have gotten to 3.5xxV.

Detritalgeo · Dec 18, 2023

Had 2 units delivered today. Order was processed on the 25th and looks like freight logistics got it moving in early December. Nothing wrong with shipping times but seems AOLithium customer support does not have access to the waybill records of shipments out of the Canadian warehouse agent. Tracking is possible but didn't get the number from AOLithium.

The packaging is wild, plywood crate on a pallet with metal corner reinforcement. Battery is switched by chunky foam blocks and a huge bag of silica dessicant.Very solid.. The cables were in a box on top and flattened but no damage. Turned one pack on and it's at 30 SOC and all cells are within 2 mV or so.

Overall looks great but time will tell.

Kremer · Dec 19, 2023

Detritalgeo said:
Turned one pack on and it's at 30 SOC and all cells are within 2 mV or so.

Yes, at low-mid charge levels they are all about the same voltage, the flat part of the SOC/Voltage graph. You need to charge them up to see how matched they are.

Detritalgeo · Dec 21, 2023

I have one unit attached to a buss bar with 4 other Ruixu packs. The Ruixu stack has communications to the 6548 and wants to charge to 56V.

The AOLithium says to charge to 57.6 but I noticed it stopped charging at 56V while the Ruixu's are still taking in about an amp.. It seems that the AOLithium BMS has a fairly high charge current cut off as the cells in the AOLithium fell back to 3.45-3.51V when charging was stopped.

Kremer · Dec 21, 2023

Detritalgeo said:
I have one unit attached to a buss bar with 4 other Ruixu packs. The Ruixu stack has communications to the 6548 and wants to charge to 56V.

The AOLithium says to charge to 57.6 but I noticed it stopped charging at 56V while the Ruixu's are still taking in about an amp.. It seems that the AOLithium BMS has a fairly high charge current cut off as the cells in the AOLithium fell back to 3.45-3.51V when charging was stopped.

I finally have one of my two balanced as of this morning. I noticed that it goes into overvoltage alarm at 56.0V, I did not check to see if it disabled charge at that. So I'm balancing them at 59.95. Yours could also be kicking out on single cell overvolt unless they are well balanced.

Kremer · Dec 26, 2023

Kremer said:
I finally have one of my two balanced as of this morning. I noticed that it goes into overvoltage alarm at 56.0V, I did not check to see if it disabled charge at that. So I'm balancing them at 59.95. Yours could also be kicking out on single cell overvolt unless they are well balanced.

I just increased the voltage to 57.5. It goes into alarm but does not disable charge.

Kremer · Dec 27, 2023

Kremer said:
I just increased the voltage to 57.5. It goes into alarm but does not disable charge.

I spoke too soon. Looks like there is a time delay, maybe a few minutes. The BMS disconnects at 57.0V and above.

This morning my second battery is finally top balanced, it took three weeks! Looks like the BMS will balance to 20mV. Now to discharge it a bit so I can re-add it to the stack.

Detritalgeo · Jan 3, 2024

I just noticed on the Canadian storefront they have the server rack pack covered by a 4-year warranty... I could swear this was the full 8 years when I ordered back in November.
The policy now shows 4-years for the server rack units but 8 years for their 12V packs..
Looking on the way-back-machine it was definitely stated at 8 years...

The packs from aolithium.com show 4 years plus a "complimentary 4 year extension"

Dmac432 · Jan 10, 2024

I recieved mine back in December. I was also able to get it to communicate with a mapleleaf power 6500. Seems to be working pretty good

Detritalgeo · Jan 11, 2024

Dmac432 said:
I recieved mine back in December. I was also able to get it to communicate with a mapleleaf power 6500. Seems to be working pretty good

Good to hear,

Can you share what settings you used on the inverter and the battery DIP switches to get it working?

Also, do you have 1 pack for now or multiple in parallel?

Dmac432 · Jan 11, 2024

Detritalgeo said:
Good to hear,

Can you share what settings you used on the inverter and the battery DIP switches to get it working?

Also, do you have 1 pack for now or multiple in parallel?

Dip 1 is up the rest are down, inverter is set to Lib. Using this: https://solarpowerstore.ca/products...ront&context=order_management&user_id=9938197

I only have one pack, so I'm not sure if it would work when adding multiples.

noobie · Jan 16, 2024

So I'm a bit of a goof and I managed to run my packs down to 0% SOC(LVD).

As a reminder I have 1xSOK 100Ah 48v and 2xAOLithium 100Ah 48v batteries in parallel.

I have a Victron shunt in line on the main negative where all current running in and out of all 3 batteries will pass through the shunt.

I noticed last night the voltage was around 50.4-50.6v, but the Victron shunt showed about 63% SOC or so.

One AOLithium said 93% SOC and the other one said 94% SOC. Obviously wrong, however the SOK showed 86%, so it was wrong as well.

So all of these shunts were way off with the actual SOC of the batteries with a constant but low power draw.

My system has a pretty constant ~35W power draw as it's main usage in the winter is just to run internet equipment and sort of act as a backup power system.

The solar setup stinks in the winter as it only produces ~1.2KWh at best, but would produce probably 10KWh+ in the summer.
Shading in the winter is the main issue as my back yard is on the north side of the house, and it's small. So the house shades it 90% of the time.

The BMS on the SOK and one of the AOLithiums has turned off.

The sun is coming up but I have to clean snow off the panels again soon.

Crossing my fingers that the AOLithiums will reactivate once some charge current starts flowing!

I ordered a cheapish 48v(8A) charger to have on hand so I don't do this by accident again but that won't be here until tomorrow.
It won't charge quickly but at least I can use it to keep things up if I don't pay enough attention to the pack voltages.

Brucey · Jan 16, 2024

This seems to be a common problem where a very low load is below the threshold of the BMS/shunts or at the very least not capturing it accurately. With 15 kWh on tap can you put more load on the system to make it see that and charge appropriately?

noobie · Jan 16, 2024

Yeah I know there is some sort of threshold to try and ignore what it thinks could be nuisance readings or whatever.
I also have the power vent for my hot water heater plugged in, and was using the packs for laundry as I had finally gotten the battery packs up to 99% for a bit.

Doing the laundry I think is what mainly got the Victron to calculate the lower capacity remaining, although it does pick up the current fine when the power vent is running as well, and it does show power flow even with just ~35W going through it. The battery packs' SOC did drop down from 99% with those loads but came back up after that was done.

But after that, the packs were drawn down lower by the small loads, and I think still, the remaining SOC was not accurately detected by any shunts that I have in use.

I plan on using it more in the summer for more larger loads, it's just that the winter charging by solar is so bad due to where I have to put the panels, that I can't run much on it without it depleting to 0.

It seems generally ok to run my 35W all winter long as the charging from solar roughly(with a bit more left over) covers the draw.

I guess the lesson learned is don't rely on the shunts 100%, even an external Victron shunt, when the load is small.

noobie · Jan 16, 2024

Update: All BMSs have come back on line. All cells seem to be in the approximate voltage range of 2.874-2.884 or so. Didn't record every one but they are all around there give or take.

Detritalgeo · Jan 16, 2024

Yeah this seems common, My Ruixu stack went into LV state (48V for this BMS) when the SOC stated 93%.. They are in a backyard shed that I am working on slowly so only a few hundred watts of LED's and charging tool batteries each evening..

Have to keep a watch on them, especially in season of low PV potential.

noobie · Jan 16, 2024

Yeah it seems like I can't rely on the Victron shunt like I thought. I have the Current Threshold set to 0.1A, and at night it shows around 0.75-0.8A discharging with the constant load on so it does register it. But it still managed to miss out on counting some of the capacity some how.

But the good thing is, the AOLithium batteries didn't self destruct with the discharge to 0 like what happened to Will. Perhaps if it was left like that for a while, it may have, but just for the 4-5 hours or so, it wasn't an issue.

edharveybc · Jan 29, 2024

Small update, my 4 units have been working flawlessly since Dec 20 and have gone through many generator (180A charge) and solar (80A charge) cycles. Communication with my Schneider system was very simple, using Canbus. All the data from the BMS (combined data for all units) makes it into the Schneider Insight controls and works with generator self-start and other triggers / workflows. When they are back in stock in Feb, I will probably order 4 more since I'm adding another 10-15kW to solar.

The SOC meters have started to equalize, but are still a few points off depending on how long it has been since a full charge was received. There have only been 2-3 full charges since December due to low solar.

They are installed inside an R12 insulated box with 20W seedling heating mats underneath them that activate based on temperature feedback. Outdoor temperature has gone down to -35C and the cabinet never got below 15C. I'm using long leads from each battery to a 500A busbar.

Detritalgeo · Mar 6, 2024

Another owner video:..

Detritalgeo · Mar 15, 2024

Saw a few people comparing cables and connectors between AOLithium and Ruixu. I have a few photos below of both.

Cables:
- Ruixu.................... 4AWG, 1000V and 125C rated............................. ~100A max continous
- AOLithium......... 3AWG (25 mm2), 1500V and 125C rated....... ~125A max continuous

Connectors:
- Ruixu --------------- CNNT ES08-P
- AOLithium---------- Futronics FSP800

The AOLithium cables and connectors feel more robust overall. The only thing I don't like is the indention's or 'positive stops' that make the cable want to sit at 45 degrees. You can see the key notches in the photos.

As long as you have a buss bar setup the AOLithium cables should handle the load just fine. If you have a small inverter the parallel setup will never max out the current limits but watch out for current sharing issues.