12v 100Ah LiFEPO4 BMS Temp settings

[Dking]

Hey everyone,
Recently bought a China Himassi smart/low temp 12v 100Ah battery. Was working fine until it got cold out (40°F) and now it won’t charge. Brought it inside (house is at 68°F) to help warm it up and out it on a charger. I have a proper LiFEPO4 charger and it says the battery is full. App states SOC is 6%, voltage says 12.7 and both temp sensors say 9°C (48.2°F)… multimeter and victron smart batterysense show 12.2v and 63°F
Are my parameter settings messed up, or is the BMS shot?
Any help would be greatly appreciated, as the company has not been helpful. They keep telling me to charge the battery to bring the temp up to allow it to charge (which I understand), but it seems physically impossible for me to have a battery sit at 48°F for 4 days in a room that’s almost 70, not to mention being on a charger that isn’t pushing amperage because it’s being told that it’s full.

Thanks in advance for your time!

 

[mikefitz]

Due to the low temperature the charge MOS fets are off, thus there is a volt drop a rose the BMS of 0.6 volts. So the voltmeter showing 12.27 relates to an internal series cell voltage of around 12.9 volts.

The charge path is not being switched on as the battery is not at a high enough temperature.

The BMS setting for low temperature recovery , CTCC is 20 deg C. This is unusually high, typical low temperature recovery value would be 4 or 5 deg C.
Can you change perameters in the BMS?

There are other protection values that are unusual and really need adjusting to accepted values, have you altered any protection values?

Mike

 

[Dking]

Due to the low temperature the charge MOS fets are off, thus there is a volt drop a rose the BMS of 0.6 volts. So the voltmeter showing 12.27 relates to an internal series cell voltage of around 12.9 volts.

The charge path is not being switched on as the battery is not at a high enough temperature.

The BMS setting for low temperature recovery , CTCC is 20 deg C. This is unusually high, typical low temperature recovery value would be 4 or 5 deg C.
Can you change perameters in the BMS?

There are other protection values that are unusual and really need adjusting to accepted values, have you altered any protection values?

Mike

Mike,

Thanks for the reply! I have not altered any of the settings or protection values, but do have the ability to do so. This is first time I’ve had the batt in colder weather. It performed fine all summer for what I use it for (low usage boon-docking in my truck). It just seems odd that the battery could possibly be colder than the room it sits in. I thought 4 days would be enough.

My understanding is that having the charger on will activate the heating elements until it gets up to 50°F (per the manual) at which point the C MOS will open and allow a charge. My charger won’t apply any current because it thinks it’s full.

Thanks again for the help!

 

[mikefitz]

The BMS low temp recovery is set to 20 deg C, it will not allow charge until this is reached. Change to something sensible like 5 deg C.

Other values could be changed with advantage, look in resources.

Note you have Victron battery sence and i guess a Victron controller, what is the low temperature charge Inhibit set at?

Mike

 

[Dking]

The BMS low temp recovery is set to 20 deg C, it will not allow charge until this is reached. Change to something sensible like 5 deg C.

Other values could be changed with advantage, look in resources.

Note you have Victron battery sence an i guess a Victron controller, what is the low temperature charge Inhibit set at?

Mike

Victron is set to 41°F, although I tried disabling it to see if it would make a difference, but nothing changed

 

[Snowboard1]

Hi There, Did you ever get this resolved? I am thinking of purchasing some of these batteries, low temp charging with internal is important for my setup and use. It looks identical to the Chins heated battery at a lower cost.

 

[jjchvl]

Victron is set to 41°F, although I tried disabling it to see if it would make a difference, but nothing changed

If your charger wont come on to power the battery heater without sensimg proper voltage, Id try connecting a charged battery to your "dead" battery along with the charger, all in parallel. That should wake up your BMS and get the heater gping.

 

[jjchvl]

PS: Itll also make your charger come on and work.

 

[jjchvl]

Hi There, Did you ever get this resolved? I am thinking of purchasing some of these batteries, low temp charging with internal is important for my setup and use. It looks identical to the Chins heated battery at a lower cost.

Personally, i think these Himassi batteries are worth a try, considering their very low cost atm. $500 for a 200aH heated, bluetooth LiPo battery that supposedly uses grade A prismatic cells?? Thats crazy cheap. I say "supposedly" grade A prismatic cells because ive yet to find an online video of a tear down and Ive been looking for one pretty hard. Anyway, if I needed LiPo batteries right now, Id probably give the Himassi's a shot. I just purchased four 200aH Weize LiPos though, after watching Wil Prowse tear one down on Youtube. Weize are well built batteries with a solid BMS that shuts down charging near freezing. But they cost $150 each more than the Himassi's, arent self heated, and havent got bluetooth. That Himassi can sell such feature rich batteries so cheaply does make one suspicious so be at least a little wary if you decide to purchase one. The reviews on that Amazing site we're all familiar with are kind of fishy as well. Theres like 89 of them and every one is a 5 star that goes on glowingly for multiple long paragraphs each. Maybe the batteries are just that good. Or maybe the reviews are planted. Who knows? Anyway, as far as the fella who started this thread and his problem goes, his app told him his battery was at 6% charge and that info comes directly from the batteries BMS. So no matter what other readings hes seeing elsewhere, the BMS of the battery considers the batteries voltage to be too low so shut the battery down. And without voltage backfeed from the battery to tell it what voltage is safe to charge the battery with, the guys fancy, 12/24/36v lithium battery charger wont know what to do so does nothing at all. Fixing this issue is usually as simple as connecting a fully charged battery of similar voltage(12-14) or a +/-13v power supply(think mundane lead acid battery charger) to the "dead" lithium battery along with(in parallel) the fancy lithium battery charger. This will give the fancy charger proper voltage to start it charging which, in turn-in the OPs case anyway-will provide power to the battery's heater, which will in turn, will bring the temp up, or at least now let it "see" that the temp is already up and viola! The battery will begin to charge. Sorry lol! Did any of that make sense? Anyway, these type of issues are very common in lithium batteries with a BMS-especially among folk new to owning lithium batts with BMSs. New to lithium folk arent often aware that LiPo batteries are usually stored and shipped at around 30 to 50 percent charge. Wrongly assuming the battery arrived fully charged, new to lithium folk hook the battery to a load within moments of receiving the battery. When the battery powers the load for less than half as long as they expected and then wont take a charge because the battery's state of charge dropped below 10% and its BMS shut the batt down, the newby lithium owner thinks the battery is defective and returns it. Id love to get my hands on all the lithium batteries that have been returned to that Amazing site we all know about. Im positive that 95% or more of those batteries are just fine!

 

[jjchvl]

Hey everyone,
Recently bought a China Himassi smart/low temp 12v 100Ah battery. Was working fine until it got cold out (40°F) and now it won’t charge. Brought it inside (house is at 68°F) to help warm it up and out it on a charger. I have a proper LiFEPO4 charger and it says the battery is full. App states SOC is 6%, voltage says 12.7 and both temp sensors say 9°C (48.2°F)… multimeter and victron smart batterysense show 12.2v and 63°F
Are my parameter settings messed up, or is the BMS shot?
Any help would be greatly appreciated, as the company has not been helpful. They keep telling me to charge the battery to bring the temp up to allow it to charge (which I understand), but it seems physically impossible for me to have a battery sit at 48°F for 4 days in a room that’s almost 70, not to mention being on a charger that isn’t pushing amperage because it’s being told that it’s full.

Thanks in advance for your time!

Yeah. After looking a bit closer at your readings, your problem seems to be that your battery's BMS shut the battery down after sensing that the battery's soc dropped too low. This is indicated by your app, which reads a 6% soc(the shut off point for most BMSs is usually around 10% soc), and by both your multimeter and victron readings of 12.2v. For LiPo batteries, 12.2v is equivalent to about a 10% soc. So i hope you can reset any adjustments made to your heater settings because your issue probly had almost nothing to do with the heaters. All you should need to do to get up and charging again is what i explained in my 1st reply in this thread. Simply hook up a charged battery along with your lithium battery charger to your "dead" lithium battery(both in parallel) and your charger will kick in and start charging the lithium battery. Once the charger starts charging, you can(should) remove the "jumper" battery. For the charged battery, u can use any type-lithium, agm, flooded, or even jumper cables from your car battery, or a mundane 12v battery charger-as long as the output of the source is somewhere between 12.8v and 14.4 volts. Let is know how things went!

 

[Snowboard1]

Personally, i think these Himassi batteries are worth a try, considering their very low cost atm. $500 for a 200aH heated, bluetooth LiPo battery that supposedly uses grade A prismatic cells?? Thats crazy cheap. I say "supposedly" grade A prismatic cells because ive yet to find an online video of a tear down and Ive been looking for one pretty hard. Anyway, if I needed LiPo batteries right now, Id probably give the Himassi's a shot. I just purchased four 200aH Weize LiPos though, after watching Wil Prowse tear one down on Youtube. Weize are well built batteries with a solid BMS that shuts down charging near freezing. But they cost $150 each more than the Himassi's, arent self heated, and havent got bluetooth. That Himassi can sell such feature rich batteries so cheaply does make one suspicious so be at least a little wary if you decide to purchase one. The reviews on that Amazing site we're all familiar with are kind of fishy as well. Theres like 89 of them and every one is a 5 star that goes on glowingly for multiple long paragraphs each. Maybe the batteries are just that good. Or maybe the reviews are planted. Who knows? Anyway, as far as the fella who started this thread and his problem goes, his app told him his battery was at 6% charge and that info comes directly from the batteries BMS. So no matter what other readings hes seeing elsewhere, the BMS of the battery considers the batteries voltage to be too low so shut the battery down. And without voltage backfeed from the battery to tell it what voltage is safe to charge the battery with, the guys fancy, 12/24/36v lithium battery charger wont know what to do so does nothing at all. Fixing this issue is usually as simple as connecting a fully charged battery of similar voltage(12-14) or a +/-13v power supply(think mundane lead acid battery charger) to the "dead" lithium battery along with(in parallel) the fancy lithium battery charger. This will give the fancy charger proper voltage to start it charging which, in turn-in the OPs case anyway-will provide power to the battery's heater, which will in turn, will bring the temp up, or at least now let it "see" that the temp is already up and viola! The battery will begin to charge. Sorry lol! Did any of that make sense? Anyway, these type of issues are very common in lithium batteries with a BMS-especially among folk new to owning lithium batts with BMSs. New to lithium folk arent often aware that LiPo batteries are usually stored and shipped at around 30 to 50 percent charge. Wrongly assuming the battery arrived fully charged, new to lithium folk hook the battery to a load within moments of receiving the battery. When the battery powers the load for less than half as long as they expected and then wont take a charge because the battery's state of charge dropped below 10% and its BMS shut the batt down, the newby lithium owner thinks the battery is defective and returns it. Id love to get my hands on all the lithium batteries that have been returned to that Amazing site we all know about. Im positive that 95% or more of those batteries are just fine!

Thank you! All good points! The Himassi is made by the same MFG as Chins ( Shenzhen Grenergy Technology Co., Ltd) Since Chins also has a heated battery with Bluetooth, I figured it might be worth trying. As you have stated, not one Tear down video though.

 

[jjchvl]

Thank you! All good points! The Himassi is made by the same MFG as Chins ( Shenzhen Grenergy Technology Co., Ltd) Since Chins also has a heated battery with Bluetooth, I figured it might be worth trying. As you have stated, not one Tear down video though.

Jeesh. Now that u say Himassi is made by Chin, it makes me want to try one(or two!) even more since Ive seen a lot of mention of Chin batteries in here. Id never heard of Himassi before i saw their listing on Amazon.

 

[jjchvl]

Thank you! All good points! The Himassi is made by the same MFG as Chins ( Shenzhen Grenergy Technology Co., Ltd) Since Chins also has a heated battery with Bluetooth, I figured it might be worth trying. As you have stated, not one Tear down video though.

Im not even close to being an expert in this stuff. How would one(or two) of the Himassi's do in parallel with my Weize's? I know we should strive to use the same battery brand as well as capacity when building a storage bank but dang! 200ah, heated, blue tooth and supposedly grade A prismatic cells from the same manufacturer as Chin for $499??

 

[Snowboard1]

Im not even close to being an expert in this stuff. How would one(or two) of the Himassi's do in parallel with my Weize's? I know we should strive to use the same battery brand as well as capacity when building a storage bank but dang! 200ah, heated, blue tooth and supposedly grade A prismatic cells from the same manufacturer as Chin for $499??

I don't think you can connect in parallel with nonheated batteries. for a very brief period, there were Heated Weize batteries on Amazon and ebay.

 

[jjchvl]

I don't think you can connect in parallel with nonheated batteries. for a very brief period, there were Heated Weize batteries on Amazon and ebay.

Did you mean that Weize use to sell heated batteries or batteries with low temp charging cut off? If you meant low temp charging cut off, Weize still sells those. Thats one of the reasons i went with Weize. I also like Weizes 10yr warranty and the fact that theyve been around long enough to suggest that they may still be around 10yrs from now. Will P's cut down vodeo of a Weize battery showing the battrry to be well made didnt hurt either. But saving $150 per 200ah, feature rich battery is incentive enough to be very curious about the Himassi's. I suspect your right that clashing BMSs might be an issue while trying to parallel a Himassi with a Weize. On the other hand, why would that be? Ok so it gets cold but the batteries need to charge up. Its not quite cold enough to initiate the Weize battery shut down, but enough to kick on.the Himassi heater. So the Weizes will begin charging immediately but the Himassi wont start charging until it hits 50 degrees in another minute or two. Would this cause any harm or imbalances? Seems like all the batteries involved would get charged up fine, just that the Himassi charge start would be delayed a bit. If it was cold enough to shut the Weizes down, then the Himassi wound heat uo and charge and the Weizes would remain uncharged. I guess thats the only potential issue that I can think of using common sense and my limitted understanding of lithium BMS tech. Anyway, just thinking out loud in the hopes that someone will come along and give me a better education on the topic. Id really, really like a good excuse to try one of those Himassi's for $499 lol

 

[Snowboard1]

Did you mean that Weize use to sell heated batteries or batteries with low temp charging cut off? If you meant low temp charging cut off, Weize still sells those. Thats one of the reasons i went with Weize. I also like Weizes 10yr warranty and the fact that theyve been around long enough to suggest that they may still be around 10yrs from now. Will P's cut down vodeo of a Weize battery showing the battrry to be well made didnt hurt either. But saving $150 per 200ah, feature rich battery is incentive enough to be very curious about the Himassi's. I suspect your right that clashing BMSs might be an issue while trying to parallel a Himassi with a Weize. On the other hand, why would that be? Ok so it gets cold but the batteries need to charge up. Its not quite cold enough to initiate the Weize battery shut down, but enough to kick on.the Himassi heater. So the Weizes will begin charging immediately but the Himassi wont start charging until it hits 50 degrees in another minute or two. Would this cause any harm or imbalances? Seems like all the batteries involved would get charged up fine, just that the Himassi charge start would be delayed a bit. If it was cold enough to shut the Weizes down, then the Himassi wound heat uo and charge and the Weizes would remain uncharged. I guess thats the only potential issue that I can think of using common sense and my limitted understanding of lithium BMS tech. Anyway, just thinking out loud in the hopes that someone will come along and give me a better education on the topic. Id really, really like a good excuse to try one of those Himassi's for $499 lol

It was will P's tear down of Weize that got this whole thing started for me! At the time a Weize Heated was $349 and unheated was $249 on Amazon. I purchased some of the other components I needed for my van and the heated batteries disappeared.... here is the ebay listing with the pic showing "auto thermal compensation". There are 0 available though....

Weize 12V 100Ah LiFePO4 Lithium Iron Phosphate Smart Battery with Self-Heating | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Weize 12V 100Ah LiFePO4 Lithium Iron Phosphate Smart Battery with Self-Heating at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!

www.ebay.com

As far as mixing heated and unheated, I remember of of the MFGs of heated said not to mix heated and unheated within their brand, not really sure why......

 

[jjchvl]

It was will P's tear down of Weize that got this whole thing started for me! At the time a Weize Heated was $349 and unheated was $249 on Amazon. I purchased some of the other components I needed for my van and the heated batteries disappeared.... here is the ebay listing with the pic showing "auto thermal compensation". There are 0 available though....

Weize 12V 100Ah LiFePO4 Lithium Iron Phosphate Smart Battery with Self-Heating | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Weize 12V 100Ah LiFePO4 Lithium Iron Phosphate Smart Battery with Self-Heating at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!

www.ebay.com

As far as mixing heated and unheated, I remember of of the MFGs of heated said not to mix heated and unheated within their brand, not really sure why......

Yes, about MFGs of heated batteries saying not to mixing heated and unheated: I actually wrote to Himassi through Amazon asking about paralleling one of their heated/BT batteries to my Weizes. They were quick to get back to me saying that they "do not suggest" i do that. Didnt give me a reason. If you ask about mixing any two different brands of batteries, even AGMs, most purists and battery companies will almost reflexively tell you not to. To stick with one brand and capacity and buy all the batteries you need within a couple of months of each other. Such folk say the same exact thing about solar panels-to stick with one brand and capacity, at least per array. But then Ive read other people online saying that such directives arent always realistic or even necessary. And to be honest, I didnt strictly adhere to the purist notions with either batteries or panels when i 1st started out. My 1st panels were four 200watt Kostas. I had planned on sticking with them only but then got a seriously stupid cheap price on four 100watt Weize panels. And then a deal on a brand new HQST 190watt for just $100. And then pretty much all the NewPowa 180watt panels I could afford for $135 each so Ive been buying those as I can afford them and am up to six now. In my early solar days, I kept both my panels and storage at 12v and, to an extent, mix-matched both panels and batteries. With the panels, I did my best to ensure that those in any particular array had similar working voltages since thats the critical consideration when connecting panels in parallel. I also figured that Id absorb far more juice by including a panel with a volt or two off from the others in the array than Id lose by not including it. When i converted to 24v solar and started connecting panels in series, I really couldnt mix-match anymore. Now each of my arrays are made up of a single brand and wattage rating of panels. So I have an array of all Kosta 200w, and an array of all Newpowa 180w and so on. My only oddball is that HQST 190 but Im shopping for a mate for that now. Ok so anyway, back to batteries lol! Sorry. This is way too long! Ive never mix-match battery "types", just capacities and name brands. My old, AGM storage bank consisted of two, 200ah Renoges, three 100ah Weizes and one 100ah Max(or something like that?). All in parallel, of course. I still have that same set up as backup storage and its still working very well for me. The fact that I did all that mixing-matching in my early solar days and nothing bad ever happened makes me wonder if the purists and battery MFGs are just being way over cautious when they advise not to mix brands of lifepo4's? But since Lifepo's are such new teck(to me) and so freakin expensive, Im very hesitant to take any kind of risk at all with mine unless I can be fairly certain that what Id like to try isnt really a risk. Another thing Ill point out too is something that I read somewhere else in this forum. One good reason that advising against mix-matching brands of lifepo4 isnt realistic is because half(or more?) of the Chinese companies selling lifepo's right now will no longer exist in a few years. As the batteries from those short lived companies fail, they will have to be replaced by other brands. So whoever ends up in that unenviable position will have no choice but to mix-match batteries. Well, at least mix brands of batteries. They should still be able to stick to the same specs like ah capacity. So thats my book in a nutshell. Hopefully i didnt put anyone to sleep. After all that, the bottom line is Im waiting for someone to tell me its ok to buy a Himassi lol

 

[Snowboard1]

I am also looking for some to say it is okay to buy Himassi! I have 2 HQST 100-watt panels on my van with 2 lifeline 6v batteries in series.
I understand what you mean about purist and mixing in the past. However it does seem like Lifepo's might be more vulnerable to issues since they have a BMS. Just seems like there is a lot more going on in a Lifepo compared to AGMs.

 

[jjchvl]

It was will P's tear down of Weize that got this whole thing started for me! At the time a Weize Heated was $349 and unheated was $249 on Amazon. I purchased some of the other components I needed for my van and the heated batteries disappeared.... here is the ebay listing with the pic showing "auto thermal compensation". There are 0 available though....

Weize 12V 100Ah LiFePO4 Lithium Iron Phosphate Smart Battery with Self-Heating | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Weize 12V 100Ah LiFePO4 Lithium Iron Phosphate Smart Battery with Self-Heating at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!

www.ebay.com

As far as mixing heated and unheated, I remember of of the MFGs of heated said not to mix heated and unheated within their brand, not really sure why......

As I learn more about Lithium battery tech, Im beginning to understand why some folk prefer to build their storage banks using individual lithium cells instead of pre-built batteries. Its a lot easier to know whats going on with your storage system if you can look at it cell by cell. Also, its got to be way easier and cheaper to fix since you'd usually just be looking for and replacing a single bad cell as opposed to an entire battery. If I could send a note back in time, Id tell myself to forget about buying pre-built batteries and build my storage system from individual lithium cells. So many options for BMS's out there too and if I wanted Wifi or bluetooth connections, I could do that as well, and easily remove it if I didnt want it anymore.

 

[jjchvl]

I am also looking for some to say it is okay to buy Himassi! I have 2 HQST 100-watt panels on my van with 2 lifeline 6v batteries in series.
I understand what you mean about purist and mixing in the past. However it does seem like Lifepo's might be more vulnerable to issues since they have a BMS. Just seems like there is a lot more going on in a Lifepo compared to AGMs.

Yeah, exactly. I guess you said in a few words what I took a book to say haha!