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Ampere Time 200ah Lithium??? Any reviews?

Ive been using this battery for the last two weeks. Love it. Powers my 12v fridge, outlets, max air fan.

This is during install. Have it all build in and protected now.
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Wanted to pop in here and say thank you to everyone so far who have added their experiences, testing and pictures for both Ampere Time and CHINS, I've learned a lot. I'm currently intending to buy 2 or 3 300Ah Ampere Time batteries in the next month or so for my van build. I'll be charging them with 4 100 watt panels on the roof and the alternator via a Li-BIM isolator. I've also toyed with the idea of having an engineer friend put together something that will fire up a little honda generator automatically when the batteries go below 20% and there's not enough being pulled in from the panels (cloudy days in the PNW). Between all of that, should be able to power the full gamut of the build I'm going for.

Planning on running lights, fans, fridge, induction cooktop, blender, high power desktop (for video editing), electric water heater, oil filled radiant heater and, eventually, an air conditioner.

I'm hoping that Ampere Time eventually comes out with a separate BMS upgrade option where the low temp disconnect feature actually works consistently. It's not critical for me as the states where I will be mostly traveling in don't go below freezing for most of the year, but it'd still be nice to have that peace of mind. I may eventually follow what others have done with upgrading to a better BMS from another company.
 
Although not OP, I have been running this battery for 2 weeks. This battery along with a 3k inverter runs everything but the AC. Microwave is 1000 watts, Instant Pot is also 1000 watts. It does not mind the Instant Pot but I won’t be running the microwave for anything other than a quick warm up. Residential fridge pulls about 100 watts when running and it’s stays plugged in during the week while we are not there. Now the Keurig taxed it for about 120amps for a good 3 minutes while warming up the water and the BMS did not disconnect. The vacuum took it over 100 as well but i forgot to write the numbers down. I think its rated for 280amps for a couple seconds but i thought for sure it would kick off after that test. I’ll let someone way more knowledgeable on BMS to comment on good or bad.

The 100a is quite restrictive but not a deal breaker for me. $1169 shipped and it amazingly arrived in just a couple days about 70% charged. They were offering a 10% coupon on Amazon.

I’m in NW Ohio and the sun is quite low these days. I ran the heat all night this past weekend while up on Lake Erie. Along with a couple hours of TV, misc. lights and charging 2 iPhones, 2 watches and an iPad. Also the water pump and anything else we wanted. I wanted this test to be just like home and not worry about our usage.

Woke up and the Victron 100/50 said we ran through 78ah’s. There is 480w of solar up on the roof and with a nice sunny 60 degree day the battery was topped off by 1530. I have a portable 100w panel coming that I’m going to add as a supplemental ground mount to catch more of the morning sun. I think i saw a peak of 25amps going in the battery. At 0815 the charge controller showed parity between solar input and usage. So that puts it at about an average of 11-12ah recharge rate. Hopefully the addition of the portable 100 watts will shave off a bit more time.

So using less than 40% of the rated capacity i don’t think is too shabby. This battery replaced 420ah of 6v golf cart batteries. Close enough to an AH even trade and I’m almost done staring at the damn Victron Bluetooth app lol.

So if this thing keeps up this performance up I’ll buy another one in the spring and take that continuous power to 200amps.

And just a quick background. I am just a guy with some solar panels on his RV and a battery. I have no background in electrical engineering. I still google how to do the conversion calculations and all the other things required to pull this off.

Hope this finds itself useful to anyone interested in these batteries.
Thanks for the report. I am thinking and most likely will by buying the 24v 100ah ampere time battery from Amazon for $998 (thereabouts) after your report and what I've read on amazon's review. I was going to be the 24v 100ah battery from Big Batteries but they want $1600 and weighs 200 pounds. The ampere times battery only ways 47 pounds.

As an old man (76), I can lift 47 lb battery, but I can forget trying to lift the 200-pound battery from Big Batteries.
 
I emailed ampere time to request they consider adding low temp cutoff. Below is their reply. @Will Prowse mjght be interested to learn of what They plan to launch soon to do an update.

that said I’m not sure I agree with their product choices, in my climate would rather have low temp cutoff than warmers…i think

email reply:
“Thanks for your interest in our battery.
Our battery can be used well below 0C (can be normally discharged), but we don’t suggest charging the battery below 0C.
It is like most kinds of the battery in the market now:
Operating Temperature: Charge: 0°C--50°C; Discharge: -20°C--60°C.
Currently our battery can be charged at low temperature, but it is charged with a very small charging current. And we’ve used auto motive grade battery cells which have superior quality. Even if charging in low temperature environment, it will not damage the battery.
The BMS in our battery has low temperature cut-off protection function, but if we set this function on our battery, the battery can neither be charged nor discharged under 32F/0C. At the beginning, we had set up the low temperature cut-off function for our battery, but later many customers responded that they needed to be able to discharge it under 32F/0C. After careful research, our team has decided to block this function.
Many customers live in cold area, they are happy to use our battery, since it can be discharged very well, and their load can work under low temperature. If they need to charge the battery, they will take it inside the home (where the temperature above 0C).

For now, we are planing to lanuch 12V 100Ah and 12V 200Ah battery with self-heating function about 3 months later.
You can order our existing battery now, if you prefer our new battery models, you can pay price difference to replace your batteries for our self-heating version batteries after it is available about 3 months later.

Hope my answers could be of help to you.

Kind regards,
Nikki
From Ampere Time”
 
Thanks for sharing the reply from Ampere times. I have been running their 12 volts 100 ah better for about 6 weeks now and am very satisfied with it. However, I live in California, and in my area, 35 miles East of San Francisco, it doesn't get below freezing. But it does get very hot. In the summary, it can get up to 112 F. and more. So it's the high temp cut-off that is a concern for me.

A few weeks back, I had the battery in the sun, although shaded it the battery did reach 130 degrees and disconnected its self from the controller. Although I liked the location I had the battery in, I had to move it totally out of the sun and into a well-shaded area. Now the battery only gets on average 5 degrees higher than the shaded area. Two weeks ago, it was 105 outside and 90 in the shad. The battery only got up to 100 degrees. will below it high temp cut-off point.
 
"much cheaper" is usually a sign of shenanigans.

100A bms on a 12V is very restrictive.
I totally agree. With a 100a bms you have to really careful. When discharging to set up my aili gauge, I didn't do the math and fried the 100a BMS. Spend the $100 and get a 200a BMS! Thoughts?
 
Ampere Times battery has a BMS built-in so I don't understand why you would need an external one. Anyway, I haven't experienced any issue with my battery other than the one day when the battery outside temperature on the case reached over 130 F.
 
Thank you for posting this Product Manual.

From page 2:
View attachment 33815
I really liked my Ampere Time 200a battery, but when setting up my Aili gauge I over discharged the BMS and it never recovered. With a 100a BMS you have to do the math. Max 1000 watts? I have no idea what the max watt discharge rate is for a 100a? I returned my battery. They should be more clear what the max watt draw on a 100a BMS is! HELP!
 
I really liked my Ampere Time 200a battery, but when setting up my Aili gauge I over discharged the BMS and it never recovered. With a 100a BMS you have to do the math. Max 1000 watts? I have no idea what the max watt discharge rate is for a 100a? I returned my battery. They should be more clear what the max watt draw on a 100a BMS is! HELP!

The BMS should shutdown when too much current is drawn (or charged).

Amps x Volts = Watts

100 amps x 12 volts = 1200 watts.

A LiFePO4 battery at 12 volts is essentially dead. What you would normally see is around 13.4 volts. So 1340 watts, at most, but that would draw the battery down to almost 0% state of charge.

I have an 120 amp BMS on each of my 4s 280Ah LiFePO4 batteries, for a total of ~240 amps. That's plenty to run anything in my RV trailer.
 
Thanks for the info. I guess I was stupid. After watching Will's videos where he uses heat guns to draw down the charge, I thought, I can do that! Wrong. OK, 100a X (10v ~ 14v) = 100w ~ 1400w (max?). In hindsight, I'm thinking I should have drawn down the charge with (60% of the max?) = 600w to be safe? It would seem that maybe Ampere Time uses a cheap BMS? I used a 1500w heat gun and it killed the 100a BMS (would not recover).
 
This battery is rated to discharge at 100 amps. I discharge my Ampere Times 100a on the average 20 ampers for 3 hours every night between 6 pm and 9 pm when the Utility kicks in and then the utility charges the battery at 9 amps throughout the night.

BMF is working just fine. a couple of weeks ago, before I relocated the battery, it reached 130 F and disconnected itself from the controller. This battery at least for me is working as advertised.
 

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This battery is rated to discharge at 100 amps. I discharge my Ampere Times 100a on the average 20 ampers for 3 hours every night between 6 pm and 9 pm when the Utility kicks in and then the utility charges the battery at 9 amps throughout the night.

BMF is working just fine. a couple of weeks ago, before I relocated the battery, it reached 130 F and disconnected itself from the controller. This battery at least for me is working as advertised.

It sounds like he exceeded the 100 amp limit.
 
It sounds like he exceeded the 100 amp limit.
Right. And the BMS should disconnect the load... temporarily. It did disconnect the load... permanently. He said that it "never recovered". That is the problem.
 
My Ampere Times 100ah battery is doing its job. it has a great flat discharge curve and after 80ahs of discharge is still going strong. However, I have never discharged it greater than 40 amps so have never reached the high amperage cutoff point to turn off my 2424lv controller/inverter.

However, I did reach the 150 F degree cutoff point of the battery when the battery was setting in the hot California sun. To my surprise, even though the ambient outside temperature was only 85 degrees, the surface in the sun reached 155 degrees. - the battery is now in the shade and doesn't raise more than a degree above ambient temps now.

When the battery reached its temperature cutoff point, my controller shut off and within a couple of minutes when the battery cooled down a little, the controller automatically came back on. I of course shut the system down and relocated the battery. - My solar system is outside my house and in the shade.

The issue I have is that my controller always shuts totally off whenever my battery discharge goes over 35 amps, but auto restarts after 40 seconds. but if I don't cut some load in the house, it will shut off again or the Grid will take over and supply the power to the house.
 
I have never discharged it greater than 40 amps so have never reached the high amperage cutoff point to turn off my 2424lv controller/inverter.

...

The issue I have is that my controller always shuts totally off whenever my battery discharge goes over 35 amps, but auto restarts after 40 seconds. but if I don't cut some load in the house, it will shut off again or the Grid will take over and supply the power to the house.
Just to clarify, the BMS built into the battery is fine and not tripping. What is tripping is the 2424lv controller/inverter when you load it enough to draw 35A from the batteries? Sounds like it could be going into low voltage cutoff. If that is the case, you either have an excessive amount of resistance in line between the batteries and the 2424lv (too small gauge of wiring, poor connections, etc.) or the low voltage cutoff in the 2424lv is misconfigured. But this is off-topic and you should start a new topic if you would like help debugging.
 
Should work fine. Just charge all batteries to 100% before connecting them.
Could someone elaborate on this? I read that besides being the same SoC, and Ah, that they should be from the same manufacturer (including relabeled brands). Obviously CHINS and Battleborn are separate and have different battery cell structure and BMS.
 
I already contacted Ampere Time about warranty documentation. However, before I purchased the batteries, Ampere Time gave me the contact information for their California offices that deals with U.S. warranty issues. The offices are in Hawthorne and Compton, California. They deal with the customers having issues and send replacement batteries if needed. No word on who pays for returns.

The one battery that shut down for low temp charging is still dead showing 0 volts. I am going to reactivate the BMS tomorrow after climatizing with one of my 12V AGM batteries. I will update on how it goes.


Could you please share that contact information for their California offices? Please private message me if you don't want to post it openly. I have these batteries on a sailboat. Thank you
 
Could you please share that contact information for their California offices? Please private message me if you don't want to post it openly. I have these batteries on a sailboat. Thank you
I can't find it after a year. I will have to do some searching. If it is service related, just contact them at:

service@amperetime.com

They will send you the office address.
 
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