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Anyone purchased these Ultra Cheap 12v 100ah LiitoKala Battery?

palhadef

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Fowler, CO
I just found this ultra cheap LiitoKala Battery on aliexpress and was wondering if any one has purchased one?
At $250 it is cheaper than buying the parts and building one so my guess is that it is grade B cells with nowhere near the rated capacity.
Just wondering if anyone has any experience with this battery.

 
Given the poor reports for the cells on this forum I can't imagine them putting something together and selling it at a low price being somehow a better option. $250 + shipping and it's not much less than some of the batteries for sale in the US now that are better regarded.
 
I didn't see that anywhere but I don't live in the US. When I changed the shipping to the US I saw this

ship.jpeg
 
Oh, what the heck, just ordered it anyways. I wouldn't be able to sleep tonight if I didn't ? I can't wait to see what is inside!

I will also do a capacity test and max load. I would rather get ripped off first and report on it than to have my viewers or anyone on the forum get burned. Should be interesting at this price.

If it is good, I can give viewers further warning about this company and their record. Should be a win win.
FireShot Capture 1232 - Please Confirm Your Order - AliExpress - shoppingcart.aliexpress.com.png
 
Oh, what the heck, just ordered it anyways. I wouldn't be able to sleep tonight if I didn't ? I can't wait to see what is inside!

I will also do a capacity test and max load. I would rather get ripped off first and report on it than to have my viewers or anyone on the forum get burned. Should be interesting at this price.

If it is good, I can give viewers further warning about this company and their record. Should be a win win.
View attachment 51546
Excellent! Very curious to see what you find inside it.
 
I bought 8 cells from them and one was significantly below rated capacity, several others swollen...so good luck hehe
they get the big thumbs down from me :(
 
Oh, what the heck, just ordered it anyways. I wouldn't be able to sleep tonight if I didn't ? I can't wait to see what is inside!

I will also do a capacity test and max load. I would rather get ripped off first and report on it than to have my viewers or anyone on the forum get burned. Should be interesting at this price.

If it is good, I can give viewers further warning about this company and their record. Should be a win win.
View attachment 51546
I received my two 120ah from them, charged them up with 13.6v converter. Tested capacity with a shunt with a few amps draw. For two 120ah, I only get 208ah in total.

Maybe inner cells need balance or I didn't use a 14.6V charger to charge them up.

But for the price, it is not too bad for me.
 
So I ordered the 120ah one for £185 posted to the UK. Took 3 weeks to arrive, was well packaged. Out of the box it measured 12.8v so 3.2v per cell.

So far I have charged using an IMAX b6 charger at 5a and it finishes at 13.4v. If I connect to my bench power supply with a current limit of 6a and voltage set to 14.6v it goes upto 14.41v and then seemingly sits there for hours at 6a with no increase in voltage or heat. It's been off the charger now for an hour and is at 13.4v.

I'm unsure whether it's safe to leave it charging at 14.6v at 6a until it does something?

I'm waiting for a 185w capacity tester to arrive.
 
I have to say though my early thoughts are this battery is too small to be 100ah. I've just realised my IMAX b6 does discharge test so will try that.
 
So I decided to discharge the batteru fully from 13.2v and got 38ah. Its since been on charge lapping up a steady 9.78a for about 8 hours and is currently at 13.9v. Don't want to leave it charging unattended so will carry on tomorrow. BMS seems to cut off at 10v

Sadly I don't have a bigger charger than my 10a bench psu. Probably for the best on an unknown quality battery.
 
I just found this ultra cheap LiitoKala Battery on aliexpress and was wondering if any one has purchased one?
At $250 it is cheaper than buying the parts and building one so my guess is that it is grade B cells with nowhere near the rated capacity.
Just wondering if anyone has any experience with this battery.

Aliexpress is a good website for buy and purchase of batteries but haven't purchased any yet. Let me know your experience as well.
 
Ok so here is my findings for my battery. Be gentle, I'm sorta new to all this.

Battery: 12v 120ah 4S1P LifePO4 Liitokala from Littokala Official Store on Aliexpress.
Size and weight: 230*138*210mm and 11kg (size is accurate, unsure on weight atm)
Cost: £185 delivered to the UK. Delivery took about 3 weeks to London.
Capacity tester: 185w Constant Current Electronic load (exposed board with the fan and heatsink on with the large screen) connected to a 12v 3a supply.
Multimeters: Fluke 17B, Aneng AN113D
Bench PSU: Wamptek 30v/10a
Room temp: 20.4-21.6 degrees celsius at 76% rh

Advertised Specs
Nominal voltage: 12.8V
Nominal capacity: 100Ah
Maximum charging current: 50A
Instantaneous discharge current: 200A
Continuous discharge current: 100A
Life: 3000 cycles or more
Charging temperature: 0~45°C
Discharge temperature: -20~60°C
Storage temperature: -20~65 °C
Operating voltage range: 10.0 V-14.6 V
Overload protection voltage: 14.6 V 0.05 V
Protection voltage against overload: 10.0 V 0.05 V
Protect battery temperature: 60°C plusmn 5°C
Battery warranty: 12 months (parts and technical support are provided free of charge, customers should bear appropriate logistics costs)

My experience
Battery was fully charged using a bench power supply to 14.60v. After an hour it stabilised to 13.6v, I left it for a week while I waited for my capacity tester to arrive. Once the meter had arrived, I metered the battery again and it was still sitting at 13.6v so no loss. I connected it back to the bench power supply but it cutout within seconds, so it was fully charged. I connected the battery via 60cm 8awg cables with crimps on both ends. The leads measured 0.01v loss across their length but I reckon this may have been rounding up. I checked that the capacity tester was reading voltage and current draw correct compared to the Fluke using my bench power supply as source and it was on point. I set the low voltage cut off to 9v as I wanted to see if the bms in the battery would cut off reliably at 10v for 4s (it did).

Anyways, battery connected and load set to 0.12c ish aka 14 amps (any higher and the tester would turn off due to 185w limit). The resistance reading on the capacity tester was 0.91 ohms but I'm unsure if this was the resistance of the battery or the heating element it uses as a load.

30ah was reached at 12.8v
60ah was reached at 12.7v
100ah was reached at 11.6v
103.69ah was reached between 11.3v and 10.6v.

The capacity tester stopped at 103.69ah (1309.71Wh) as the bms killed the output. Upon disconnecting the load the battery was immediately metered using the fluke multimeter at 10.6v at the terminals and over the course of about a minute recovered to 11.3v. I re-engaged the load of 15a and it cut off again after a few seconds. My guess is that at the end stages the 15a load may have been causing battery sag or something, and if I had lowered the load to say 5 amps or less I may have been able to eke out the last 15ah of advertised capacity but my gut feeling is maybe more likely 110ah. I kept an eye on battery temperature and it never got above ambient.

My thoughts
I'm happy with my purchase, but I will get in touch with the seller for a partial refund to match the 100ah price (£10 cheaper), but I would be clutching at straws tbh. I was only expecting around 50ah if I'm honest, and in my mind I would have been happy as that's essentially the price I paid for it, so I am really pleased to reach over 100ah, even if it wasn't quite the 120ah advertised. I only tested to a 15 amp load but the specs claim a 100a BMS however I am unable to verify this. Sadly I don't currently have the means to measure beyond that as I can't find my clamp meter :LOL:. As this will be going into a mobile sound system I don't imagine needing to draw more than 15-20 amp anyway and for that purpose it's perfect, especially as it'll be a dynamic load with a big crest factor. So yeah 100ah in a compact size for £180 posted, I count that as a win for my case, I wouldn't suggest building this into any kind of array. I expect someone more knowledgeable (hello Will) will probably come along and say these are used/b grade cells as their max voltage was 13.6v so therefore 3.4v per cell, as my understanding is that brand new grade A cells should be 3.65 fully charged? Also interesting point, the specs claim max charging current of 0.5c so 60 amps and yet when I had a current limit of 10a on my psu, the battery sat at a steady 9.72amps until 14.60v and then gradually trailed off to zero. I don't know if that's an indication of anything.
 
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